Julia Kristeva’s Notions of ‘the Semiotic’ and Intertextuality

The semiotic and the symbolic

Kristeva's general model of signifying practice is derived from Lacan's integration of Freudian
analysis and structural semiology. Her conception of the semiotic and the symbolic functions
operating in Psychical, textual and social life is based on the distinction Freud developed
between pre-Oedipal and Oedipal sexual drives.

The semiotic, as Kristeva uses the term, can be correlated with the anarchic, pre-Oedipal
component drives, and polymorphous erotogenic zones, orifices and organs. The semiotic is the
'raw material' of signification, the corporeal, libidinal matter that must be harnessed and
appropriately channelled for social cohesion and regulation. These infantile drives are
indeterminate, capable of many aims, sources and objects. Kristeva describes the semiotic as
'feminine', a phase dominated by the space of the mother's body.

Kristeva defines this space, following Plato's Timaeus, as the semiotic chora. It is a space or
receptacle, an undecidably enveloped and enveloping locus from which the subject is both
produced and threatened with annihilation. The chora defines and structures the limits of the
child's body and its ego or identity as a subject. It is the space of the subversion of the subject,
the space in which the death drive emerges and threatens to engulf the subject, to reduce it to the
inertia of non-existence. . . .

If the semiotic is pre-Oedipal, based on primary processes and is maternally oriented, by contrast
the symbolic is an Oedipalized system, regulated by secondary processes and the Law of the
Father. The symbolic is the domain of positions and propositions. The symbolic is an order
superimposed on the semiotic. The symbolic control of the various semiotic processes is,
however, tenuous and liable to break down or lapse at certain historically, linguistically and
psychically significant moments. It results in an upheaval in the norms of the smooth,
understandable text. The semiotic overflows its boundaries in those privileged 'moments'
Kristeva specifies in her triad of subversive forces: madness, holiness and poetry. (p. 124)

Coining the word Intertextuality

Although Saussure stressed the importance of the relationship of signs to each other, one of the
weaknesses of structuralist semiotics is the tendency to treat individual texts as discrete, closed-
off entities and to focus exclusively on internal structures. Even where texts are studied as a
'corpus' (a unified collection), the overall generic structures tend themselves to be treated as
strictly bounded. The structuralist's first analytical task is often described as being to delimit the
boundaries of the system (what is to be included and what excluded), which is logistically
understandable but ontologically problematic. Even remaining within the structuralist paradigm,
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we may note that codes transcend structures. The semiotic notion of intertextuality introduced by
Julia Kristeva is associated primarily with poststructuralist theorists. Kristeva referred to texts in
terms of two axes:

- a horizontal axis connecting the author and reader of a text

- a vertical axis, which connects the text to other texts (Kristeva 1980, 69).

Uniting these two axes are shared codes: every text and every reading depends on prior codes.
Kristeva declared that 'every text is from the outset under the jurisdiction of other discourses
which impose a universe on it' (cited in Culler 1981, 105). She argued that rather than confining
our attention to the structure of a text we should study its 'structuration' (how the structure came
into being). This involved siting it 'within the totality of previous or synchronic texts' of which it
was a 'transformation' (Le texte du roman, cited by Coward & Ellis 1977, 52).

Elaboration of the term:

Intertextuality refers to far more than the 'influences' of writers on each other. For structuralists,
language has powers which not only exceed individual control but also determine subjectivity.
Structuralists sought to counter what they saw as a deep-rooted bias in literary and aesthetic
thought which emphasized the uniqueness of both texts and authors (Sturrock 1986, 87). The
ideology of individualism (with its associated concepts of authorial 'originality', 'creativity' and
'expressiveness') is a post-Renaissance legacy which reached its peak in Romanticism but which
still dominates popular discourse. 'Authorship' was a historical invention. Concepts such as
'authorship' and 'plagiarism' did not exist in the Middle Ages. 'Before 1500 or thereabouts people
did not attach the same importance to ascertaining the precise identity of the author of a book
they were reading or quoting as we do now' (Goldschmidt 1943, 88). Saussure emphasized that
language is a system which pre-exists the individual speaker. For structuralists and
poststructuralists alike we are (to use the stock Althusserian formulation) 'always already'
positioned by semiotic systems - and most clearly by language. Contemporary theorists have
referred to the subject as being spoken by language. Barthes declares that 'it is language which
speaks, not the author; to write is... to reach the point where only language acts, "performs", and
not "me"' (Barthes 1977, 143). When writers write they are also written. To communicate we
must utilize existing concepts and conventions. Consequently, whilst our intention to
communicate and what we intend to communicate are both important to us as individuals,
meaning cannot be reduced to authorial 'intention'. To define meaning in terms of authorial
intention is the so-called 'intentional fallacy' identified by W K Wimsatt and M C Beardsley of
the 'New Critical' tendency in literary criticism (Wimsatt & Beardsley 1954). We may, for
instance, communicate things without being aware of doing so. As Michael de Montaigne wrote
in 1580, 'the work, by its own force and fortune, may second the workman, and sometimes out-
strip him, beyond his invention and knowledge' (Essays, trans. Charles Cotton: 'Of the art of

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conferring' III, 8). Furthermore, in conforming to any of the conventions of our medium, we act
as a medium for perpetuating such conventions.

Authorship with regard to intertextuality:

Theorists of intertextuality problematize the status of 'authorship', treating the writer of a text as
the orchestrator of what Roland Barthes refers to as the 'already-written' rather than as its
originator (Barthes 1974, 21). 'A text is... a multidimensional space in which a variety of
writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations... The writer
can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix
writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them'
(Barthes 1977, 146). In his book S/Z, Barthes deconstructed Balzac's short story Sarrasine,
seeking to 'de-originate' the text - to demonstrate that it reflects many voices, not just that of
Balzac (Barthes 1974). It would be pure idealism to regard Balzac as 'expressing himself' in
language since we do not precede language but are produced by it. For Barthes, writing did not
involve an instrumental process of recording pre-formed thoughts and feelings (working from
signified to signifier) but was a matter of working with the signifiers and letting the signifieds
take care of themselves (Chandler 1995, 60ff). Claude Lévi-Strauss declared that: 'I don't have
the feeling that I write my books, I have the feeling that my books get written through me... I
never had, and still do not have, the perception of feeling my personal identity. I appear to
myself as the place where something is going on, but there is no "I", no "me"' (cited in Wiseman
& Groves 2000, 173).

Defining features of intertextuality

It may be useful to consider the issue of 'degrees of intertextuality'. Would the 'most intertextual'
text be an indistinguishable copy of another text, or would that have gone beyond what it means
to be intertextual? Would the 'most intratextual' text be one which approached the impossible
goal of referring only to itself? Even if no specific text is referred to, texts are written within
genres and use language in ways which their authors have seldom 'invented'. Intertextuality does
not seem to be simply a continuum on a single dimension and there does not seem to be a
consensus about what dimensions we should be looking for. Intertextuality is not a feature of the
text alone but of the 'contract' which reading it forges between its author(s) and reader(s). Since
the dominant mode of producing texts seems to involve masking their debts, reflexivity seems to
be an important issue - we need to consider how marked the intertextuality is. Some defining
features of intertextuality might include the following:

 reflexivity: how reflexive (or self-conscious) the use of

intertextuality seems to be (if reflexivity is important to what it means to be intertextual,
then presumably an indistinguishable copy goes beyond being intertextual);

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  alteration: the alteration of sources (more noticeable alteration
presumably making it more reflexively intertextual);
 explicitness: the specificity and explicitness of reference(s) to other
text(s) (e.g. direct quotation, attributed quotation) (is assuming recognition more
reflexively intertextual?);
 criticality to comprehension: how important it would be for the
reader to recognize the intertextuality involved;
 scale of adoption: the overall scale of allusion/incorporation within
the text; and
 structural unboundedness: to what extent the text is presented (or
understood) as part of or tied to a larger structure (e.g. as part of a genre, of a series, of a
serial, of a magazine, of an exhibition etc.) - factors which are often not under the control
of the author of the text.

