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Linguistic Society of America

Semiotics of Poetry by Michael Riffaterre Review by: Marianne Shapiro Language, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Jun., 1980), pp. 456-458 Published by: Linguistic Society of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/413773 . Accessed: 27/05/2013 09:40
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LANGUAGE,VOLUME56, NUMBER2 (1980)

for the complex process of early second-language acquisition. Schumann's book fails because its conclusions are drawn without sufficient methodological and conceptual rigor. REFERENCES
ODO. 1976. Change and variation in Hawaiian English: BICKERTON, DEREK, and CAROL

1979. Structuralexpansion and the process of creolization. PETER. MOHLHAUSLER,


Paper presented at the Conference on Theoretical Orientations in Creole Studies, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. JOHN. 1974a. The implications of interlanguage, pidginization and creolSCHUMANN, --

General phonology and Pidgin syntax. Honolulu: University of Hawaii.

ization for the study of adult second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly 8.145-52.

. 1974b. The implications of pidginization and creolization for the study of adult second language acquisition. New frontiers in second language learning, ed. by John Schumann & N. Stenson, 137-52. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. . 1975a. Second language acquisition: The pidginization hypothesis. Harvard dissertation.

. 1975b. Affectivefactors and the problem of age in second languageacquisition. LanguageLearning25.209-35. . 1976a. Social distance as a factor in second language acquisition. Language Learning26.135-43. . 1976b. Second language acquisition: The pidginization hypothesis. Language Learning26.391-408.
ALBERT VALDMAN, (ed.) 1977. Pidgin and Creole linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana

UniversityPress.

[Received20 June 1979.] Semiotics of poetry. By MICHAEL RIFFATERRE. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. Pp. x, 213. $15.00. Reviewed by MARIANNE Los Angeles SHAPIRO, This book argues that poetic discourse means nothing but itself, and that all else about it follows. At a time that is witnessing the climacteric of modernism, Riffaterre'spersistence in viewing poetic creation as a predominantly deviant form of language, in which everything happens at the level of signifiers, moves him to a kind of theoretical idiolect that appears paradoxically and crucially dependent on a presupposition of theoretical ignorance on the reader's part. Poems themselves are 'evidently a game' and 'an exercise in form'-a statement subject to no graded assessment (115). But, understandably, R's analyses are almost entirely confined to works with an especially substantial quotient of introversive semiosis. Texts retain an authoritative status within R's concentric circles of intertextuality; however, they dominate other texts not as productions of significance, but as classificatory or taxonomic 'devices', balancing collision with collusion in a regressive literary play. R'stheory of semantic over-determination is implemented bya transformational methodology that takes off from the principal that semiosiscancelsmimesis:'The poetic presupposition to the poem'ssignificance' sign is a wordor phrase pertinent (23)-a swathtoo widefor the whenthey referto pre-existent phoneme,and too narrowfor syntax.Signsare 'poeticized' word groups.R constantly of derivation modalities whichare governedoveremphasizes

