diffe ́rance, he would have enabled us to go beyond phenome-
nology: to destroy the privilege granted by phenomenology
to the world that consciousness perceives. Phenomenology
thinks of the world in terms of experience. But in fact, Derrida
insists, the world is writing.And “writing is other than the sub-
ject” ( 68 ): it means “the becoming-absent and the becoming-
unconscious of the subject” ( 69 ).
The supposed attachment of Saussure to the voice, a
necessary part of Derrida’s argument against him, must also
be addressed here. Despite Derrida’s claim, Saussure did not
fetishize speech. He did, however, regard it as central to the
study of language. He argued that changes in the way a word
has been pronounced over time occur regardless of its written
form. Spelling does not influence speech: oral communication
has its own tradition, one that remains separate from writing.
Saussure’s emphasis on speech is not metaphysical, as Derrida
claims, but rather the product of a particular interest, the
study of pronunciation: a field in which, as Saussure judged,
oral communication outweighs writing in importance.
Saussure comments on the fact that human language
has, from its very origins, been wedded to speech; he adds that
it is not by accident that humans rely on the vocal organs for
language. Instead, he writes, “the choice was more or less im-
posed by nature” (Course 26 ). At first glance, this sentence
might seem to support Derrida’s case that Saussure treats lan-
guage as naturally bound to the voice. But in fact it shows that
Derrida is mistaken. As Claude Evans notes, Saussure merely
suggests that the voice was “more or less” the most fitting, or
promising, site for language (Strategies 159 ). Derrida turns this
empirical judgment into a metaphysical necessity, as if Saus-
sure thought that language’s essence is to be spoken.
For Saussure the connection between language and speech
and the priority of speech to writing are historical facts, not
82 Writing and DifferenceandOf Grammatology