When ‗intertextuality‘ is mentioned, it often conjures the poststructuralist concept made known by Kristeva. Kristeva‘s model is very different from Popovič‘s focus on literary processes. Different as they are, the shared term ‗intertextuality‘ may lead to a methodological confusion in translation studies (see section 4). A clarification is thus indispensable. How prototexts and metatexts formulate intertextual relations has been clearly specified in section 2. In order to demonstrate the dissimilitude in Kristeva‘s model, I shall focus on the following aspects: 1) what does ‗text‘ stand for, 2) how do texts formulate ‗intertextuality‘ and 3) what is the ‗intertextuality‘ in Kristeva‘s
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model?
Kristeva‘s notion of intertextuality is inspired by and adopted from Mikhail Bakhtin‘s ‗intersubjectivity‘. Sharing a similar enthusiasm on the novel, both Bakhtin and Kristeva endeavor to re-define the genre not in terms of themes but of the structural features of novels, which lead them to their reflections on language use. It is their formulations on language use, rather than those on the poetics of novels, that will be discussed in the following section with regard to the pertinence to our discussion of intertextuality. In ‗The Problem of Speech Genres‘ (Bakhtin, 1986), with reference to the different ‗spheres of human activity‘ (ibid.:65), Bakhtin makes distinctions between speech genres. Such a distinction results from two kinds of utterances:
primary and secondary utterances11. Bakhtin makes efforts on clarifying the Saussurian dichotomy between langue and parole, stating that they are not in a relation between system and realization. Rather, to Bakhtin, they belong to the different spheres of human language. While langue specifies the systemic structure of human language, parole/speech falls in the category of communication. And in communication, it is speech, according to Bakhtin, that produces the ‗senses‘ beyond linguistic meanings. Speech, in this regard, is not the ‗free combination of forms of language‘ (ibid.:81), but is bound to different speaking subjects: ‗[f]or speech can exist in reality only in the form of concrete utterances of individual speaking people, speech subjects‘ (ibid.:71). It implies that each utterance is reified by a speaking subject and hence the concatenation of utterances is formed by the change of speaking subjects, ‗which creates clear-cut boundaries of the utterance‘ (ibid.:72). This allows Bakhtin not only to designate utterances as the ‗unit of speech communication‘
11 Bakhtin specifies the difference between primary (simple) and secondary (complex) speech genres as follows. Secondary genres consist of ‗novels, dramas, all kinds of scientific research, major genres of commentary‘ (1986:62). Primary genres, on the other hand, take ‗form in unmediated speech communion‘ and have an ‗immediate relation to actual reality‘ (ibid.).
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(ibid.:73), but also to bring forth the following statement: with regard to the concatenation of utterances, each utterance‘s ‗beginning is preceded by the utterances of others, and its end is followed by the responsive utterances of others ‘ (ibid.: 71).
The statement suggests that the concatenation of utterances always implies a hidden dialogic relation as it takes the presupposition between utterances to form the chain.
But this is not the only dialogic relation embedded in utterances. In each individual utterance there has to be a speaking subject and an addressee of the utterance12, which forms another layer of dialogic relation. The above features of utterance indicate the uniqueness of speech communication: two layers of dialogues are always inherent in each utterance, with one between the speaking subject and its addressee and the other between the speaking subject of one utterance to other speaking subjects of other utterances13. Speech in this sense, no longer belongs merely to synchrony. It is the interface between history (i.e. other‘s utterances) and text (as utterance) and also between the ‗inner and outer verbal life14‘ (Volosinov, 1994 [1973]:6015). By re-positioning speech as utterances embodied by speaking subjects and by seeing utterances as layers of dialogues (i.e. between subject and addressee & subject and other subjects), Bakhtin‘s reflection on language use (i.e. intersubjectivity) provides the basis for Kristeva‘s theorization.
Following Baktin‘s interests in utterances, Kristeva‘s formulation of
12 To quote Bakhtin: ‗Any utterance always has an addressee, whose responsive understanding the author of the speech work seeks and surpasses‘ (Bakhtin, 1986: 126).