Textual analysis of Nettles on intertextuality

The fiction Nettles is a short story written by the famous Canada female writer Alice Munro. The
story gains its fame by its narrative strategies, theme, and usage of symbolism. However, the
concern will about the application of intertextuality as a device to create Déjà Vu phenomenon
since seldom of scholars have ever have a touch in this field. Base on the textual analysis of
Nettles, the art of intertextuality will be demonstrated.

At the beginning of the story, the narrator says, “In the summer of 1979, I walked into
the kitchen of my friend Sunny’s house, and saw a man standing at the counter, making himself a
ketchup sandwich.” This paragraph tells readers that the following story may be related to this
man, and it arouses readers’ interest in going through the whole story with suspense and all their
previous knowledge of men, relations between women and men, and the same scene which they
have encounter before no matter in real life or in the movies. In the middle of the story, the
narrator gives the identity of this man, “…We walked into the kitchen, where Mike McCallum
was spreading ketchup on a piece of bread.” Then we know that the man in the kitchen is Mike
McCallum, the man the narrator loved. The narrative sequence of the story makes this simple
plot more attractive, arouses readers’ interests to go further into this story.

This is the technique of rhetorical or literary presupposition of intertextuality. When the

narrator and Mike recall their childhood memories, she says, “the things Mike remembered were
different from the things I remembered,” which reminds readers of the gender differences of men
and women in remembering things. Then readers may apply their knowledge of gender
differences to understand the descriptions of how different the things they remembered. Because
women are more emotionally expressive, more emotionally responsive, more emphatic and more
sensitive to others’ feelings, so it is quite easy for readers to get the smooth feeling of the
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narrator’s affection towards Mike. “There was a keen alarm when the cry came, a wire zinging
through your body, a fanatic feeling of devotion…” Why she thinks Mike has a “sweet and
vulnerable belly button”—because she likes Mike, and she remembers the details between Mike
and her.
Also with this gender knowledge, readers can also sense the meticulous feeling revealed
in many other scenes. For example, in the scene when they are in the garden watching the stars,
the narrator hoping to touch Mike, “I want to brush against him—just lightly and accidentally
against his arm or shoulders. Then if he didn’t stir away out of courtesy, taking my touch for a
genuine accident?—I want to lay a finger against his bare neck. ”—she longs to, struggles to and
finally fails to touch him. On the other hand, men control their feelings, restrain from expressing
their feelings, and insensitive to details. For example, Mike remember the “clay cannonballs and
the war”, but fails to remember more details of their childhood, at least fewer than the female
one does. It seems that Mike fails to catch the implication of narrator’s words, her behaviours
and her emotional changes.
These are due to the gender differences in people’s behaviors. Readers can sense the
complex feeling with their previous knowledge. By using the technique of intertextuality, the
author involves readers into the world she created to experience the same things the characters
experienced. When concerns with the absorption and transformation of other works, in this work,
intertextuality remain its value. “Lying in the same sheets did not make for a peaceful night.”
This scene happens when “I” sleep in the bed which belongs to Mike, “I” have a struggle and
longing for Mike. Then reader will think why it is not a peaceful night. Therefore, a lot of images
which they have meet either in films or in novels how the female one lying in bed sleepless
looking at the door again and again hoping the male one who sleeps right outside the sofa in the
living room would break the door and come to her appear to the readers.

