Pure Designation. Deleuze’s Reading of Hjelmslev in The Time-Image

Autori

  • Louis Schreel Ghent University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13130/2039-9251/7423

Abstract

In the second chapter of The Time-Image, Deleuze addresses the conditions of possibility of a semiology of cinema. These conditions depend on the relations between cinema and language: under what conditions can cinematic images and signs be understood as a language? In other words, (how) can cinematic images and signs be inscribed in the discursive plane of the signifiable? Discussing Christian Metz’s semiological approach of cinema, Deleuze argues that the structural conditions of linguistics and of post-Saussurian semiology cannot adequately render intelligible the specificity of cinematic semiosis. Drawing on Louis Hjelmslev’s semiotics, Deleuze redefines the specificity of a relation of designation distinct from a relation of signification (strictly linguistic), a specificity that concerns the fact that the designative relation is antecedent and heterogeneous to any signifying relation. Put differently, the very constitution of the sign is redefined: in opposition to semiology, semiotics becomes the study of images and signs as (1) being independent of language in general and (2) expressing a “non-language material”. This article explicates the importance of Hjelmslev’s semiotic theory in The Time-Image by offering a detailed account of the constitution of the sign in Hjelmslev’s Prolegomena to a Theory of Language and by tracing Deleuze’s earlier appreciation of Hjelmslev in Anti-Oedipus and its intricate relation to his appreciation of Jean-François Lyotard’s theory of designation in Discourse Figure.

Riferimenti bibliografici

DE SAUSSURE, Ferdinand, Cours de linguistique générale, ed. by C. Bally & A. Sechehaye, Payot, Paris 1964.

DELEUZE, Gilles, Logique du sens, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris 1969; The Logic of Sense (1969), transl. by M. Lester & C. Stivale, The Athlone Press, London 1990.

–, Francis Bacon. Logique de la sensation (1981), Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2002.

–, Cinema 1. L’image-mouvement, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris 1983; Cinema 1. The Movement-Image (1983), transl. by H. Tomlinson, B. Habberjam, University of Mineapolis Press, Minneapolis 1997.

–, Cinema 2. L’image-temps, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris 1985; Cinema 2. The Time-Image (1985), transl. by H. Tomlinson, R. Galeta, University of Mineapolis Press, Minneapolis 1997.

–, Pourparlers: 1972-1990, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris 1990.

DELEUZE, Gilles, GUATTARI, Felix, Capitalisme et schizophrénie 1. L’anti-Oedipe, Minuit, Paris 1972/1973; Capitalism and Schizophrenia 1. Anti-Oedipus (1972/1973), transl. by R. Hurley, M. Seem, H.R. Lane, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2000.

–, Capitalisme et schizophrénie 2. Milles Plateaux, Minuit, Paris 1987; Capitalism and Schizophrenia 2. A Thousand Plateaus (1987), transl. by B. Massumi, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London 2005.

HJELMSLEV, Louis, Prolégomènes à une théorie du langage (1943), transl. by U. Canger, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris 1971; Prolegomena to a Theory of Language (1943), transl. by F.J. Whitfield, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1963.

HYPPOLITE, Jean, Logique et existence (1953), P.U.F., Paris 1991; Logic and Existence (1953), transl. by L.L. Lawlor and A. Sen, State University of New York Press, New York 1997.

LYOTARD, Jean-François, Discours figure (1971), Éditions Klincksieck, Paris 1978.

TAVERNIERS, Miriam, “Hjelmslev’s semiotic model of language: An exegesis”, Semiotica, 171 (2008), pp. 367-394.

THIBAULT, Paul J., Re-reading Saussure. The Dynamics of Signs in Social Life. Routledge, London 1997.

WILLEMS, Klaas, Sprache, Sprachreflexion und Erkenntniskritik. Versuch einer transzendental-phänomenologischen Klärung der Bedeutungsfrage. Gunter Narr, Tübingen 1994.

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Pubblicato

2016-07-30

Come citare

Schreel, L. (2016). Pure Designation. Deleuze’s Reading of Hjelmslev in The Time-Image. Itinera, (11), 49–74. https://doi.org/10.13130/2039-9251/7423

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