Hjelmslev’s Univocity
by Beth Metcalf
Saussure presented his bond between ‘signified’ and ‘signifier’ as an attempt to break with the traditional notion of language as a naming process. Saussure sees the role of language as a linking of signified (concept) with signifier (sound-image). The ‘sign’ is the bond where the choice of signifier has no natural connection with a signified. This signifier-signified bond, therefore, is called ‘arbitrary’. However, Deleuze and Guattari say (A Thousand Plateaus 71-2), “….The system of the strata thus has nothing to do with signifier and signified, base and superstructure, mind and matter. All of these are ways of reducing the strata to a single stratum, or of closing the system in on itself by cutting it off from the plane of consistency as destratification….”
In Cinema 2, p.210-11 Deleuze describes the “classical conception” of language. Saussure’s Semiology can be seen as an example of this. There are two axes (Diagram 1). The vertical axis of the concept: integration of the syntagm and differentiation of the paradigm. The horizontal axis of the image: similarity of metaphor and contiguity of metonymy. The two axes intersect to find the diverse identities of concept and image. “[I]ndeed, the concept as a whole does not become differentiated without externalizing itself in a sequence of associated images, and the images do not associate without being internalized in a concept as the whole which integrates them. Hence the ideal of knowledge as a harmonious totality which sustains the classical representation.”
In Cinema 2 (p.27) Deleuze says, in discussing this classical semiology, the root of the difficulty is in the assimilation of image to utterance, because this assimilation depends on resemblance or analogy. This means that, on the one hand, semiology reduces the similarity and continuity of the image (metaphor and metonymy) to the analogy of signs belonging to a signifier. On the other hand, the codification (conceptual form in syntagm and paradigm) is the structure underlying the signification. Everything takes place by this overcoding of form with this analogical substance. Substance, then, is already formed matter.
Deleuze says (D&R275) “….the matter-form couple is not sufficient to describe the mechanism of determination: matter is already informed…. And the whole is under the protection of the categories. In fact, this couple is completely internal to representation….” Saussure claims that the articulation of sound (signifier) with thought (signified) produces a form and not a substance. However, Deleuze is saying that Saussure is unaware his ‘form’ already informs his matter. Although Saussure thought his sign was an “arbitrary” bond between signified and signifier, he still unconsciously correlated this sign with a referent (a formed substance) that was not arbitrary. An already formed substance may have variability. However, it does not reach the differential relation (D&R173) of the Idea which “….integrates variation, not as a variable determination of a supposedly constant relation (‘variability’) but, on the contrary, as a degree of variation of the relation itself (‘variety’).…If the Idea eliminates variability, this is in favour of what must be called variety or multiplicity.” (See also C2 p.27-28, for Deleuze’s distinction between ‘mould’ and ‘modulation’.) Saussure’s coupling of form and matter never reaches real distinction. It reduces everything to a numerical distinction of analogical substances.
Saussure sees language as relations of negative differences. But Deleuze says, (Difference & Repetition, p.204) “…why does Saussure, at the very moment when he discovers that ‘in language there are only differences’, add that these difference are ‘without positive terms’ and ‘eternally negative’?....Everything points to the contrary.” Deleuze’s univocity is not the ‘difference’ of opposition. Rather, it is the problematic field of positive multiplicity. (DR205) “When difference is read as opposition, it is deprived of the peculiar thickness in which its positivity is affirmed.”
Semiology is the coupling of concept (form) and image (substance). Saussure still sees the negative coupling of form and matter. Saussure’s signifier is that which Deleuze and Guattari call (Anti-Oedipus 206-7) “transcendence”, “biunivocalizaiton”, “despotistm” or “overcoding” of the signifier. Saussure’s sign was overcoded by a biunivocalizing Despotic Signifier which still acted as a referent and was not truly arbitrary.
