Composition and Rhetoric II 1302 Fall 2013



Semiotics, Binary Opposition, and Interpreting IdeologyNARRATIVE…visual, rhetorical, linguistic When analyzing any text, you will need to be able to find ways in which it is working to create and shape meaning as well as influence its audience to at least consider, and often to go along with, its writer's views. A key way, and one that is very common across many text types, is the use of a particular form and structure called narrative. Ever wonder how words came to have the meanings we associate with them? The meaning we ascribe to a word is “culturally constructed” rather than inherent within the word itself. If you consider, for example, the word “hero,” its meaning doesn't exist on its own - it is intimately tied up with the meanings of another word, 'coward'. These two words are , in effect, cultural, or “binary” opposites - they are in opposition to each other with each relying on the other to help out or provide some of its core meaning. Many of our society's most enduring ideas are maintained and reinforced by the fact that their meanings are created by the workings of binary opposition. For example, if you reflect on what the three pairs of terms in the above images mean to you, wealth and poverty, youth and age, body and soul, you should begin to see how the meaning of each term is shaped by the existence of the word's binary opposite. Our attitude towards youth, for example, is shaped massively by the idea of old age. These ideas also, as so often is the case, ingrained attitudes properly called dominant ideologies. It seems as if ideology itself operates through this same system of binary opposition.When you think of the word 'poverty', for example, and all that that the word fully means, the sense you gain from it is probably intimately bound up with all that the word 'wealthy' means. The existence of poverty implies a lack of wealth, obviously - but think also of all the associations and attitudes towards these terms that come along with that. All rather obvious, some might say. Is that all there is to it? No... there is much more; and the implications of this understanding are extraordinary and vast. What will not be so immediately obvious at this stage is what this understanding means at a deeper level, for not just meaning but feeling? also becomes involved in the generation of meaning. In the case of poverty and wealth, you will recognise that we tend to judge a poor person negatively simply because they are not wealthy; we might well feel sympathy for that person, but in very real ways, we will hold to our deeply conditioned negative response to the idea of poverty and transfer this negativity to the poor person. Can you see how the stereotype of poverty is maintained and reinforced each time we hear the word 'wealth'. We might not want to be all that rich... but like heck we don't want to be poor.?This is more important than you are probably yet realizing. Read on...Think of any other two binary opposites and you will see the same effect occurs. Somehow, one term - one half of each binary pair - creates a more positive feeling (a kind of positive 'spin') than does its 'opposite' cultural counterpart. Consider the binary opposites of 'masculinity' and 'femininity', for example, and you might see some surprising connections and judgments that are often made in society in which the term 'masculine' is often still - despite the feminist revolution of the 1960s - given a more positive valuation in many (far too many...) cultural areas.?Of course, this will depend on the context, but it does show that we still have some way to go before these terms can be said merely to suggest different concepts - as they surely should - not ideas against which powerful cultural judgments are drawn. This judgmental effect occurs because binary opposites act in ways that reinforce society's dominant ideologies. There are three stages to this theory that you need to grasp:The nearest we can get to knowing about reality is through ideas about that reality.We can only interpret ideas through a system of differences between opposing ideas.We tend to 'privilege' - judge in a more favorable light - one side of each opposing pair of cultural ideas (and far more meanings and ideas than you ever imagined are cultural in origin).STAGE ONE: REALITY AS IDEATo repeat, cntral to the idea of binary opposition is that all we can ever know of the world - of reality - is at the level of idea. Reality might well be 'out there' but that's where it seems it must remain. What is 'in here' - in our heads - can never be quite the same thing, however natural or real our thoughts and ideas might seem to be. All we can ever know is an idea of what reality is like - and ideas can only ever be representations of reality.When we become aware of anything at all, for example a word, image or object, it becomes what structuralists call a signifier, and this creates an idea in our mind that is called, the 'signified'. This is, of course, no more than a representation of reality. It might seem real enough, so much so that often we accept it uncritically as the real thing itself, yet we know that we can easily be fooled by what we perceive - as the above four images prove rather well!The second key insight of this theory is that we gain meaning from something not from the direct qualities of the thing in itself but from a difference between the thing and what is called its cultural or binary opposite.This is not to say that reality does not exist. Binary opposition is concerned with the way that meaning is interpreted.44748455334000Males are, of course - as the cartoon reminds us - somewhat different biologically from females; but when we think of those terms we tend not to think biologically but culturally, of manhood and womanhood. It is at this level that binary opposition works to colour our interpretation in powerful ways. This will become easier to grasp if we go back to a word we met early on, the word coward. As was said earlier, if you consider and reflect upon the meanings, associations and attitudes to this word, you will recognize that these are created by our sense of the word that is actually its 'cultural opposite', the word hero. Each of these two words are, in essence and in deeply ingrained and important cultural ways, reliant for their meaning on the existence of their opposite: their binary opposite. Of course, the word 'hero' is not a real 'opposite' of the word 'coward' (that would be 'un-hero' if the word existed); but a person who is labeled a 'coward' is judged negatively precisely because he or she has failed to show qualities of 'heroism'. ?Perhaps a more accurate definition would be that these two words exist in cultural opposition to each other.What should become clear is that within our culture, we each subconsciously apply a system of binary opposites to shape our interpretations