The Mind's TheSaurus...

Saussure (as well as Plato before him and many others after) states that language is arbitrary. Now, you all know just how much geeky fun I have when it comes to Saussure and Lacan and, well, let's face it, any language-oriented theoretical geekiness. As we'll find out later with the deconstructionists, words are tricky, what with their binary oppositions and what not.

Here's a recent example of the word-fun to be had with our completely arbitrary system of signs, signifiers, and signifieds: the original meaning of the word "amuse" was something along the lines of "to delude" or "to engross," and even had a stint as a primarily deceit-associated definition (we're talking medieval to early modern here, though the new, pleasant definition didn't really start cropping up until about 18th- or 19th0-century, if I remember correctly). It's the same with "bemuse," which means "to confuse or bewilder utterly" and only recently (and only according to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary) has taken the official meaning of "wry amusement." Here's what this means: it means that whenever you use the word "amuse," there's a dark side. There's a condescending undertone, a secondary, more insulting meaning festering beneath all the rainbows and sunshine. Even an "amusement park" is a place that, while fun and carefree happiness is to be had, still mostly consists of outrageous prices, silly behavior, and an absence of serious, thoughtful ponderings (as discussed in my Essay Writing class with Dr. Sprenkle). When you call someone amusing, it's not likely to be flattering (though there are exceptions, of course, the underlying implications remain); to call a movie amusing is to mean it wasn't hilarious or spectacular; the point is this: amusing is a word for something that can be good, BUT... And it's that "but" that makes all the difference. This is one of the things I love about language theory.

Now, this topsy-turvy fun is to be had despite (or because of) language's arbitrary nature. Language is a social construct, and so its nuances and subtleties reflect the society that constructed it, and its evolutionary shifts mean that it will always continue to do so. You might not be able to tell, but I just had shivers of pure geek-out-ery.

Language reflects our society, and it also influences our society. It's a big question, really: does language merely reflect our societal tendencies, or is our culture affected by the language we use? Feminist, postcolonial, cultural--all kinds of theoretical approaches of criticism have dealt with that hinge, that pivot-point of language and society. And yet, good old Saussure is right there, reminding us that it's all arbitrary anyway. But, at the same time, he totally accounts for it with his syntagmatic and associative relations. As in the comic displayed above and inherent in all the underhanded meanings of words, the mind makes very telling connections when it's confronted with a word or phrase, and Saussure flat-out says that "Whereas a syntagm immediately suggests an order of succession and a fixed number of elements, terms in an associative family occur either in fixed numbers nor in a definite order" (866). Basically: yeah, we can map out to some degree the links our minds will make with words, but there's also a whole shebang of relations that cannot be predicted; there're too many influences! Our minds can produce associations based on experience, memory, or education as well as society, culture, or the employed language itself. And that's what's so awesome about it: language is arbitrary, and yet still holds all that power, whether it's the power to act as a mirror to society's (evil?) step-mother or the power to shape our perspectives and culture.

And what does that say about our culture, anyway? That something so arbitrary can have either of those (not inconsiderable) powers at all?

That? That was another geek-out shiver.

*NOTE: if you can't read the comic, the site's link can be found below.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php