Page 52 - Critical and Cultural Theory

RHETORIC
which itself is simply not present' (Derrida 1981: 26-7). Fictional
texts may actually be regarded as more honest renditions of the
workings of language than supposedly factual ones because they
resist containment. They 'operate breaches or infractions' (Derrida
1981: 69) which remind us that language and meaning are not
restrainable because they spill incessantly over borders and
containers.
The slippage of meaning is epitomized by the concept of differ-
ance. This refers to the principle of 'difference': the mechanism
whereby, as proposed by Saussure, a sign derives meaning from its
phonemic difference from another sign. (Any two signs, such as
'cat' and 'rat', differentiated by a single phoneme constitute a
minimal pair.) 7 But differance also alludes to the idea of 'deferral'.
In trying to establish the meaning of a sign on the basis of differ-
ence, argues Derrida, we cannot limit ourselves to minimal pairs,
for a sign leads not to one other sign but rather to legion other
signs ('cat' is not 'rat', but also not 'mat', 'sat', 'can', 'cad', and so
on). Western philosophy has endeavoured to arrest the deferral of
meaning by subordinating the unpredictable detours of language
to overarching ideas, or transcendental signifieds, such as 'reality',
'truth', 'self, 'presence', 'man', 'god', etc. The displacing character
of language, typified by rhetoric, has been kept at bay by recourse
to a universal concept, or Logos, meant to function as a unifying
centre. Western thought is fundamentally logocentric. At the same
time, in its determination to differentiate between reliable (suppo-
sedly non-rhetorical) and unreliable (rhetorical) forms of
discourse, Western thought has fostered phonocentrism: the super-
iority of speech (phone} over writing. In his deconstructive analyses
of Plato, Rousseau, Levi-Strauss and others, Derrida has indicated
that speech has traditionally been seen as immediate, natural and a
guarantee of presence, and writing as artificial, ambiguous, a sign
of absence. Yet, the features that characterize writing apply to
language in its entirety. Writing has been used as something of a
scapegoat to conceal the ambiguity and unreliablity of any form
of signification.
Paul de Man (1919-83) pursues a related argument. Writing
(especially literature broadly conceived) has conventionally been
regarded with suspicion because of its association with rhetorical

7
>^~ These ideas are outlined in Part I, Chapter 2, The Sign'.

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