13 Bakhtin describes it as: ‗The utterance is addressed not only to its own object, but also to other ‘s speech about it‘ (ibid.:94).
14 Bakhtin sees utterances/texts not as a container of message. Rather he sees it as a production process of dialogues that forges understanding. In addition to the reader/addressee of the utterance that would respond to and try to understand the utterance (which he terms as the ‗second party‘), there is a ‗third party‘ in the dialogic utterance. It is the ‗superaddressee‘ presupposed by the author, ‗whose absolutely just responsive understanding is presumed, either in some metaphysical distance or in distant historical time‘ (Bakhtin, 1986: 126). This superaddressee can be seen as the ‗double‘ identity of the author, whose inner verbal actions is objectified when realized as outer verbal action.
15 Although the authorship of the Bakhtin Circle, especially that between Volos inov and Bakhtin, remains under dispute, I am not concerned with the identities and mis-identities of the Circle‘s members. Following Morris‘s principle of anthologizing the reader of Bakhtin, I also see Volos inov‘s discourse as part of the Bakhtinian discourse.
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intertextuality is built upon the articulation of words, as in Bakhtin‘s viewpoint, words are ‗abbreviation or representative of the utterance‘ (Baktin, 1986:120) and also because ‗[t]he possibilities and perspectives embedded in the word‘ are ‗essentially infinite‘ (Baktin, ibid.). The focus on words enables Kristeva to move from Bakhtin‘s intersubjective relation that results from dialogues (i.e. between a subject and an addressee & between a subject and other subjects) to the crisscrossed space/relation between texts: ‗each word (text) is an intersection of word (texts) where at least one other word (text) can be read‘ (Kristeva,1986: 37). By the shift from ‗utterance as text‘ to ‗word as text‘, Kristeva diverts from Bakhtin‘s model of speech communication to a topological model of signification. Such a change is brought about by the way she associates the notions of word, text and intertextuality. A word, in Kristeva‘s model, does not have a fixed meaning. A word gets its significance when it is articulated, or in Kristeva‘s words, when it gets its ‗status‘. The so-called ‗status of the word‘ is formed by two coordinate axes: one is the word‘s position in the subject-addressee relation, the other is the word‘s relation to its historical context. The word‘s status is decided by where the synchronic and diachronic axes meet. Hence, a word only signifies when it enters a dialogic relation with both the synchronic and diachronic axes16. And the process for a ‗word‘ to become ‗a word with status‘
designates a process of signification. This is what allows Kristeva to assert that the status of the word is the ‗minimal structural unit‘ (Kristeva, 1986: 36).
Kristeva‘s reinterpretation of the Bakhtinian concept ‗word‘ moves the
‗inter-subject‘ relation in Bakhtin‘s model seamlessly from the foreground to the
16 We can trace this back to Bakhtin. For Bakhtin, a word or even a sentence in a language system
‗belongs to nobody‘ as it ‗has no author‘ (Bakhtin, 1986:84). And a word gets its meaning when it
‗pertains to a particular actual reality and particular real conditions of speech communication‘ (ibid.:
86). Kristeva‘s emphasis on the status of word is an attempt to merge Bakhtin‘s distinction on ‗word‘
and ‗utterance‘ and to replace them with ‗word‘ and ‗status of word‘ (articulation of word). In this case,
‗word‘ is the potentiality and ‗status of word‘ is the realization of this potentiality. This is an indispensable transition when she re-positions the dialogic model on intertextual relations.