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REVIEWS

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rom the he transformation rans orma ono aws o of ana result from of a literal era 'utterance' u erance analogy. ogy Poems resu by laws whelmingly whe m ng yby of R R's s comp he 'previous into n o a comp cite e an examp example eo complicated ca edterminology, erm no ogy the prev ous periphrasis. phras s To c complex ex per s a 'hypogram'. e do of its of the he invariant utterance' u erance or the he conno connotative a ve field s or nvar an hypogram The decod origin g n is decoding ngo he cance cancelation a ono of the he 'representing, o the mimetic me cvar variants' an s (15). structure s ruc uretakes akes p pursuant to represen ng m 15 place ace pursuan a least eas a pred The hypogram comprising s ng 'at sign gn sys predication', ca on may be 'potential, already ready a s system em compr po en a hypogram, a n language', here ore observab observable e in n a prev ex (23). therefore here ore observab observable e in ac ua therefore previous ous text' 23 anguage or 'actual, rom the he transfer rans ermu no ha emergefrom Verbal'structures Verba s ruc ureso of incompatibility' multiply p yexponen exponentially a yinto ncompa b y that further ur her 'matrices or figurative he gramma of language' ma r ces for 56 expansion on on the grammatical ca geome geometry ry o anguage (56). gura veexpans he sen sentence ence level, o three hree at the s mos most frequently rans er is eve accord However, transfer However accomplished shed a according ng to requen yaccomp of ana derivational der va ona modes that ha correspond to o three hree types ypes o analogy: ogy tautological, au o og ca po polarizing, ar z ng and he threefold hree o dc classification ass ca ono of semesand semes and presuppos a er compr presuppositions, ons hypogrammatic hypogramma c(the he latter comprising s ngthe utterance' erance is often en an ear earlier ertext. ex so cliches c ches or quo pr or u descriptive p vesys systems). ems The 'prior quotations, a ons and descr Of the he mu ha Transfer Trans erand and 'transform' rans orm emergeas g gleefully ee u yinterchangeable. n erchangeab eO multiple p eob objections ec onsthat wo ch here. F could cou d be ra he TG mode raised sed aga model, two First, rs it depends upon chiefly e y concern me here against ns the which ch R is s rare able e to o corrobora corroborate eby structure ruc urewh about deep s ever) ab rarely y(if ever assumptions onsabou underlying under y ngassump s likely o limit m h o formulating evidence ev dence from rom linguistic himself mse to ke y to change. The TG grammar grammarian anis ormu a ng ngu s cchange while e failing o charac rules ru es that ha do no not take of informational n orma ona changes characterize er zeexp ake accoun account o changes, wh a ng to explicitly c y the he sem rules es that ha the he accoun of language semiotic o cs of a all the he pr elements emen s and ru account o comstatus a us o primitive m vee anguage com a s to o prov of the he s structure ruc ureo he he TG approach fails of the prises. pr ses As a resu result, the provide de an unders understanding and ngo of grammar(the between weenencod he d he asymme linguistic ngu s cs asymmetry rybe encoding ng and decod decoding), ng sign, gn the directionality rec ona yo and the he assessmen of the dual ar articulation cu a ono of language content en sys assessmento he dua express onand con anguage(expression systems)-and, ems and in n turn, n literary he r propor urn their eraryana analysis. ys s proportion on in et pass o near R app all uncoded he term erm 'ungrammatical' 97, 123 e 4 21 21, 88 88, 97 passim) m to nearly ya ungramma ca (4, applies es the n their It is o the of conven he rd diction. c on I s impossible with h re reference erenceto he degreeo elements e emen so of texts, conventionality ona yin ex s w mposs b e of presuppos he prom to o dea n a br with h the he mass o deal in brief e rev review eww mp edby by the promiscuous scuousemp presuppositions onsimplied employoy of literariness oR R's s apparen as an un ment o men of this Let me con confine ne myse erar nessas unh s term. erm Le assumption on o myself to apparentassump entails a s a 'triumph of form orm over diluted d u ed and fundamentally static a c ar artifact ac whose presence en r umph o undamen a y s rom the he re content' con en (115). would d have bene benefited edimportantly re-assessment assessmen 115 A linguistic mpor an yfrom ngu s capproach approachwou of the o he H Since nce language s a 'pass-key o ows that he ha the semiotic', o c it follows Hjelmslevian e ms ev anca anguage is pass key sem categories. egor es S s one o of INCLUSION, since nce language relation re a on be between ween form orm and subs substance ance is he NCLUS ON s anguage encompasses the of a It is all o other her human sem semiotic o c sys content-substance con en subs ance(and s just and express systems. ems I expression-substance) on subs ance o us rans a edinto n o linguistic ha me can because a all o other her s discourse scoursecan ngu s cs metalinguistic a ngu s cd signs gns can be translated signs gns that It is exist. ex s I s therefore a ac ous to o s he predom of con here ore me content en in n predominance nance o methodologically hodo og ca y fallacious slight gh the he implications of do ranscend mere a considerations. dera ons On doing ng so transcend poetry; poe ry and the mp ca ons o algebraic gebra c cons Only ya
which ch MAKE rom the he lived ved and living FORMAL MEAN withdrawal hdrawa from MEANINGS NGS v ng re privileged pr v eged w relationships a onsh ps wh SIGNIFICANT S GN F CANTAND AND SUBSTANT SUBSTANTIAL AL external erna wor world d o of rec allows ows for or (in n a poe poetic c and ex reciprocal proca re reference) erence a

