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

saussure, signs, and semiotics 43
or structures, that were universal to all human beings, regardless of the
different cultures or eras in which they lived. As a structuralist, Saussure
wanted to discover these universal and underlying principals.
Saussure’s structuralism might seem to contradict his insistence on the
arbitrary yet conventional nature of sign systems; indeed, this is why his
ideas represent an important development in the transition to postmodernism.
But he himself was not a postmodernist or cultural theorist. Much like
Sigmund Freud, his contemporary, Saussure ruptured some aspects of modernist
thinking while reinforcing others. In the 1960s, scholars who used his
ideas to develop the fi rst stages of cultural theory rejected his structuralism
but retained his ideas about the arbitrary yet conventional nature of creating
meaning. For that reason, scholars like Jacques Derrida (1930–2004),
who can be described as a poststructuralist linguist, became founding fi gures
in cultural theory.
Using the leg-crossing signifi er, we can compare a pre-Saussurian (essentialist
or hermeneutic) and post-Saussurian (semiotic) approach to notions
of femininity and masculinity. A hermeneutician would argue that ontological
male and female essences exist, and the way a person crosses one’s
legs refl ects an innate masculine or feminine state. In contrast, a semiotician
would reject the idea of intrinsic traits and contend that the playing
out of feminine and masculine roles does not arise from the awakening of
women and men to their true essences but is a performance that is both
learned from others and then practiced to ensure one’s place in the culturally
constructed gender structure. Semioticians do not deny the existence of
anatomical, hormonal, and physiological distinctions between individuals.
They do point out, however, that these distinctions become imbued with
relative values given the prevailing gender discourse. In this way, notions
regarding what counts as feminine and what counts as masculine create
women and men, rather than the other way around. So, if a boy crosses his
legs “like a girl,” he becomes like a girl, according to convention. We are being
a bit facetious in making that claim, of course, but anyone who has been
through grade school knows that a boy who exhibits what are thought of as
feminine qualities will come under suspicion of lacking innate masculinity.
He will be readily derided with insults that pertain to that don’t-be-such-agirl
logic.
Cultural Theory in Seven Simple Graphs
By depicting this comparison between essentialism/hermeneutics and semiotics
as graphs, we can better see how Saussure’s ideas revolutionized