literary theory

The signifier and the signified...here we come to Saussure, the linguist. His arguments are primarily on three points. Firstly he argued that the meanings we give to words are purely arbitrary, that is the meanings are maintained by conventions only. There is no inherent connection between a word and what it designates. That is, the word "tree" has no inherent connection with the thing we call a tree. The word has connection with the thing or the concept only in the context of English language. Just like a "red light" signifies "stop" in the context of a traffic system. If there was one to one relation between the word tree and the object we call tree it would have been called a "tree" in all the languages.

And then he argues that meaning of words are relational. No word can be defined in isolation. The meaning of the word "hut" depends on its position in a syntagmatic chain(hovel-hut-house-mansion-palace)

Mansion is a dwelling bigger and grander than a house but not as big and as grand as palace. We define "mansion" by explaining how its meaning relates to that of the two words on either side of it.

And in binary opposites(male/female, white/black), each designates the absence of the "other"(male- which is not female).

In a language there are only differences without fixed terms.

Semiotics is not a foreign language to you...
I totally agree with you and I'll make sure I won't miss any discussion of yours...
See you around!