Hjelmslev, in (A Thousand Plateaus 43-4), is called “The Danish Spinozist geologist” who analyzes the stratification of language. Hjelmslev’s ‘net’ involves the notions of matter, content and expression, form and substance (See Diagram 2). This breaks with the traditional form-content, or form-substance, duality where content (or substance) is nothing other than already formed matter.
(ATP44) “There is never
correspondence or conformity between content and expression, only
isomorphism with reciprocal presupposition. The distinction
between content and expression is always real, in various
ways, but it cannot be said that the terms preexist their double
articulation. It is the double articulation that
distributes them according to the line it draws in each stratum,
it is what constitutes their real distinction. (On the
other hand, there is no real distinction between form and
substance, only a mental or modal distinction: since [as we saw
above with Saussure’s bond of signified with signifier]
substances are nothing other than formed matters…)”.
Although Hjelmslev includes the modal distinctions of formed
matter, he no longer reduces linguistics to that.
In fact, Hjelmslev also sees a “coupling”. But Hjelmslev’s coupling must not be confused with Saussure’s diverse coupling of formed-matter. (DR222) “Difference is not diversity.” Hjelmslev’s coupling is a double articulation at the level of the asignifying sign (or non-linguistically formed content). At each stage or degree of intensity there is a coupling of content and expression. I see this as an example of Deleuze’s description of intensive, heterogeneous coupling of the ‘disparate’ not the homogeneity of the diverse. (D&R 222) “Every intensity is E – E’, where E itself refers to an e – e’, and e to e – e’ etc.: each intensity is already a coupling (in which each element of the couple refers in turn to couples of elements of another order), thereby revealing the properly qualitative content of quantity.” Therefore, we see that this double articulation is the coupling that, at each stage, is a new degree of variation which changes the nature (the real distinction) of the variety. However, inside a given stratum (within each actualized variety), there is no real distinction, but formed substances with only modal-numerical distinction.
Therefore, we see why Deleuze and Guattari call Hjelmslev “Spinozist”. The heterogeneity of content and expression is the parallelism of Spinoza’s ‘attributes’ (and ‘powers’ since both linguistic and non-linguistic entities enter into this doubling). The distinction between content and expression is always real, because it is the double articulation that distributes the terms reciprocally. This is the real-formal distinction of double articulation in ontologically single Substance (as unformed Purport). Hjelmslev reached the arbitrary relation between linguistic form (as sign function of the reciprocal presupposition between content and expression) and the unformed Purport. He saw isomorphism of formal-real distinction each time, but no correspondence of a form to a referent (an already formed purport).
In describing unformed Purport, Deleuze and Guattari write (ATP 69) “….if we consider the plane of consistency we note that the most disparate of things and signs move upon it: a semiotic fragment rubs shoulders with a chemical interaction, an electron crashes into a language, a black hole captures a genetic message, a crystallization produces a passion, the wasp and the orchid cross a letter….There is no “like” here, we are not saying “like an electron,” “like and interaction,” etc. The plane of consistency is the abolition of all metaphor; all that consists is Real….The plane of consistency knows nothing of differences in level, orders of magnitude, or distance. It knows nothing of the difference between the artificial and the natural. It knows nothing of the distinction between contents and expressions, or that between forms and formed substances; these things exist only by means of and in relation to the strata.”
Spinoza’s Substance is Hjelmslev’s unformed matter or “amorphous purport”. Spinoza’s attributes of real distinction are Hjelmslev’s double articulation of content and expression. Spinoza’s univocity is real distinction in ontologically singular Substance. And, Hjelmslev finds the real-formal distinction of double articulation and projects this onto the amorphous purport (unformed Substance) to find a really different singularity actualized as a new formed substance each time. Hjelmslev’s is the immanence of Spinozist univocity. Therefore, just as Spinoza’s univocity is One Substance with real distinction of form, so also Hjelmslev’s univocity is “identical” and “amorphous purport” with the real distinction of formation. This is in contrast to Saussure’s numerical distinction of already formed substances (i.e. many substances in one form of diversity).
