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Action,Subjectivity,/
/
and the
Constitution /
Of MeninQ
byAnthony
Giddens
A he threepartsof thetitleaccurately
indicatethecontentof
thenshowhow
thispaper.I proposeto discusseach separately,
First,the problemof actionis a fundamentheyinterconnect.
tal one for sociology.A clusterof problemsquite crucialto
ofwhatitis to
socialanalysisare concernedwithinterpretation
be a human agent, of the sorts of activityappropriateto
human conduct,and how these mightbe linked to institutions.1
Considerationsraised under the firstcategorylead to a
withliterature,
whichlargelystandsoutsideof
confrontation
been extensively
discussedby
sociologybutwhichhas recently
and poststructuralism.
social scientists:structuralism
Third,
these in turn raise questions of the nature of meaning,
questionswhich have a broad significancestretchingfrom
socialanalysisrightthroughto literary
criticism
and thetheory
of thetext.
It used to be truethatmostof thoseworkingin the social
scienceseitherfeltthemselvesat a greatdistancefromsuch
areas of interestor perhapsknewnothingof themat all. In
more recent times,however,it has become the case that
in socialtheoryconnectsocialanalysisin a very
controversies
directwaywithissuesbelongingto thoseotherareas.
1See
AnthonyGiddens, The Constitution
of Society(Cambridge: PolityPress, 1984),
ch. 1 and passivi.
SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Autumn 1986)
530
SOCIAL RESEARCH
The ProblemofAction
CONSTITUTION
OF MEANING
531
532
SOCIAL RESEARCH
CONSTITUTION
OF MEANING
533
534
SOCIAL RESEARCH
properties,
processof drawingupon thoserules,or structural
whichis the language.
servesto reproducethe overalltotality
Languageexistsonlyinsofaras itis producedand reproduced
in contingent
contextsof sociallifein thisfashion.This I hold
This is not, to
also to be true of social life in its generality.
is
like
a
life
because
social
language; it is because
repeat,
thatit
languageis such an importantfeatureof socialactivity
If
there
of
its
most
is
some
genericqualities.
any
expresses
whichbear
to them,theseideas have clearconnections
validity
upon the theme of the "decenteringof the subject" in
and poststructuralism.
structuralism
in theSocial Sciences
Subjectivity
CONSTITUTION
OF MEANING
535
ch. 2.
Giddens, Constitution
of Society,
536
SOCIAL RESEARCH
CONSTITUTION
OF MEANING
537
not,however,knowthesethingsat a discursivelevel,anymore
than is the case in the multipleformsof practicewhich
constituteday-to-daysocial activity.Any kind of accountof
social activitywhich eliminatesthe significanceof practical
consciousnessis thereforemassivelydeficientin respectof
the formsof knowledgeability
thathuman agents
identifying
displayin thecontextof sociallife.I wouldincludeall variants
of objectivismin thiscategory.In these schoolsof thought,
human beings appear as opaque to themselvesprecisely
becausewhattheyknowabouttheconditionsof theiractionis
assumedto be limitedto whattheycan discursively
say about
them.All the restis either(for functionalism)
the resultof
insociety
or (instructuralism
forcesoperating
and poststructuralthe
result
of
the
unconscious.
ism)
Generating
Meaning
538
SOCIAL RESEARCH
CONSTITUTION
OF MEANING
539
540
SOCIAL RESEARCH
of thesomewhatmoreapparentlytrivialfeaturesof day-to-day
conversation.Althoughseeminglyminor,such interruptions
of the taken-for-granted
orderingof practicalconsciousness
of agents.The
have major consequencesfor the affectivity
about
Garfinkel's
experiments-or one of the
thing
interesting
things-is that those who had to cope withthe
interesting
dislocationsof speech produced by others very rapidly
anxietyin the face of whatappeared
displayedextraordinary
to them to be a significantdeparturefrom the expected
is the
Whatis therebydemonstrated
routinesof conversation.
whichis investedin
moraland emotionalfixity
extraordinary
of day-to-day
life,as well as
apparentlytrivialcharacteristics
basisupon whichtheyare founded.
themethodological
Let me at this point move to my third theme, the
of meaning.
of thisanalysisfortheunderstanding
implications
in structuralism
as well as in
As I have indicatedpreviously,
in terms
meaningis understoodessentially
poststructuralism,
within
constituted
codes.