of many words and ideas. These oppositions seem entirely natural and too obvious to question; but they are anything but: such 'opposites' exist simply because our culture deems it to be so. Here are some common 'binary pairs': truth/liesnormal/abnormalspecial/ordinarylove/hatestrong/weaknatural/artificialhealth/illnessyoung/oldpure/impurelo-tech/hi-techCan you see how our perception of one thing is deeply implicated with our sense of its binary opposite? And how we judge one half of each binary in a more negative way? Can you recognize the importance of this and how binary oppositions feed each other - it's as if meanings are bound up together. For example, can you connect the binaries hero/coward with the binary masculinity/femininity and recognize how this feeds stereotypes and attitudes?If meanings are culturally constructed and exist at the level of binary opposition, then this also suggests that such meanings are ideological; that is, they are shared cultural ideas - which is absolutely not the same thing as reality.So, for structuralists, meaning is created in the difference between two binary opposites and at the level of an ideological cultural idea. These ideas are learned and absorbed as we grow up within our particular culture; of course, we see them not as what they are, cultural constructs, but as 'real', 'natural' or 'obvious' - as, quite simply, too obvious to question.Of course, many meanings, such as, "That's a tree!" matter very little at an ideological level; but take for example the statement, "It's not fair!" Here the binary pair fair/unfair is more clearly operating at an ideological level because the meaning of 'fair' depends upon social aspects such as who you are and? your status within society. Ideas such as heroism and cowardice as well as fair and unfair can be said to exist as a part of a cultural framework within which the definition of who is a hero and who a coward, what is fair and what is unfair is created.STAGE THREE: HIERARCHY OF VALUESThe recognition of why we tend to judge one half of each binary pair more positively can be attributed to the theorist, Jacques Derrida. Derrida noticed that one half of each binary pair is somehow culturally marked as being more 'positive' while its unmarked opposite is viewed less positively or even negatively. ?It seems it is natural (or is it cultural...?) to judge one thing's meaning against another 'connected' thing's meaning and to place the meanings within some kind of 'hierarchy of value'. ?Think of the following pairs and see if you have any sense of one half of the binary pair being more highly valued than the other in our society: loneliness/companionship; rich/poor; man/woman; West/East; normal/abnormal.?This ‘privileging’ of one half of each binary pair is said to work through a system of ‘presence’ and ‘absence’. An example is to consider the important ‘male/female’ binary pair. Freudian psychoanalytical theory (named after the early 20th. century psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud) proposed that the idea ‘man’ was historically – and stereotypically – ‘marked’ by a positive ‘presence’, whereas the idea, ‘woman’ has been ‘marked’ by a negative ‘absence’. ?If you consider a few labels or associations that have, at various times, been stereotypically applied to men and women, you will begin to see how this works. Which label or association would you say is positively marked, and which not? ?Why do you think it is the male side that seems to attract so many "positively marked" descriptions?strongweakcalmmoodydominantsubmissivetoughgentleactivepassivelogicalemotionalmindbodyaggressivepeacefulIt's very important not to see these labels as real; as with all meaning, they can exist only as cultural ideas, i.e. as ideologies. They can certainly be said to represent reality but such labels can never be more than a version of reality. This is why they are ideological - they act to reinforce judgmental and hierarchical ways of thinking that might well seem entirely natural, but which are anything but. You can perhaps now begin to see how binary pairs can be extraordinarily powerful in reinforcing and maintaining a society's ways of thinking.An interesting question to ask of a binary pair is who in society ultimately benefits from people 'thinking that way'? ?Another question is to ask who in society works to reinforce such binaries and why?Simply by mentally switching to the binary opposite of any word, phrase or image you will easily be able to see how the full strength of meaning is being created. Why do you think Sir Richard Branson chose red for his company's logo? What other binaries are suggested by this use of red which subliminally add positively to the brand image of the company? Strength / weakness? Danger / safety? Daring / cowardly? And so on... ?Remembering Derrida, you should be able to see how the choice of red brings in its wake a number of other "positively marked" binaries that are useful to the company's brand image??It's not that there's anything essentially important about the colour red - it's because the colour red tends to be positively marked in our culture compared to many alternatives.The above two logos are another example of images in which meaning is reinforced and shaped through the power of binary opposition. An obvious feature of the two logos, for example, is their differing use of colour. Let's look at how binary opposition can reveal how meaning is being shaped and signified.FeatureIBM Apple Use of colour two dark colours many rainbow colours Connotationscold, logical, business like warm, human, fun, psychedelic Can you see how binary opposition is working to shape and reinforce meanings?‘Cool’Working class‘Hard’Successful'Left-wing'LazyBrightDullActivePassiveHere are a few everyday words that depend upon binary opposition to reinforce the meaning they create in particular contexts. You should be able to see that the meaning of each might reasonably be called ideologically loaded. Consider what meaning you apply to each and what kind of binary opposite helps shape this meaning. Which side of each binary pair is positively ‘marked’ and which is negatively marked? You will need to reflect on what the words mean in their typical social, i.e. ideological sense. As you read, watch TV/movies/commercials, listen to music, people watch, pay close attention to the ways in which you encode and decode what you are watching…as well as how you pass judgment onto the images you are watching. Remember that EVERYTHING is a narrative (visual, rhetorical, or linguistic), and that the creators of the narrative have a purpose in mind. Also keep in mind the ways in which culture can inhibit and narrow our perception of others. Don’t close yourself off from others because you are unfamiliar of uncomfortable with that which you don’t understand. ................
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