When going back to the title “nettles”, readers get the first impression of this kind of
plant—a kind of wild plant with rough leaves that sting you. With the first knowledge, readers
may go further to get the implicature of nettles. Then they know that the plants that sting them
are not nettles, just like the love between “I” and Mike is not “nettles” either, and it is inflective
love which produces no results. From above, we can see that borrowing materials from other
media is quite an effective way to achieve certain purpose because readers may quickly occur in
their mind the same experience they have already experienced or seem to experience before.
With the trans-moving from the text and their thoughts, readers lose themselves in the fancy
travel of déjà vu. The text become unique to them, for different reader may have different
experience and thus has different journey in the world of déjà vu. So it is easier for each of them
to obtain unique understanding of this story. With the application of intertextuality, the author
creates a good communication between readers and herself, thus achieves her novel by
enhancing the feeling of déjà vu with a result of striking readers with simple plot but deeper
meaning.

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Lost in Déjà Vu
From the above textual analysis of Nettles, these scenes, characteristics, objects or even places
are so familiar to us, as if once upon a time we have met them in some other places or occasions.
This story is just like a plate of chop-souxy (Chao-fan) which mixes up almost all those that
seem familiar to us. This effect is achieved by the employment of intertextuality, which is far
more complex than we could image. In the world of intertextuality, readers sometimes can
not tell where they really are, whether they are brought to the world created by the story narrator
or they are just trapped in the distant familiar memories that fascinate them so much. The readers
transported from the reality to the imaginations or from the previous memories to the text. All of
these are art of déjà vu produced by the device of intertextuality. The moment when readers
involve themselves into the story, they begin the journey of losing themselves in the
trans-communication between the text itself and their memories. As for the gender differences
which have already been discussed in the former part, we have the general image of what
different attitudes and emotion reflections man and women show towards things. While readers
read these parts related to gender differences in the story, the journey of losing in Déjà Vu starts.
They may think of the passing days when they argue with their opposite-sex parent about a
certain issue and finally with a feeling of frustration or upset that causes them to complain on
misunderstanding or on gap. And also readers may remind themselves of the situations when
girls and boys sitting around doing group works talking about their ideal soul-made half while
the boys finally get the results that are quite different from what girls expect them to be. Just as
what happen in the story, Mike and the narrator treat their relationship differently. For the
narrator, she still has a romantic ideal of love towards Mike after long time of separation.
However, Mike may have changed the puppy love into friendship. From the point of gender roles
played by men and women, they have quite different sense towards love, since if Mike plays a
role of female, he may easily sense that “I” has affection towards him for “my” words and body
language may unconsciously betray “my” feeling. With the previous knowledge of gender
differences, we understand why Mike as a man, usually insensitive, fails to catch “my” feeling.
Therefore, here comes déjà vu because in our lives we once have had this feeling of miss
something due to gender differences. All these images and interpretations are the products of the
usage of in intertextuality, which as a result, cause readers losing themselves in Déjà Vu. But it
on the other hand contributes to the beauty of this story.

Conclusion
From the above analysis of the application of intertextuality and the phenomenon of Déjà Vu
produced by it, we may have a touch of how the art of intertextuality helps us to understand this
novel. The phenomenon of Déjà Vu is universal familiar to us, and with the knowledge of it, we
can discover another aspect of beauty of the story. In this sense, the application of intertextuality
provides us a new way to appreciate a story, a novel, a drama, a film even a piece of music
or a land of constructions. In fact, a world of a story is half created by the author by the
information he or she reflected from his or her words, structures, the way she or he treats things
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and also the strategies and devices she or he employs in the text. However the other half is
composed by the readers themselves. It is said that one thousand readers may interpret one
thousand Hamlets, so this half of the world closer the world of story and the worlds of readers,
for different reader with different understanding of one object according to his or her own
experiences and knowledge immortal the work. In this sense, the device of intertextuality has its
own significance and value in its way. To sum up, with a touch of knowledge of this story by
employing intertextuality, we should bear in mind intertextuality awareness when we going
through a story, a film, an advertisement or a piece of news since it may greatly help to better
understand the works.