TZVETAN

TODOROV

MEANING

IN LITERATURE :

A SURVEY

I would like to examine what happens to linguistic meaning when it enters a literary use. I do not think one needs an explanation of why I am concerned with meaning, or why I consider this an important problem for literary theory. My starting-point will rather be the idea that the whole variety of meanings and of relations between meanings which exist in everyday language may also be found in literature, but always in a more drastic, in-the-foreground, and stressed way. That is why we must first consider what we know through linguistics about meaning; I will give only a very brief summary. First of all, let us say that all the words of a language are complex in the sense which Empson gave the word, i.e., they do not mean just one thing in one way, but several things at a time and in many different ways. I will list the different ways in which we may say that a word is complex. 1. Let us start with what is known in the U.S. as componential analysis and in France as analyse stmique. The linguists discovered very late indeed, for it was not until this century - that it is possible to analyse the meaning of a word into smaller units. To take the standard example, father can be analysed into male (as opposed to mother), direct linkage as opposed to uncle; anterior as opposed to son; first generation as opposed to grandfather. Finally, all these words have one more feature in common, namely kin or relative. Notice that the components, or parts of the meaning of the word, still remain words. 2. The logicians discovered a second way of distinguishing multiple meanings in a single word, I mean analysis into PRE~~PP~~ITI~N~. It was noted that when analysing some words, especially verbs and adverbs, it was easier to state the meanings of their components in the form of whole sentences. For instance, the verb close presupposes that there is something open; the verb come presupposes that either you or I are in the place to which somebody is supposed to come. When formulating a sentence, these presuppositions constitute a kind of background message :

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if I say Close the door, I presuppose that (1) there is a door, (2) the door is open, and (3) there is someone to whom I may give my orders, etc. In case of negative transformation of the sentence, the same presuppositions still hold. 3. The two former classes have as foundations the cooperation of different and more elementary meanings and these meanings create the total meaning of the word. The third case, polysemy, is different: one word may have more than one meaning (it usually has more) and these meanings remain in relative independence. No example is necessary here. 4. If perfect dictionaries existed, and were written according to the latest achievements in modem linguistics, we would have found the three preceding classes of meaning in the dictionary. What I mean is that these meanings are coded on the level of language and implied in the correct usage of the language by a native speaker. This is not the only possible degree of coding. Another, weaker degree is what I will call the CULTURAL meaning (as opposed to the LINGUISTIC) of a word: within a limited amount of time and space, new meanings are attached to the original word. These meanings come as a result of frequent associations between the linguistic meaning and the cultural context. For instance, dogs are related to the idea of being devoted, although devoted is not a part of the dogs lexicographic definition, and, as we know, this animal may be related to the idea of usefulness in a country where it has another role. The linguists are reluctant to consider this kind of meaning because, as they say, they cannot deal with it in a rigorous way. However, these meanings do not disappear because of tbe linguists reluctancy. On the other hand, we must be aware of the different possibilities of purely PERSONAL associations to the meaning of a word. For instance, my dog makes me think of my brother, who has a similar dog. This kind of association, though without real relevance on a social level, can become very active in literature. H. James has written a tale called Europe. In it, Europe begins to signify death, and this is very important for understanding of the text. 5. Another reason for the complexity of words is the fact that they may have relations of different intensity with the speech act itself. We can always have two complementary views of language: either that it is an abstract system of symbols, or that it is a concrete activity taking place in a particular context. Some elements of this context are integrated and coded IN language; these elements are the informations concerning the identity and sometimes the social status of the speaker and the hearer, the time and the place of the speech-act, and its modalities, that is, the

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relation between the speaker and his discourse or the object of his discourse. These signs form a separate group in language; in the terminology of Pierce they are indexes, not symbols. On the other hand, they may be present in many other words in the form of a component or a presupposition. Linguists have given different names to this kind of meaning (which is relatively well studied): expressive value (Bally), expressive function (Btihler), emotive and conative functions (Jakobson), modes (Empson). 6. But we are not yet finished with all the possible complications, for I must mention two more kinds of meaning. The first is sound symbolism, that is, a meaning independent of the meaning of the words which the sounds form. Despite the numerous optimistic psycho-linguistic studies going on in this direction, I think that all we can really afhrm is that, in the limits of a certain time and space, such associations do exist. The second kind of meaning is the range of frequency of the use of a word in the vocabulary. Any word is perceived as rare or frequent, old or new, and in a way, this is also part of its meaning. Although I do not think I have forgotten any major aspects of meaning, I am sure that one can add some other varieties to the list. Before going on to the question of how meaning functions in literary texts, I must introduce another classification, that of the different associations which we attach to a word. They correspond to our meaning number four and they are never merely inventions of the reader or the hearer. This classification will use two oppositions: the first between sound and meaning, or, more precisely, between signifier and signified; the other between similarity and contiguity, two possible relations between the principle meaning and the new one. 1. The first class is the similarity of meanings (signified); i.e., that a word may be associated with its synonyms. 2. The second class is similarity of words (signifiers). This phenomenon, with its more specific variants, alliteration and consonance, is called PARONYMY. The interesting case here is what is called FOLK (or popular) ETYMOLOGY: in search of motivation of signs, the speaker affirms that similar sounds must have similar meanings, and he connects words which are in reality independent. This device is so frequently used in poetry that Jakobson has introduced the term poetic etymology for it. Rime is a very simple example of this, for riming words are perceived as being related in their meaning as well. 3. Contiguity of words (signifiers) is the third class. The actual use of a word evokes the previous uses, and thus, its previous contexts, especially

