Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

42 reframing latin america
obscure for many years after his death in 1913. But his theories experienced
a renaissance in the 1950s and 1960s when emerging postmodernist scholars
saw the revolutionary implications of his work. His theories cracked
the modernist system and contributed to the advent of cultural theory and
postmodernism.
According to Saussure, a sign consists of two inextricable parts: the signifi
er and the signifi ed. The signifi er is the vehicle that carries a mental concept,
such as a word, a wink, a photograph, an expression, etc. The signifi ed
is the abstract idea or the meaning that is attached to the vehicle. For example,
the way one crosses one’s legs (the signifi er) conjures the abstract idea
of femininity or masculinity (the signifi ed), and the union of the two (the
gesture plus the mental impression associated with it) is known as the sign.
Saussure’s primary contribution to cultural theory is his assertion that
the relationship between signifi er and signifi ed is at once arbitrary and conventional.
By this he means that there is no inherent or natural connection
between the language we use and the objects or ideas to which words refer
(the relationship is arbitrary). Thus, meaning (the signifi ed) is not built into
the signifi er but emerges from our collective norms and cultural practices
(convention). Saussure never used discourse to defi ne how that meaning is
determined, but hopefully you can see how well his ideas would fi t with
that term once it became available in the 1960s.
Because the relationship between signifi er and signifi ed is culturally determined,
we can expect their relationship to vary across time and space.
The notion of feminine/masculine (the signifi ed) associated with certain
types of leg crossing (the signifi er) will differ from place to place and from
one time period to another. The manner in which one crosses one’s legs will
signify differently (will count for different meanings) between, say, rural
and urban New York, between the northern and southern United States,
between North and South America, between America and Europe, and between
the West and Asia (variation across space). Similarly, leg-crossing
styles and their respective meanings were different in the United States in
the 1950s compared with today (variation across time). Given that the nature
of signs is therefore arbitrary, we can expect the relationship between
signifi er and signifi ed to be in a constant state of fl ux. Although any given
sign might be quite durable, even lasting centuries without much change,
others might be much more fl eeting. Ultimately, however, all signs can and
will vary.
Even though Saussure challenged the etymological approach to language,
his sign system possessed some deeply modernist characteristics. He was a
structuralist. He believed that linguistic communication exhibited traits,