Postmodern ramblings
Sep. 10th, 2005 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_ultharusReadings into nearly-impenetrable-and-always-nonsensical postmodern linguistics continues. Bakhtin seems mildly more sane than most, though Julia Kristeva's re-interpretation of his work is just silly.
In their effort to do away with the possibility of originality in writing -- in their desperation to prove that creativity does not exist, and that writers just repeat one another's words -- these bizarre philosophers have created a paradox they never address: where do new words come from? If all language is just a paraphrase or a quotation of somebody else's works, if nothing is original, then new words should not exist. For every word in existance, there is a first person who used it.
For that matter, how can Kristeva make these arguments about no language being original, while inventing new words herself. And does she have to invent new words for things we already have words for? Isn't her jargon thick enough already?
Saussure seems to claim (at least in this book) that language is transcendent to the point where mere individuals cannot change or alter it, cannot create anything new. Then how does language change over time?
I suspect that most of these people are just failed writers, and 90% of their arguments are just sour grapes. Most critics have serious inferiority complexes when it comes to the writers they write about, and for some that turns into a desire to lash out. It's easiest to kill the author or declare them unoriginal than to admit that one lacks the creative spark oneself.
I'm not quite at the section on Roland Barthes yet, though I've taken a little of his stuff before. He's the one who declared the author dead -- apparently only the book exists, an its readers, and (naturally) its critics. All I'm saying is that if he wants to kill the author, he's in for a fight.
It depresses me that a child of ten could see the stupidity of all these arguments, if a child of ten could penetrate the insane layers of jargon. Perhaps that's the reason for the jargon. Why can't the best minds of English literature figure out what a child of ten could? Or am I answering my own question?
If the emperor had clothes, they've long since been deconstructed. Where are the critics who admit they're no longer there.
And more importantly, why am I in a subject which takes that vibrant heart of society -- the weavings of its words, its stories, its songs -- and sacrifices them on the bloody altar of Logic and Reason?
In their effort to do away with the possibility of originality in writing -- in their desperation to prove that creativity does not exist, and that writers just repeat one another's words -- these bizarre philosophers have created a paradox they never address: where do new words come from? If all language is just a paraphrase or a quotation of somebody else's works, if nothing is original, then new words should not exist. For every word in existance, there is a first person who used it.
For that matter, how can Kristeva make these arguments about no language being original, while inventing new words herself. And does she have to invent new words for things we already have words for? Isn't her jargon thick enough already?
Saussure seems to claim (at least in this book) that language is transcendent to the point where mere individuals cannot change or alter it, cannot create anything new. Then how does language change over time?
I suspect that most of these people are just failed writers, and 90% of their arguments are just sour grapes. Most critics have serious inferiority complexes when it comes to the writers they write about, and for some that turns into a desire to lash out. It's easiest to kill the author or declare them unoriginal than to admit that one lacks the creative spark oneself.
I'm not quite at the section on Roland Barthes yet, though I've taken a little of his stuff before. He's the one who declared the author dead -- apparently only the book exists, an its readers, and (naturally) its critics. All I'm saying is that if he wants to kill the author, he's in for a fight.
It depresses me that a child of ten could see the stupidity of all these arguments, if a child of ten could penetrate the insane layers of jargon. Perhaps that's the reason for the jargon. Why can't the best minds of English literature figure out what a child of ten could? Or am I answering my own question?
If the emperor had clothes, they've long since been deconstructed. Where are the critics who admit they're no longer there.
And more importantly, why am I in a subject which takes that vibrant heart of society -- the weavings of its words, its stories, its songs -- and sacrifices them on the bloody altar of Logic and Reason?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-10 03:46 pm (UTC)Basically, what I need is the names of databases for kids in French. The kind of thing I'm thinking of is the French equivalent of World Book, or similar - databases or subscription online resources (not CD ROMs/websites) for children in French. Public libraries usually offer a whole range of electronic resources for kids; we have things like World Book, Ebsco Animals, Novelist K-9, and Biographies Plus. I've managed to get the really obvious ones, like L'Encyclopedie Canadienne (the Canadian Encyclopaedia in French), from their website, but my French is so awful I can't make head or tail of the rest. If there's any chance you could give them a call for me and find out what they have available (or if you speak French well enough to figure it out from their website) and email me at infodemons@gmail.com before tuesday, you will have my eternal gratitude and Jen's fresh-baked cookies. (The gratitude lasts longer but the cookies taste better.) If you don't have time, no worries - I can always see if a friend will let me pay them to use their phone for a long-distance call.
Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-11 06:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-11 10:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-12 08:16 am (UTC)I could even try going there physically. I know they have a kid's internet area at the Grande Bibliothèque, so there must be something there.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-12 04:28 pm (UTC)I don`t know what that`s about, but it may explain why I haven`t been able to reach anyone :(
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-16 12:35 pm (UTC)