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11

if we can systematize them in some way. We are speaking in everyday language about a phenomenon which Bally described as ~KKZATION DE MILIEU, evocation of environment. An example of it is that slang words mean the contexts in which they are usually used. The same thing is true of specifically poetic words. Tynjanov called this phenomenon lexical colour. In literary texts, we can not only identify some words as being specifically literary, but can also attach some words or expressions to literary schools, periods, or even individual writers and works. We have now come to the point of parody and stylization, and we must add that no word is ever entirely neutral, although the degree of colour may vary. 4. Contiguity of meanings (signified) is the standard case of what we earlier called cultural meanings. If we mention the name of some being, its properties are present in our mind as well; for example, milk-whiteness or lion-courage. J. R. Firth and the English school of linguistics call this meaning colloquial. We should always remember that the contiguity - and thus the context - is not linguistic (on the level of words) but cultural (on the level of meanings): the expression white milk is probably extremely rare, since it is a pleonasm. Empson calls these meanings implications; other linguists have called them connotations. We have now elaborated on the necessary machinery and are prepared to face some more complex and interesting problems. I am thinking especially of (1) what happens to all these multiple meanings when a word is used in a sentence, and (2) is there some specific literary usage of words and meanings? To solve the first question, we must begin by considering two inadequate answers. Medieval exegesis is the first. According to it, any utterance has to be interpreted on four levels: the literal, allegorical, tropological and anagogic. This doctrine has recently been revived and reinterpreted by Northrop Frye. I find it inadequate because, without being necessarily false, it is not really helpful. The four meanings are postulated in advance, and any utterance appears to be as ambiguous as any other. The same applies to Ingardens four strata. The second inadequate answer may be found in the well-known article by Katz and Fodor and in other modern works on generative semantics. In the authors opinion, a sentence normally has one single sense, and amalgamation rules make us choose the relevant sense for each word of the sentence, the only exceptions being the so-called ambiguous sentences. However, Katz and Fodor would not classify the sentences in which we are now interested as being ambiguous.

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The Russian Formalists have provided some more interesting answers to this question. In the case of meanings of a different nature - for instance, a linguistic meaning and an evocation of environment Jakobson writes: When we are looking for a good word, which can show the object, we use a word inhabitual in this context, a violated word... To call the sexual act by its own name is biting, but if in a certain environment the strong word is habitual, the metaphore, the euphemism will be stronger, more convincing. This is the case of the word to use among Russian hussars. As is clear, Jakobson is establishing a relation between the linguistic meaning and the lexical colour. Tynjanov formulates it even more strongly: according to him, lexical colour is in an inverse ratio to the head meaning; it is most powerful in words which we do not understand (and thus in proper nouns). Riffaterre has more recently elaborated this point. The problem is even more difficult when we look at the relations between several linguistic meanings of one word all on the same level. Tynjanov believes (contrary to Katz and Fodor) that in a particular use, although we choose one of the meanings, the others still remain present. He tries to explain this fact with this theory of the meaning of a word, which can be summarized as follows: the meaning of a word must be divided into three parts. The first part, which we already saw, is the lexical colouring (the most frequent former contexts) and it is not relevant here. The second part is called the BASIC FEATURE; it is part of the meaning common to all the senses of a word (unless we are dealing with a case of homonymy). Finally, the third part is made up of the EPHEMERAL FEATURES (today we would call them contextual meanings): they are those parts of meaning which belong to a particular context and which are activated by it. The constant presence of the basic feature explains our impression that the other senses are also present. I do not think that this explanation is satisfactory, but the very fact that Tynjanov was sensitive to the problem seems to me remarkable. The only other critic who, to my knowledge, has worked in this field is Empson, who wrote the book The Structure of Complex Words some thirty years after Tynjanovs work. Empson starts with the same observation that the meaning A of a word is present when the word is used in its meaning B. But the explanation he gives is different and, to my mind, more interesting. According to Empson, what happens is that the word itself is perceived as a statement of equivalence between A, the first sense, and B, the second. Two senses of the word are used at once... and there is an implied assertion that they naturally belong together, as the

