Derridas Theory of Deconstruction: Plurality of Significance

French philosopher Jacques Derrida shows that text can be read as saying
something quite different from what it appears to be saying, and that it may read as
carrying a plurality of significance or as saying many different things which are
fundamentally at variance with, contradictory to and subversive of what may be seen
by criticism as a single, stable meaning. Thus, a text may betray itself. A
deconstructive criticism of a text revels that there is nothing except the text. In of
Grammatology, Derrida makes the now well-known axial proposition that this is so (his
key words are 'il ny a rien hors due texte, or alternatively, ilny a pas de hors-texte).
That is, one cannot evaluate criticism or construe a meaning for a text by reference to
anything external to it.
Derrida carries his logic still further to suggest that the language of any
discourse is at variance with itself and, by so being is capable of being read as yet
language. Derridas work focused on language. He contended that the traditional, or
metaphysical, way of reading makes a number of false assumptions about the nature
of texts. A traditional reader believes that language is capable of expressing ideas
without changing them, that in the hierarchy of language writing is secondary to
speech, and that the author of a text is the source of its meaning. Derrida's
deconstructive style of reading subverted these assumptions and challenged the idea
that a text has an unchanging, unified meaning.
Jacques Derrida
The internal stage of Derridas deconstructive theory is the contention that both
speech and writing are signifying processes which lack presence. Derrida destabilizes
and displaces the traditional hierarchy (he calls it a violent hierarchy) of speech
over writing to suggest that speech can only ever be subject to the same instabilities
as writing; that speech and writing are forms of one science of language,
grammatology. This is not a reversal of the priority, since Plato, of speech over writing
but a displacement which produces a state of indeterminacy.Drawing on
psychoanalysis and linguistics, Derrida questioned this traditional approach to texts
and the assumption that speech is a clear and direct method of communication. As a
result, he insisted, the authors intentions in speaking cannot be unconditionally
accepted. Derridas approach multiplied the number of legitimate interpretations of a
text. Derrida did not negate meaning, but he showed that there were many possible
meanings that depended on the reader and the readers context as much as on the
author.
The inherent, subversive self-contradictory and self-betraying elements in a text
include what is not in the text, what is outside the text, what is not said. But despite
the presence of what is absent, Derridas dictum that 'ilny a pas de hors-texte must
be seen as a sine qua non of deconstruction. The elements referred to above would
include assumptions and propositions.
Comparative Study:
1. Ferdinand de Saussure's insistence on arbitrariness of verbal signs.
2. Observations of Harold Bloom, J. Hillis Miller, Paul de Man, and Geoffrey Hartman.
3. Why controversial?
Courtesy of: Prof. Ali Raza Fahad Dept. of English Govt Postgraduate College, Gojra