of theplayof difference
linguistically
Meaningis to be locatedin a systemof signs,syntagmatically
organized in the flow of context of language use, and
organizedin termsof theirassociationwithin
paradigmatically
we find
languageas a whole.Here,in spiteofthedivergencies,
fromSaussureto Derrida.But
a quitedirectlineof continuity
thena quite
ifmeaningis (a) contextualor (b) methodological,
distinctconceptionof it emerges.There is a contrastbetween
the "fuzzy"nature of ordinarylanguage termsand their
precisionin use. Wordswhentakenin isolation-or conceptsas utilizedin day-to-day
seemto haveonlya vaguesignificance
discourse.In fact,ifwe examinesequencesof talkwe findthat
the meaningembedded in such talk is quite precise. The
participantsin a conversationare able to followwhat each
othersay and relatewhatis said to the referential
properties
whichare involved.This precisionis impossibleto understand
of practicalconsciousnessas
withoutgraspingthe significance
of meaningin
and reconstitution
a mediumof theconstitution
CONSTITUTION
OF MEANING
541
SOCIAL RESEARCH
542
CONSTITUTION
OF MEANING
543
whichare thensomehow
art,have a discreteset of intentions
embodiedintothe textor the culturalproduct.Whereasone
side then goes on to argue that these intentionsbecome
view
to thenatureof whatis produced,thecontrary
irrelevant
in
holdsthatitis necessaryto retrievetheseoriginalintentions
order to grasp the significanceof the phenomenonto be
understood.
But accordingto the standpointI have suggested,intentionalhumanactionis muchmorecomplicatedthanthisand is
notjust in a discreteset
groundedin practicalconsciousness,
or aggregateof purposesthatcan be simplyidentified.It is
muchmoreappropriateto treattheproductionof a
therefore
in which
liketheordinaryday-to-day
textas something
activity
individualsparticipate-that is, as a process of reflexive
whichhas a duration.There is not a singleset of
monitoring
builtinto any culturalproduct;thereis a
discreteintentions
and practicewhich saturatesthat
contextof intentionality
is necessarily
I
want
to
would
arguethatintentionality
product.
or explicationof texts,although
relevantto theunderstanding
itdoes notexhaustthese;but I wouldwantto proposethatthe
means here has to be
understandingof what intentionality
recastin theformI have attemptedto analyze.
Second,we can grasp whatis involvedhere by considering
Ricoeur'snotionthata textor a culturalproductis above all a
work,with all that implies.12The reflexivemonitoringof
part of human
day-to-dayconduct is a taken-for-granted
agency,and is casuallyorganizedbylayactorsin thecourseof
theiractivity.
It is itsroutine,seeminglyeffortless
production
about practicalconsciousness.Now a
whichis mostimpressive
textwhichhas a particularform-forexample,a novel,a play,
a poem, or a painting-in contrastto casual talk is a
phenomenonintowhichan individualpourseffortin orderto
achieveform.It is notjust thatthe producerputseffortinto
12Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneuticsand the Human Sciences
(Cambridge: Cambridge
UniversityPress, 1981).
544
SOCIAL RESEARCH
work
is.This,ofcourse,does notin itselfsupplyaestheticvalue,
and it is not relevantto the evaluation of the aesthetic
propertiesof the work in question. But it is crucial to
the natureof whatmakessomethinga work.
understanding
In this respect, for instance,there is a major set of
discrepanciesbetweena novel and, say, myths,which are
produced throughrepetitiveoral communicationand may
have no individualauthorwho laysclaimto the primerole in
theproductionof thestory.A novelhas an "author,"and this
is knowntothosewhoproducenovels,whodo so in thelightof
such knowledgeas part of theirgeneralizedculturalexperience. Althoughthereis no doubt,therefore,
thatwhatit is to
be an authoris culturally
variable,thisdoes notmean it is not
relevantto the explicationof texts to enquire into the
differencesin the contextof authorshipor productionin
relationto textor materialsor otherculturalproducts.
Third,it should be stressedthat- again as Ricoeur saystextsbecomedistanciatedfromtheirauthors.The conceptof
textual distanciationcan be usefullysubstituted,in most
respects,for that of the autonomyof the text. What this
means- as I take it, at any rate- is thattextshave a relative
butthatthere
autonomyfromthecontextof theirproduction,
which needs to be
is a two-wayrelationof interpretation
accomplishedbetweenthe analysisof the conditionsof their
originalproductionand the meaningswhichcan be gleaned
fromthemin otherconditions.It is only,of course,in such a
at all, sincethis
mannerthatwe can speak of "distanciation"
presumesthatwe have some notionof the "distance"whicha
texthas traveledfromtheinitialconditionsof itsgeneration.
to recognizethatin a generalwaythereis
But itis important
of social
to textshere. It is a characteristic
nothingdistinctive
lifegenerallythatitsproductsescape the intentional
inputof
its creators. In other words, one of the most distinctive
CONSTITUTION
OF MEANING
545