Words are hollow empty objects
Myra MacDonald writes in ‘Discourse and Representation’ that “words and images, by defining and labeling phenomena, frame the terms in which we think about these and may, in turn, influence policy making”. She says that the use of language can both create and perpetuate meaning in our cultural and social relationships. Gavin Kitching, a lecturer at UNSW in political studies, wrote in a recent essay in The Australian Literary Review (Kitching 2008) that this sort of postmodern treatment of language has created a school of thinking that is itself impotent in discussing things of substance.
This is Kitching’s reponse to students honours papers that he analysed for his book ‘The Trouble with Theory: The Educational Costs of Postmodernism’.
The failure of all the student authors to appreciate the significance of the distinction between language and the use of language (and the determinism that produced) was also closely bound up with their conception of the meaning of words. Nearly always these students treated abstract nouns as if they were the names of curious sorts of hollow objects. And “doing theory” therefore consists of looking at “society” (another object) from somewhere imaginatively outside “it”, and seeing how the people who, as it were, have to live inside these hollow spaces are constrained in their thoughts and actions as a result. (Kitching 2008)
I, a student who has been plagued by postmodern theory since it was first introduced to me in year 11 with the new Board of Studies English syllabus, have no ammunition but postmodern thought to retaliate against Kitching with, so I will begin by analysing his use of language.
Kitching writes that there is a significant distinction between language and the use of language. I am sure he is trying to illustrate something similar to the significant distinction between roads and the use of roads. There is a road outside my home that goes to Sydney University, actually the road passes Sydney University, it would really depend on my use of the road whether I went to Sydney University or not. I would have to turn off the road. I have thus illustrated how roads and the use of roads are different.
In the same regard I will use language to tell you how it is distinctively different from the use of language.
There is a language outside my home that goes to Sydney University, actually the language passes Sydney University, it would really depend on my use of the language whether I went to Sydney University or not. I would have to turn off the language. I have thus illustrated how language and the use of language are different.
I am unsure if I have made a point. I am unsure what point I wish to make. I will let Kitching make another point while I turn off my language:
The problems that result from not distinguishing the definition of words from their uses, and from always treating abstractions as the names of imprisoning objects, are further compounded when the two misunderstandings are put together, as in fashionable postmodernist treatment of identity or subjectivity. Here, language as the ultimately hollow and imprisoning object, is put together with the notion that anybody who uses words must be committed to the standard definition of those words, to produce the conclusion that “language” determines the meaning of “identity” words such as man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, natural, normal – and thus “constructs” (as it is said) human identity or subjectivity itself.” (Kitching 2008)
As a student corrupted by postmodernism I completely agree with this “words as hollow objects” business that Kitching takes a distaste to. I mean what is “Gavin Kitching”? I know he is a lecturer, but what is a lecturer? We have to find these definitions for the words, and forget about their uses. But whenever I look for the definitions I only find more words, and then I need to look for those definitions. And who wrote those definitions anyway, probably one of Kitching’s pals over at Macquarie and their gumtree green dictionary. I will instead define it by the use of the words. In fact I will create a use for the word, I am never really going to use “Gavin Kitching” again so I will redefine it. I am looking for a word to describe the combined water and toothpaste residue that builds up around my electric toothbrush.
I just got up and walked into my bathroom and pointed at the electric toothbrush.
“Look at all that Gavin Kitching, I’m going to have to clean up that Gavin Kitching otherwise my flat mates going to start complaining to me about how disgusting that Gavin Kitching is.”
I have just made a performative utterance that according to J.L. Austin, the founding father of performance studies (a very postmodernist school of thought), uses language to change status. (Austin 1975)
An example of this is the utterance “I do” that changes the status of someone to spouse.
So my act of ‘naming’ the toothpaste and water residue staining my basin in my bathroom has reduced Kitching to scum.
Or is that slander?
Language isn’t static and the study of language as dynamic and treating words as hollow objects is necessary to understand power play in society, and how words can become loaded.
Language defines our society we need to treat it skeptically so excuse me for questioning definitions.
Marshall McLuhan says that writing is a medium that reproduces speech and that speech is a medium that reproduces thought so in a sense writing is consciousness and i would appreciate someone that would argue with me that consciousness is stable and consistently definable. (McLuhan 1964)
NB. Gavin Kitching is not toothpaste residue. I enjoyed his article and intend to read his book. I am oblivious if Gavin Kitching has any friends that work on Macquarie Dictionary. I was being postmodern.
Austin, J.L. 1975, How to do things with words, 2d edn, Clarendon Press, Oxford [Eng.].
McDonald, M 2003, Exploring Media Discourse, Arnold, c.1 ‘Discourse and representation’.
McLuhan, M. 1964, Understanding media : the extensions of man, Routledge; Kegan Paul, London.