the he ass of arb It is arbitrariness rar nessto o the he poe s arb rom a pos of a alienen assignment gnmen o poetic cs sign. gn I only y from arbitrary raryon position on o ation a on wh which ch is s (alas!) of re se a form orm o a as itself relationship. a onsh p 'The The poe s a word or phraseper o the he poem h s de definition n on poetic cs sign gn is phrasepertinent nen to poem's ss significance' gn cance (23); 23 this scants scan s the he phono diacritic acr c s he cruc crucial a ques of poe and, s phonological og ca and d sign gn and simultaneously, mu aneous y the question on o poetic c nc ude the he juxtaposition of homonyms syntax. syn ax 'Ungrammaticality' Ungramma ca y can include ux apos ono homonyms, puns puns, and near near-punspuns in n fact, verbal b blend end that ha un unites es two wo se sets so of conno connotations a ons ('presupposes wo hypograms ac any verba presupposes two hypograms', relations a ons thus hus ar o emerge as a dead articulated cu a edseem seem to dead-end end o of mean rather her than han as 81). The re 81 meaning ng ra further ur her nour or thought. nourishment shmen for he 'emotional misses sses the emo ona or concep or hough R m conceptual ua poss possibilities', b es for of a word like ke soup a r ho e in n a dungeon of its s lowly referents eren s example, examp e o soupirail ra 'air-hole dungeon' because o ow y poe poetic c re This s examp he s static a c concep of poe aken (42). 42 Th example eodd oddly y typifies yp esthe conception on o poetic c language anguageas a g given: ven even taken in n isolation, contains a ns soup he Br of S not on e s in n so a on soup soupirail ra (which wh ch con soupir r 'sigh' s gh and the Bridge dge o Sighs) ghs no only y lets air r bu but a air r ou he veryexp also so lets e sa of poe result o of the he expressed light gh and a out, the very expirations ra onso poetry. ry The end resu view v ew o of poe sak kind nd o of cryp which cha at the he same time me w will no not a allow ow pos poeticity c y is crypto-positivism o pos v smwh positivistic vs c decent bur burial. a scholarship scho arsh pa decen R owes much to o the he bes best s of the structuralism ruc ura smo he s o GerardGene GerardGenette's e s idea dea (Figures I, sixties, x es e e.g. g to F guresI ha figures rans a ab eas as to o sense and un untranslatable rans a ab eas as to os n 189, 1966 p. 189 p 1966) that gures are translatable signification, gn ca on in which wh ch conno connotation a on can be sa o expand infinitely. said d to But the he ex of this extension ens on o h s no notion on to o an n n e y Bu between weenm mimesis mes sand and sem semiosis os s forces orces the he concep of the he latter a er into n o the he s state a eo of an opposition oppos on be conception on o intermittent n erm en ads adstructure ruc uretaking account o of grad continuum nuum o of poe ak ng no accoun gradience encea along ong a con poetic c genres genres.

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 56, NUMBER 2 (1980)

Only the extreme negative finds an ontological place. It rests solidly upon an essentially Romanticist supposition of a fundamentalopposition between 'individual' and 'society' and on an older idealist separation of 'mind' and 'world', both of whose ranges are continually crossed and counter-crossedby the practice of actual poetry. Equally important, the putative mutualexclusion of semiosis and mimesisoverlooks the facts that whetheror not metalinguistic statementsare thematized,they are ultimatelyfigural, and that figure is the essential means of mimesis. Paradoxically,the idea that 'maximal catachresisat the lexical level of individual words or phrases coincides with significanceat the textual level' (80) emerges as an article of faith. The TG model calls for the imposition of 'ungrammaticality'upon all statementsthat strainagainst mimetic truth-value. 'Mannerism, baroque imagery ... or negative value-judgments like affectation' do not simply amount to 'rationalizationsof what boils down to an awarenessof ungrammaticality'so long as they fulfill the requirementsembodied in linguistic relations. Again, R betrays his oscillation between the two articificialpoles when he talks (17) about 'mimesis cancelation' in the Mallarme sonnet on the ptyx: 'the object is named only to be
canceled AS A SIGN' (emphasis added). But the word ptyx, having no lexical definition, is

