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meneutic work of the psychoanalyst, when applied to the contiguity of the referent, is a case of code making and not of code observing.
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2.8. Language Makes a Gesture |
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Since we suppose that, in the making and unmaking of particular semantic fields, the entire Global Semantic System is never completely structurable (and even if it were, it would not be structured; and even if it were structured, we could not describe it in its globality), we should assume that only in theory does each semantic unit refer to all others. In practice there are millions of empty valences and millions of units that cannot be connected to the others. To do so would mean to emit factual judgments (of the type 'A is the same as D') that the Global Semantic System can accept only at the cost of exploding. |
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Let us imagine that the scheme envisaged in section 2.6 does not anticipate only four terms (A, B, C, D) and two levels of correlated entities but, rather, an infinite number of terms and levels. And let us also imagine that D is not segregated from A by only four passages (A®k® k®D), but rather by millions of passages. If culture has never made these passages, A and D have never been connected. We can connect them without any good reason (the bad reason being immediately evident) or for reasons as yet difficult to realize, and we can do this either by disturbing or not disturbing the semantic system we rely upon. Let us try to throw a first and tentative light upon this web of intertwined semiotic problemsour attempt aiming only at being a first approach to a much more complex question. |
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First, what is a 'good' reason to establish a metaphorical connection? Let us distinguish two kinds of successful metaphor, the merely 'acceptable' and the 'rewarding'. A metaphor is (at least) acceptable when its metonymic foundation is immediately (or only after more mediation) evident. The substitution of /sleep/ for «death» constitutes an acceptable metaphor (many semes or marks in common). No one would say that it is 'beautiful'; it is missing the tension, the ambiguity, and the difficulty which are characteristic of the aesthetic message. |
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Let us suppose, on the other hand, that there is issued a metaphor whose metonymic foundation is not evidentfor example, the 'selva oscura' (dark wood) of Dante. In this case the semantic necessity that connects the vehicle (as the signified), which is of a physico-geographical sort, to the moral entity that constitutes the tenor is quite occultat least to the extent that it allows a series of hermeneutic games aimed at discovering an interpretation, a reliable reading. What is instead immediately apparent? The rhythmical-phonetic necessity in the order of signifiersin other words, the necessity caused by meter and rhyme, which makes |
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