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word itself proves. We can see here that the same principle which we observed in the case of sound symbolism and folk etymology is acting again: similar sounds must have similar meanings, motivation replaces arbitrariness. This equational statement, says Empson, is not unambiguous in itself. He uses two oppositions: the one between the subject and the predicate, i.e., between what precedes and what follows the verb is, and the other between what he calls the HEAD meaning of the word (which holds a more or less permanent position as the tit one in its structure) and the words CHIEFmeaning (which the user feels to be the first one in play at the moment). Using these two oppositions, he distinguishes five cases (which can be found on page 54 of his book). On the other hand the sentence A is B can be interpreted as A is part of B, A entails B, A is like B, and A is typical of B. As he notices, there is unfortunately no simple correspondence between the five formal cases and these four interpretations. Let us now turn to the second question, that is, is there a specific literary usage of words and meanings? I think the current answer is yes, and very often we even look for specificity of literature in the use it makes of language. Let us first briefly consider a classical statement by Goethe on the question. For him, the specifically poetic is the SYMBOL as opposed to the ALLEGORY, and he opposes them in this way: There is a great difference whether the poet seeks the particular for the general or sees the general in the particular. From the first procedure arises allegory, where the particular serves only as an example of the general, the second procedure however is really the nature of poetry: it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it. My interpretation of this maxim is as follows: first, Goethe operates an identification of the present text with the particular, and its meaning with the general; second, he af5rms that the literary text must not be entirely transparent, i.e., a pure medium for a meaning which is outside it, but that this text must be perceived in itself; third, as a consequence of this, there is no longer a neat separation between the general and the particular, the meaning of the text and the text itself: the text is at least partly its own meaning. Let us jump over one hundred years and come back to Tynjanov, who was extremely preoccupied with this question and tried to answer it in terms of his system of the meaning of a word. Contrary to everyday language, poetic verse has an autonomous existence; this causes a special semantic effect, called by Tynjanov the tightness of verse. The tightness,

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in turn, is the reason why contextual meanings become much stronger in poetry than in everyday language, while the basic feature is much weaker in poetry. Thus, writes Tynjanov, the word gets a positional semantic value. In verse, the words establish with other words relations stronger and tighter than in everyday discourse. This tightness does not exist in everyday language, but in poetry the meaning of a word is a result of its orientation toward the neighbouring word. Some thirteen years later, the same idea is present in the work of the Czech structuralist, J. Mukafovsky. However, MukaTovsky does not need to assess this statement on the basis of two different kinds of meaning, one contextual, the other autonomous; the only difference for him is in orientation, that is, in function. For him, two main functions of language oppose each other: the first is the function of representation, of reference, the second is the aesthetic function, the function of the autonomous sign. Mukafovsky writes that in the poetic text, the relation between the word and its context takes the first place. I see no significant difference between Mukaiovskys statement and one made fifteen years later by Northrop Frye, however Fryes statement is more explicit. Let me quote a few sentences: Whenever we read anything, we find our attention moving in two directions at once. One direction is outward or centrifugal, in which we keep going outside our reading, from the individual words to the things they mean or, in practice, to our memory of the conventional associations between them. The other direction is inward or centripetal, in which we try to develop from the words a sense of the larger verbal pattern they make (. . .) Verbal structures may be classified according to whether the final direction or meaning is outward or inward. In descriptive or assertive writing the final direction is outward. (. . .) In all literary structures the final direction of meaning is inward (...). In literature, questions of fact or truth are subordinated to the primary literary aim of producing a structure of words for its own sake, and the sign values of symbols are subordinated to their importance as a structure of interconnected motifs. Wherever we have an autonomous verbal structure of this kind, we have literature. Here, Frye is speaking the language of the Russian Formalists and Czech Structuralists both entirely and fluently: the autonomy of the verbal structure, the representational and the verbal meaning, and so on; there is something moving in these dialogues between Mukaiovsky and Frye, between Tynjanov and William Empson which never took place. In all these theories, from Goethe to Frye, the same distinctive feature of poetic discourse is stressed: linguistic signs stop being transparent

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IN LITERATURE

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instruments of communication or understanding and they acquire an importance in themselves. The differences in the theories lie in the explanation of the fact, not in the statement of the fact itself. In the simplest case, this importance may be attached to the SOUNDS of the work; but in a more general way, the properly linguistic MEANING is in the foreground, and not the REFERENCE. In fiction, words do often remain referential and representative, however the secondary symbolic system founded by the words, the narrative, has the same autonomous, noninstrumental character as the words in poetry.
C.N.R.S. PARIS

Tzvetan Todorov (b. 1939) studied at the University of SO&I and received degrees at the University of Paris. He actually is research assistant at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris). Among his publications are: a collection of texts of Russian formalists: Zk?orie de la lifthture (Paris, Seuil, 1965); Littkrature et signifcation (Paris, Larousse+ 1967); Grammaire du D&am&on (The Hague, Mouton, 1969); Zntroduction d la littkrature fantastique (Paris, Seuil, 1970); Pobique de la prose (Paris, Seuil, 1971). He is one of the editors of the French quarterly Pobtique.