canceled therefore only as a mimetic existent! The supra-realitythat Mallarme brought into being with the insertionof ptyx among lexicallydefinableterms remainsitself a sign (of pseudoGrecianness, of the mimed object's absence, of end-rhyme, and many other things). R's restrictednotion of semiosis leads to his determinationthat dual signs 'carry meaning in ways that cannot be explained as metaphorical or metonymic', although they 'point to textual significancebecause they stand for a whole text'! This instance must stand for several which betray the rigid barrierthat is forced to bisect the dual sign, and may sometimesreveal its own breakdown ('The structureof comparison itself is true', 63). The 20th century poet who draws continually upon the generative energies of the literary symbol may also exercise a discursive estimate of his means of signification through new speculativeconjunctions,as of metaphors.But constellations of neologisms and catachresesdo of m not a corpus make. The system of symmetrical pulleys (destruction o of creation on o mimesis, mes s crea a br o function unc on bes best when R ach achieves evesa brilliant an charac of the he prose poem characterization er za ono semiosis) sem os s seems to n wh which ch 'formal orma cons of verse n wh as a genre in constraint ra n compensa or the he lack ack o which ch a compensates es for verse', and in utterance erance may be pos he seed o of a con n terms erms (117). contradiction rad c on in generating genera ngu posited ed as con containing a n ng the 117 Here it is s poss n wh o revea reveal and e elucidate uc da e the he p which ch d possible b e indirectly nd rec y to play ay in discourse, scourse through hrough but itself', of re articulates ar cu a es a sys relations. a ons A At the he same time, he se 'represent[ing] represen ng no nothing h ng bu me the system em o of poems whose decod uncontested uncon es edcho choice ce o he es establishment ab shmen o of an abs abstract rac super decoding ng requ requires resthe superstructure s ruc ure a without hou a he ques of how ana re-opens, opens w answer, the always ways re attempting emp ng an answer question on o analysis ys s can rom a 'known' known s structure ruc ureor or a known movemen he cu cultural ura ev evidence dence justly us y beg begin n from movement, when on only y the that ha fits s homo sd n such cases n roduced The s silent en and unacknow homology ogy is directly rec yintroduced. unacknowledged edgedpar partner nerin is s some ke 'ideology' kind nd o of hypogram correlate a eis s the he something h nglike deo ogy or 'world-view', wor d v ew a k hypogram.The emp empirical r ca corre of 'period' or connec evidence dence subs connected ed h historical s or ca ana presentation presen a on o per od ev substituting u ngfor analysis. ys s

To pos s to turn one one's s back upon posit t a grammar of f terary symbo figures gures or of literary symbols s is the dynam n poetry and in ns relations at ons genera dynamic c impulse mpu se in sign gn re generally. y Texts then come to dominate dom nate other texts not as product productions ons of mean classificatory ass f catory or taxomeaning ng but as c nomic nom c 'devices'. dev ces R R's sb s a list st of books 'suggestive serviceable ceab e to bibliography b ography is suggest ve and serv mmed ate interests' nterests (163) which ch are not c cited ted at a all in n text or [his] [h s] immediate (163), a number of wh footnotes. The word footnotes s indexical ndex ca to the extreme degree of reduct reduction on imposed wording ng is mposed on the idea dea of const constitutive tut ve language reader to which ch prompts the readerto book, wh anguage throughout the book obtain n between methodoponder the necessary quot quotient ent of isomorphism somorph sm that must obta
he r objects. Riffaterre's a erre s assump of gra stands, ands R logies og es and their ob ec s As it s assumption on o gratuitous u ous p play ay as

the tauto without thout proceed tautological og ca constant of poetry poetry, w proceeding ng to the f figuration gurat on by d ff cu t poems o difficult of RELATIONSBETWEENRELATIONSAS RELATIONSBETWEENRELATIONSAS MEANING MEANING, amounts to a week of Sundays Sundays.
[Received Rece ved 2 Apr April 1979 1979.]

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