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background and brings ‗text‘ to the spotlight. The ‗inter-subject‘ relation is tuned down to be the precondition for the word to gain its status. It is inherent in the realization of the word. Hence, the ‗inter-subject‘ relation is always implied. Texts, on the other hand, is the new center of focus. It is a twin concept to ‗word‘ as they are both based on the same mechanism 17. A quick review of Kristeva‘s definition of text shows it. Text, defined as ‗a trans-linguistic apparatus that redistributes the order of language by relating communicative speech, which aims to inform directly, to different kinds of anterior or synchronic utterances‘ (Kristeva, 1981: 36), designates a process of realization. Just as a word becomes articulated when it turns ‗inter-word‘
(i.e. gaining its status/relation to other words), a text is realized when it informs
‗anterior or synchronic utterances‘; that is, when it becomes ‗inter-textual‘. In this sense, intertextuality describes not text-to-text relation, but the ‗articulation‘ of texts.
From word, text to intertextuality, Kristeva stretches Bakhtin‘s model not only to illustrate a process of signification, but more importantly, to help such signification escape the reign of language, or the signification of language. This brings us to Kristeva‘s discussion of poetic language and the topological model underlying her formulation.
In Kristeva‘s formulation, intertextuality is the foundation of poetic language, with dialogue being their mediating mechanism. As mentioned, text is realized only when it is in a dialogic relation (i.e. intertextual relation) with other texts. In-between two texts, their relation may arise from their affirming, negating, non-affirming or non-negating each other. For Kristeva, both affirming and negating other texts designate the signification of natural language as natural language follows a logic of
‗0-1‘, which means for each word or each text, there is an ultimate meaning endowed
17 In Kristeva‘s formulation, the two concepts are often used interchangeably. It can be seen from the following quotation: ‗each word (text) is an intersection of word (texts) where at least one other word (text) can be read‘ (Kristeva,1986a: 37).
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in them. No matter whether one text affirms or negates other texts, the phenomenon implies the acknowledgement of the objective value or meaning pre-assigned to them.
It is when the intertextual relation is built to neither affirm nor negate an ultimate objective meaning that they create signification out of ambivalence. And Kristeva terms this ambivalence as poetic language, which follows a logic of ‗0-2‘, a logic that is built upon the transgression of the ‗0-1‘ logic18. But how may the transgression of law take place? According to Kristeva, it hinges on two kinds of operations of signification: symbols and signs. When intertextuality is constituted by a relation of symbol, as Kristeva quotes Peirce, it is governed ‗by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas‘ (cited from Kristeva,1986b: 64). That is to say, the symbolized and the symbolizer signify only because they are caused to do so by a law.
The relation between the symbolized (the universals) and the symbolizer (the marking) is a restrictive affirmation of the universals. To put it in another way, with a governing law, it does not matter which symbolizer (the marking) is put into the sign relation, as the result would always be the same, namely, pointing to the same symbolized (universals). From here, it can be posited that the relation between the symbolized and the symbolizer is the one based on causality. This causality/law/restriction enables Kristeva to compare a symbolic operation of signification to monologue, which ‗is a belief in the literal sense of the word‘ (Kristeva,1986a: 48). In this sense, Kristeva sees signification based on symbolic relation as the one obeying the ‗0-1‘ logic, the one underlying the signification of natural languages.
Signification based on sign relation, on the other hand, designates that of poetic language. A sign relation is referred to in a Saussurean sense, as is alluded to by Kristeva. A sign signifies by its relation to other signs. It ‗evokes a collection of
18 To quote Kristeva: ‗A literary semiotics must be developed on the basis of a poetic logic where the concept of the power of the continuum would embody the 0-2 interval, a continuity where 0 denotes and 1 is implicitly transgressed‘(1986a: 41).
