Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

426 Roman Jakobson
conception that in any society communication operates on three different
levels: exchange of messages, exchange of commodities (namely goods and
services), and exchange of women (or, perhaps, in a more generalizing formula-
tion, exchange of mates). Therefore, linguistics (jointly with the other semiotic
disciplines), economics, and finally kinship and marriage studies ‘approach the
same kinds of problems on different strategic levels and really pertain to the
same field’.
All these levels of communication assign a fundamental role to language.
First, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, they imply the preexistence
of language. Second, all forms of communication mentioned are accompanied
by some verbal and/or other semiotic performances. Third, if non-verbalized,
all of them are verbalizable, i.e. translatable into verbal messages in uttered or
at least inner speech.
Here we do not dwell at length on the still controversial question of delimiting
social anthropology and sociology, and we treat both of them as two aspects
of one and the same discipline. According to the epigrammatic formula (55)
advocated in this volume by Stein Rokkan, social anthropology is the science
of man as a talking animal, and sociology is the science of man as a writing
animal. This division demonstrates the relevance of the two distinct verbal levels
for the whole network of social communication.
If one envisages the two spheres of linguistic investigation, the analysis of
coded verbal units on the one hand, and of discourse on the other (8, p. 130;
61), the necessity for a primarily linguistic inquiry into the structure of myths
and other forms of oral tradition becomes obvious. They are not only higher
units of discourse but a specific variety of discourse, namely, these texts are
coded, their composition is ready-made. It was Saussure who, in his notes on
the Nibelungen, perspicaciously advocated the semiotic interpretation of myths :
‘I1 est vrai qu’en allant au fond des choses, on s’apeqoit dans ce domaine,
comme dans le domaine parent de la linguistique, que toutes les incongruitks de
la pens& proviennent d‘une insuffisante rkflexion sur ce qu’est ridentit6 ou les
caractkres de l’identitk lorsque’il s’agit d‘un Etre inexistant comme le mot, ou
lapersonne mythique, ou une lettre de l’alphabet, qui ne sont que diffkrentes for-
mes du SIGNE au sens philosophique’ (54, p.!136). The verbal aspect of religious
patterns becomes a timely and gratifying field of research (25), and a consistent-
ly linguistic inquiry into the myths and, in particular, into their syntactic and
semantic structure, not only lays down the foundations of a thoroughly scientific
approach to mythology but may also give efficient cues to the linguistic attempts
at the analysis of discourse. (Cf. Lkvi-Strauss’ experiments - Ior, Ch. XI; 102;
104 - and their confrontation with the new tasks which face the science of
language: 23.)
Ritual usually combines speech and pantomimic components, and, as noted
by Leach (96), there occur in these ceremonial customs certain kinds of informa-
tion which are never verbalized by the performers but are expressed only in
action. This semiotic tradition is, however, always dependent at least on a
framing verbal pattern which passes between generations.
Evidently, language is a constituent of culture, but in the ensemble of cultural