For Hjelmslev, the sign is no longer Saussure’s overcoding of negative differences. Rather, it is a function between the heterogeneity of the form of content and the form of expression. The sign is an expression of a content projected onto the amorphous purport. Now, each time there is actualized a really distinct content-form. This content-form is in arbitrary relation to the unformed, amorphous purport. Each time its formed content is realized in a really different content-substance (signified). In the same manner, the expression-form is projected onto the amorphous purport and each time is realized in an expression-substance (signifier). The content-substance and expression-substance correspond according to their sign function. There is isomorphism according to their function in reciprocal presupposition, but there is not a prior correspondence between signifier and signified.
Thus, for Hjelmslev, language can form any singularity of purport. Any really distinct form can be projected into unformed Substance to become any formed substance whatsoever. Deleuze and Guattari quote Hjelmslev’s warning (ATP45) “The terms expression plane and content plane…are chosen in conformity with established notions and are quite arbitrary. Their functional definition provides no justification for calling one, and not the other, of these entities expression, or one, and not the other, content. They are defined only by their mutual solidarity, and neither of them can be identified otherwise. They are defined only oppositively and relatively, as mutually opposed functives of one and the same function.”
Deleuze and Guattari write (ATP108), “As Hjelmslev notes an expression is divided, for example, into phonic units in the same way a content is divided into social, zoological, or physical units (“calf” divides into young-bovine-male). The network of binarities, or arborescences, is applicable to both sides. There is, however, no analytic resemblance, correspondence, or conformity between the two planes. But their independence does not preclude isomorphism, in other words, the existence of the same kind of constant relations on both sides. It is by virtue of this type of relations that linguistic and nonlinguistic elements are inseparable from the start, despite their absence of correspondence. The elements of content give the interminglings of bodies clear contours at the same time as the elements of expression give the noncorporeal expressed a power to sentencing or judgment.”
Therefore, Hjelmslev sees the isomorphism, without correspondence, of univocity. The isomorphism is a function that determines the reciprocal relation between ‘form of content’ and ‘form of expression’. But there is no prior correspondence in this parallelism. Deleuze says of Spinoza (Expressionism in Philosophy, p.109) “…the modes of different attributes have not only the same order and the same connection, but the same being; they are the same things…” I take this to mean that there is “isomorphism” between Spinoza’s attributes. However, (EiP, p106) Deleuze says of Spinoza, “Attributes are mutually irreducible and really distinct; none is cause of another, or of anything whatever in another.” I take this to mean that there is “no correspondence” of signifier and signified, form or substance. Hjelmslev, the “Spinozist”, reaches univocity.
Whereas Saussure cannot really reach the arbitrary with his already formed purport, Helmslev sees the purport itself as unformed. Purport can take on any form whatsoever and is therefore arbitrary. It is the ontological Purport that is itself unformed and ontologically single, but it can take on any real distinction. Helmslev’s ‘purport’ is Spinoza’s ‘Substance’ of univocity. This purport in itself cannot be the basis for the description of language. On the contrary, any description of a formed substance must depend on the reciprocal articulation of a linguistic form (really distinct from any other). In other words, Hjelmslev reaches a ‘transcendental empiricism’. (Prolegomena p. 76-7), “It is therefore impossible to introduce at the beginning a description of substance as the basis for the description of a language. On the contrary, the description of substance depends on the description of the linguistic form….Differences between languages do not rest on different realizations of a type of substance, but on different realizations of a principle of formation, or, in other words, on a different form in the face of an identical but amorphous purport.”
Whether the sign is thought to be an expression of an extra-linguistic content, or an entity that arbitrarily connects an expression (signifier) with a content (signified); the notion of language as a sign system is untenable. Deleuze and Guattari read Hjelmslev as saying something much different from that ‘classical’ notion. For Hjelmslev, the sign is a function (an isomorphism) between two functives (content and expression) that have no prior correspondence. For Hjelmslev there is isomorphism but no correspondence.