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associated images and ideas‘ from which their meanings arise and under which lies ‗a principle of transformation: within its field, new structures are forever generated and transformed‘ (Kristeva,1986b: 72). From this perspective, a sign is only articulated when in relation to other signs, which makes it ‗polyvalent and multi-determined‘
(Kristeva,1986a: 36). It is not restricted to the ‗0-1‘ logic or the law governing meanings in natural languages. Instead, it introduces ‗a logic exceeding that of codified discourse‘ (Kristeva,1986a: 36). The exceeding logic allows the signification of signs to challenge ‗God, authority and social law‘, but it does not intend to replace the law with a new one. Rather, it merely transgresses the law so as to negate the universality and certainty by creating polyvalence (i.e. for the two to ‗contradict and relativize each other ‘, Kristeva, ibid.:49) and by keeping the text ‗dialogical‘ and
‗rebellious‘ (Kristeva, ibid.). The signification of sign, in this regard, is the production of polyvalence that introduces the ‗double‘ into intertextual relation, which further becomes the minimal unit of poetic language19. The difference between symbol and sign, from the above argument, lies in their production. Symbol generates monovalence; sign polyvalence. As Kristeva sees monovalecne as the ‗1‘ of the ‗0-1‘
logic (i.e. the God, the law, the censorship), the embodiment of this monovalence is the mono-logic discourse. Polyvalence, on the other hand, is reified as the ambivalent, the double, the dia-logic discourse. Monologue and dialogue, symbol and sign, natural language and poetic language, these point to us not merely how texts signify but also the fundamental mechanism that distinguishes Kristeva‘s model from Popovič‘s, which will be illustrated in the following paragraphs.
As mentioned, in the Kristevean model the relation between ‗text‘ and ‗inter-text‘
should be regarded as the potentiality and the realization of texts. Intertextuality hence
19 Kristeva: ‗[T]he minimal unit of poetic language is at least a double‘ (Kristeva,1986a: 40).
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describes texts‘ productivity in signification20. But how do texts enter an intertextual relation? The ‗permutation of texts‘ (1986a: 36) is Kristeva‘s answer. Kristeva suggests that the permutation of text enables ‗several utterances, taken from other texts, [to] intersect and neutralize one another ‘ (Kristeva,1986a: 36). But what is not specified in her response is the underlying mechanism that allows permutation of texts to put intertextuality into realization. To answer this for Kristeva, it takes us to examine the organizing principle of permutation. According to Kristeva,
‗[m]onological discourse corresponds to Jakobson‘s systematic axis of language‘
(Kristeva,1986a: 47). It is not hard to see why Kristeva makes such an assertion. On the systematic axis of language (which should be a Hjelmslevian term21), or, to return to Jakobson, on the paradigmatic axis of language, sign relations are built by the organizing principle of equivalence. It thus is fair to suggest that equivalence is seen as a pre-existing relation (or ‗law‘, to use Kristeva‘s words) before the realization of texts, which explains why Kristeva designates monologue, a discourse obeying the
‗0-1‘ logic, to the systematic axis. Following this vein, we can assume that dialogue, the discourse where ‗two texts meet, contradict and relativize each other ‘ (Kristeva,1986a: 49), falls on the syntagmatic axis whose organizing principle is based on contiguity—as contiguity reifies a new sign relation beyond the ‗0-1‘ logic of natural language between texts. The organizing principle here provides answers to our enquiry above. Permutation of texts is bound to be organized by contiguity as the syntactical relation formed by contiguity enables the intersection and neutralization of utterances. And the organizing principle of permutation of text (and thus of
20 Kristeva: ‗The text is therefore a productivity‘ (Kristeva,1986a: 36).
21 The ‗systematic axis of language‘ comes from Louis Hjelmslev (Hjelmslev, 1963:39). Hjelmslev reformulates the Saussurean ‗in presentia‘ and ‗in absentia‘ relations of language as ‗process‘ and
‗system‘, in which ‗the process can here be called a text, and the system a language‘. However, the most conventional way of naming the relations ‗in presentia‘ and ‗in absentia‘ is Jakobson‘s ‗syntagm‘
and ‗paradigm‘. What Kristeva terms as ‗Jakobson‘s systematic axis of language‘ should be referred to as Jakobson‘s ‗paradigmatic‘ axis or Hjelmslev‘s ‗systemic‘ axis, both of which describe a semiotic relation based on selection.
