tendency possessed by this distortable structure to alter, to become a different
structure. Language is, therefore, less a structure than a process – which rules
out any Saussurian synchrony. In the case of Pasolini himself, ‘Italian’ is
composed of a northern dialect – the dialect of Frioul – adapted to the Roman
dialect and to the institutional Koine – i.e. the Tuscan dialect transmitted by
schools. Language is not a stable structure, but a process in constant variation,
a disequilibrium, an anxiety.
That is why, for Pasolini, the dichotomy that enables us to grasp linguistic
phenomena is not the Saussurian or Chomskyan dichotomy (langue/paroleor
competence/performance), but the opposition between spoken language and
written language, or rather between a purely spoken language and a spoken-
written language.
This involves a poetic dichotomy, whose metaphysical character will not
escape us. Spoken language is (i) pre-historic, (ii) the product of physical
need, (iii) continuous, (iv) located outside the opposition between base and
superstructure, (v) concrete, and (vi) motivated. Spoken-written language
possesses the converse characteristics. It is (i) historical, (ii) the product of a
cultural practice, (iii) subject to change, (iv) caught up in the base/superstructure
opposition, (v) abstract, and (vi) arbitrary. This is a primitivist, and hence
highly mythical, conception of spoken language as the language of origins,
born out of the cry, the needs of personal expression and communal existence,
and surviving within the language captured by culture. Pasolini’s reference
here is not so much Marx or Gramsci as Rousseau, thinker of the origin of
languages. But this yields an interesting concept of language as langue: for
Pasolini, it is the point of contact between spoken language and spoken-
written language, the point where culture is substituted for nature.
The illustrations provided by Pasolini of ‘purely spoken language’ are
drawn from personal memories and experiences. A single one will suffice.
He evokes the character of Ninetto, a young Calabrian of sixteen, who finds
himself in the company of Pasolini in northern Italy and sees snow for the
first time. His exclamation, his cry of delight ‘Hè-eh, hè-eh!’,^24 reminds Pasolini
of the Greek and pre-Greek interjections (he claims to have heard a similar
exclamation among the Denka shepherds in the Sudan) of ancient Calabria –
something that illustrates the continuity and persistence of spoken language,
The Marxist Tradition • 85(^24) Pasolini 1976, p. 69.