DefamationA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWis rather a series of organized structures (see
structuralism). Th is deep structure, or level,
supplies information that enables the reader or
listener to distinguish between alternative inter-
pretations of sentences which have the same
surface form, or sentences which have diff erent
surface forms but have the same underlying
meaning.
When, for example, a publisher replies to a
budding author, ‘I will waste no time in reading
your manuscript’, he presents a surface structure
with alternative possible meanings. Yet by alter-
ing the surface structure of the sentence ‘Th e
dog chased the cat’ to ‘Th e cat was chased by
the dog’, the underlying idea is not altered. Th e
transformations that might occur between deep
and surface structure can be passive (‘My father
was warned by the doctor to give up smoking’),
negative (‘My father was not warned to give up
smoking’), in question form (‘Was my father
warned to give up smoking?’) or as an imperative
(‘Father was told – “Stop smoking!”’). See topic
guide under language/discourse/narra-
tive.
▶Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind (Harcourt
Brace Jovanovitch, 1968).
Deep throat Journalists’ parlance for ‘anonymous
sources’. Perhaps the most famous of these
was the unknown telephone informant calling
himself ‘Deep Th roat’ who set Washington Post
reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward on
the trail in the watergate scandal that eventu-
ally led to the resignation of President Richard
Nixon. In 2005 Deep Th roat revealed his iden-
tity, winning worldwide media attention. He was
Mark Felt, at the time of the revelations number
two at the American FBI, responsible for the
investigation into the burglary at the Democratic
National Committee HQ in the Watergate apart-
ment in 1972. Felt kept his secret for 33 years.
Defamation The UK Defamation Act of 1952
made illegal any statement made by one person
that is untrue and may be considered injurious
to another’s reputation, causing shame, resent-
ment, ridicule or fi nancial loss. In permanent
form, such as expressed in print, records, fi lms,
tapes, photographs, images or effi gies, defama-
tion is classifi ed as libel. In temporary form, such
as in spoken words or gestures, defamation is
classifi ed as slander.
No legal aid is granted to plaintiff s or defen-
dants in defamation cases; thus persons even
with the most genuine case for grievance must
think twice before deciding to incur vast legal
expenses in defending their reputation.
Legal provisions against defamation apply‘close-reading’ of minute particulars in a text.
Th e search is not for an ultimate meaning; on
the contrary, Derrida sees meaning as undecid-
able: signifi ers within linguistic contexts refer to
further signifi ers, texts to further texts in an infi -
nite web of intertextuality. Deconstructors
such as Derrida seek to pry behind the dominant
expressions of a text, regarding these as serving
to exclude subordinate terms. Th e technique is
to reverse and displace, thus bringing about an
upending – an overthrow – of the hierarchies
which rule all forms of expression.
In the words of Madan Sarup in An Intro-
ductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and
Postmodernism (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993),
‘deconstruction disarticulates traditional
conceptions of the author and undermines
conventional notions of reading and history ...
It kills the author, turns history and tradition
into textuality and’ – we must gratefully note –
‘celebrates the reader’. If self can be constructed
as a text, then self is subject to deconstruction,
which displaces the notion of a stable self (see
eisenberg’s model of communication
and identity, 2001). Th e only coherence, it
would seem, is fragmentation, leading to the
conclusion that there can be no meaning, only
interpretation.
Sarup’s phrase ‘textual undecidability’ usefully
sums up the position of the deconstructors, as
does the term ‘labyrinth of deconstruction’ used
by Christopher Norris in Deconstruction: Th eory
and Practice (Methuen, 1982).
▶Jacques Derrida, Writing and Diff erence (Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1976); Christopher Norris, Derrida
(Collins, 1987).
Decreolization See communication: inter-
cultural communication.
Deep Dish TV See paper tiger tv.
Deep focus Film-making technique in which
objects close to the camera and those far away
are both in focus at the same time.
Deep structure Th ough the term was fi rst used
by Charles Hockett, the concept was given
widest currency by fellow US linguist Noam
Chomsky in ‘Current issues in linguistic theory’
in J. Foder and J. Katz, eds, The Structure
of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of
Language (Prentice-Hall, 1964). In its original
form, deep structure is an underlying abstract
level of sentence organization, which specifi es
the way a sentence should be interpreted.
For Chomsky, the deep and surface structures,
and the relationship between them, provide the
essential bases of language which, far from being
merely a sequence of words strung together,