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intertextuality) reveals to us the underlying mechanism of intertextuality: a topological model of signification. The term ‗topological‘ is used here in Greimas‘s sense. In an interview, Greimas makes a clear specification of topological operation:
‗[i]f now one considers narrative from its syntagmatic perspective where each narrative program appears as a process made of the acquisition and loss of values, of the enrichment and impoverishment of subjects, then one notices that each one step forward on the syntagmatic axis corresponds to (and is defined by) a topological displacement on the paradigmatic axis‘ (F. Nef, cited in Ricoeur, 1989:26) 22. With topological displacement in mind, the relation among notions such as intertextuality, text, dialogue and poetic language becomes clear: intertextuality is text signification based on sign (i.e. topological displacement), which enable texts (as potential) to be realized (i.e. gaining its intertextual ‗status‘); dialogue and poetic language are embodied in the process of text realization as topological displacement brings about ambivalence and polyvalence into text signification.
The topological model signification is far different from Popovič‘s model as the latter is based the modeling of text between systems. The fundamental difference in the bases of these models leads to their different focus. While Popovič focuses on inter-textual/inter-systemic relations in literary process, Kristeva puts emphasis on the difference between natural (mono-logic) and poetic (dia-logic) languages. In fact, Kristeva‘s differentiation of monologic and dialogic discourses reflects a semiotic contemplation on the conditions of the relation between a sign and its object/referent, which has already been addressed by Peirce. The core to Kristeva‘s formulation lies in whether ‗words/utterances/texts‘ refer to fixed objects/referents. The ‗0-1‘ logic and
‗0-2‘ logic suggest Kristeva acknowledges a fixed sign-referent relation in natural
22 This is from Paul Ricoeur‘s review on Greimas‘s narrative grammar, which alludes to an interview of Greimas published as ‗Entretien avec Frederic Nef.‘ In F. Nef ‘s Structures élémentaires de la Signification (1976).
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language but insists on an aberration of that relation in poetical language. Peirce has also discussed such issues by his less frequently quoted notions: logic, grammar and rhetoric. Logic, in a narrow sense, deals with ‗the general conditions of the reference of Symbols and other Signs to their professed Objects, that is, it is the theory of the conditions of truth‘ ('Minute Logic', CP 2.93, 1902). Grammar concerns ‗the general conditions of their [signs‘] having any meaning‘; while rhetoric caters for ‗the conditions of their transferring their meaning to other signs‘(‗Detached Ideas Continued and the Dispute Between Nominalists and Realists‘, NEM 4:331, 1898).
The distinction among logic, grammar and rhetoric can be termed as the modalities of the relation between sign and its object/referent, with logic defining a modality formed by truth value, grammar by legitimacy and rhetoric by ‗evolution of thoughts‘
(‗The Logic of Mathematics; An Attempt to Develop My Categories from Within‘, CP 1.444, c. 1896), or to speak for Kristeva, by ‗poeticness‘. The modality of sign-object relations is the root that distinguishes Kristeva‘s model from Popovič‘s. Popovič‘s model is based on a strong Slavonic traditional use of ―intertextuality‖, which concerns the manipulation of texts across systems23. On the other hand, all of Kristeva‘s and Bakhtin‘s formulations on language use (i.e. natural/poetic language &
primary/secondary speech genres) and their concerns for ‗grammar‘24 hinge on the modalities of sign-object relation. Hence, despite the shared terminology
‗intertextuality‘, the two models talk about two fundamentally different aspects of text.
23 For instance, Ďurišin, following Victor Zhirmunsky and Zhirmunsky‘s mentor A Veseolovsky, proposes a model of comparative investigation of literature (1974) that investigates inter-textual relation as different kinds of literary ‗contacts‘ and ‗affinities‘ across literary systems.
24 Grammar is addressed in both Kristeva‘s and Bakhtin‘s work. Bakhtin sees grammar and expression as interdependent: ‗Grammar (and lexicon) is essentially different from stylistics (some even oppose it
24 Grammar is addressed in both Kristeva‘s and Bakhtin‘s work. Bakhtin sees grammar and expression as interdependent: ‗Grammar (and lexicon) is essentially different from stylistics (some even oppose it