Power of the Language

Structuralism argues that all texts stand within a system. Saussure wrote a lot about how language is a system where the actual referent of the word or language is not necessarily part of the interpretation of the text. There is a difference between the signified and the signifier. The signifier being the word itself and the signified being the meaning of the word itself. This theory calls attention to the manner of the words and not necessarily the meaning or references made by the words.

Within this argument, the language becomes the system within which the text must be interpreted. The text itself is the effect and not actually the content of the text. Sanford Scribner Ames writes about this effect of language.

One system that is commonly addressed is that of language. All English speakers with completely different backgrounds and life styles and cultures can understand the same language. The influences of a set of language, or a system, are the same independent of the person. This is a system. But also the theory argues that the system  be understood collectively in order for the text to be understood and interpreted. The language must be a system. Sanford Scribner Ames writes about the effect of language in the structuralist theory:

``A writer`s language can be creatively completed in various worthwhile constructs. In structuralism a positive situation is one in which an ongoing, unceasing conquest of the intelligible is possible in the practice of the signifying activity. Language is not innocent or neutral. When it pretends to be universal and transparent, when it aspires to be exclusive, it becomes mythical`` (93). 

As he says, `language is not innocent or neutral.` Language has power over the reader. Not because of the content or the meaning of the words but because of the words themselves.

Ames also quotes Mikel Dufrenne as he furthers this argument of how language is a system and contributes to the interpretation of the text.

``The argument consists `only in the relationship of their empty places...the meaning is in the relations, not in the terms which are related...the system is presented and deployed according to a timeless history...outside human initiative, language does the thinking in our stead... In short, man dies that the system may live` `` (94). 

The language is not an innocent bystander in the process of the text. It has its influence and according to Structuralism, the text must be read within the context of the system.

The awe of structuralism comes from this idea that the system holds the power. It is not the content but the system, the language. How can a simple system hold such power? The universal system of language that is independent of the person can inspire the reader, as the power of the system comes through.

In Cormac McCarthy`s book The Road, he uses this system of language in terms of structuralism to create awe in the reader through the style of writing. McCarthy does not use the conventional system, though, and through this inspires even more awe as he uses the system to create an effect and an argument, more than the content.

McCarthy strays from the convention as he doesn't use apostrophes in all contractions, doesn't capitalize all words and does not use quotation marks for the spoken parts of the text. These grammatical changes change the language of the text itself and creates the awe. Just as Structuralism argues that the text is interpreted through or because of the system, this new system creates a new interpretation and inspires awe at this new style which brings about a greater force of the new post-apocalyptical world that McCarthy describes in The Road. 

I think that this applies to everyone studying the awe in language, like Juliet. The power of the system is greater than the actual content. Does the nature of the poetry or the style of a book (maybe the genres of memoirs or food books or musicals or videogames) overcome the awe of the content? Can the style of something mundane still inspire awe because of the power of the style?


Works Cited
Ames, Sanford Scribner. `Structuralism, Language, and Literature.` The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 32.1 (1973):89-94. JSTOR. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.