Using the terminology of Deleuze and Guattari in describing Hjelmslev’s linguistics, the ‘abstract machine’ is the function that operates within the ‘concrete assemblages’ (content and expression). Inside the ‘strata’ (formed substances) there are assemblages of content and assemblages of expression with their ‘double articulation’ in reciprocal presupposition. However, outside the strata, the ‘forms of expression’ are ‘incorporeal transformations’. They inhere in the expressed but are attributed to the ‘form of content’. The expressed is attributed to bodies, but bodies are not the “referent” of a sign. The abstract machine is the function that operates between the functives, content and expression, and effects their double articulation.
Deleuze and Guattari read Hjelmslev as finding the function between expression and content at the level of form. The ‘form of expression’ and the ‘form of content’ are common and reversible. Form is the transversal ‘abstract machine’ between the heterogeneity of the expression and the content. The form of content is a nondiscursive multiplicity which is not a signified. The form of expression is a discursive multiplicity which is not a signifier.
(ATP 67) “In short, we should never oppose words to things that supposedly correspond to them, nor signifiers to signifieds that are supposedly in conformity with them. What should be opposed are distinct formalizations, in a state of unstable equilibrium or reciprocal presupposition. “It is in vain that we say what we see; what we see never resides in what we say.”…..We are never signifier or signified. We are stratified.” (ATP68) “Form of content and form of expression involve two parallel formalizations in presupposition: it is obvious that their segments constantly intertwine, embed themselves in one another; but this is accomplished by the abstract machine from which the two forms derive, and by machinic assemblages that regulate their relations.”
Also, the function, or ‘abstract machine’, draws the cutting edges of absolute deterritorialization and opens the ‘assemblages’ onto another type of assemblage (unformed matter and nonformal function) of cosmic ‘becomings’. There the singular and immanent variety is in variation. Each abstract machine is a “plateau” of variation. Each plateau is a plane of consistency which places content and expression in planes of continuous variation. Each plane is the univocity of a real distinction of form, but each is ontological singularity.
Deleuze in reading Spinoza says, (Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza p.47) “Attributes are thus forms common to God [Substance], whose essence they constitute, and to modes or creatures which imply them essentially.” And just as Spinoza’s heterogeneous parallelism of attributes are univocal forms common to Substance and modes, so also Hjelmslev’s form of content and form of expression are common forms. They are common to Purport (unformed Substance with all real-formal distinction ontologically one) and to the strata (formed modal substance with numerical distinction). This common form is what allows the difference between the essence of Substance (unformed Purport) and the essences of modes (formed substances). (ATP 71) “The abstract machine sometimes develops upon the plane of consistency, whose continuums, emissions, and conjugations it constructs, and sometimes remains enveloped in a stratum whose unity of composition and force of attraction or prehension it defines."
In Deleuze and Guattari’s terminology, these ‘common forms’ (in Substance and modes) are the two states of the ‘abstract machine’. There is the ‘Planomenon’ where the abstract machine constitutes the essence of unformed Purport as a plane of consistency (real distinction in ontologically single Purport). Then, there is the ‘Ecumenon’ where the abstract machine (as form common with its own Planomenon) contains the essence of its mode (formed substances imprisoned in its stratum). The abstract machine composes itself and its plane of consistency as a real-formal distinction of purport. The abstract machine is then the form common to unformed Purport-Substance and the modal-numerical distinction of a stratum. With each new intensive coupling, there is change in the degree of intensity and therefore a real distinction in the common form of the abstract machine. This reterritorializes on a new stratum. The cutting edges of the abstract machine draw the variation. (ATP 73) “Machinic assemblages are simultaneously located at the intersection of the contents and expression on each stratum, and at the intersection of all of the strata with the plane of consistency. They rotate in all directions, like beacons.”