is the relationship not between signifier and signified but between systems
of signifiers which determines the kinds of thought concepts that are asso-
ciated with any one signifier.
Because of this, the relationship between signifier and signified is not
‘fixed for all time’ but is in fact arbitrary, even if it may be fixed by social
convention. The consequences of this claim are far-reaching.
To begin with, it means that language is a system without positive
terms. There are no self-present terms with which one can anchor other
terms.^3 Saussure (1922) proposed that ‘whatever distinguishes one element
from another constitutes it’ (118–21). To repeat a signifier it is not neces-
sarily true that a signified associated with it in a former signification will
also be repeated. In this, Saussure, as Derrida would be the first to tell us,
contributed powerfully in overturning the metaphysical notions of lan-
guage as a nomenclature or a naming system.
However, Derrida’s criticism of Saussure is directed first at the notion
that there is such a thing as a stablesign ‘system’ as a kind of general con-
text and, secondly, at the notion that the signs which constitute the system
are full enough in their identity in order that we may discern differences
between them. Thirdly, there is a problem of agency insofar as Saussure
seems to be assuming that subjects do actually discern differences
between signs in a more or less uncomplicated way. What is problematic in
Saussure is that he regarded the relation between a signifier and a signified
to be in a cosy one-to-one correspondence, as in a parallelism, as if all
signs were constituted by symmetrical values (that could be measurable)
of the signifier and signified.
Derrida’s critique is that there is no such thing as a ‘closed’, or what
he calls ‘saturable’, context of meaning, and that signs somehow ‘possess’
a fullness of meaning (a plenitude) by which they are differentiated from
other ‘full’ signs.Communication and dissemination
This critique is well set out in an important article which formalizes
Derrida’s thoughts on the topic of communication: ‘Signature, Event,
Context’ (hereafter SEC, Derrida, 1986). In this article, a sustained analysis
is developed.^4 In particular, Derrida addresses the question of ‘contexts’ of
communication. He proposes to demonstrate that there is no such thing
as completely saturated or homogeneous contexts, which would have two
consequences:- ‘a marking of the theoretical insufficiency of the usual concept of context
[the linguistic or non-linguistic]’ (310); - ‘a rendering necessary of a certain generalization and a certain dis-
placement of the concept of writing... which could no longer... be
included in the category of communication... understood in the
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