I don’t know what it is that I was looking for, but somehow I ended up looking up posthumanism and linguistics. Anyway, I landed on Adrian Pablé’s article, ‘Linguistics for the apocalypse’, in which he proclaims that linguistics is doomed, because of, well, what he seems to think is nonsense.
What is he (104) referring to with this? Well, that would be posthumanism. Who is he referring to with this? Those would be Alastair Pennycook, in his book ‘Posthumanist Applied Linguistics’, Lionel Wee, in his book ‘Posthumanist World Englishes’, and Leonie Cornips in her article ‘The final frontier: Non-human animals on the linguistic research agenda’. Then there’s also Ana Deumert who assesses the idea of spectral voices in ‘What about Ghosts? Towards a Sociolinguistics of the Spectre’. Oh, and no, she doesn’t mean ghosts, as such, but rather how polyphony and heteroglossia may involve spectral voices, like how various voices appear to be, let’s say, haunted by voices of the past.
More broadly speaking, he (104) is objecting to the shift away from humans, as in from humanism, hence his opposition to posthumanism, which is what comes after humanism. So, it’s a bit like a structuralist who opposes post-structuralism, or an empiricist who opposes post-empiricism. Or it’s akin to a phenomenologist who opposes post-phenomenology, or a modernist who opposes postmodernism.
What’s great about all those, all that’s post, like post-structuralism or post-empiricism, what I’d say I subscribe to, is that they are always beyond something, whatever it is. They can be difficult to understand, but that’s because they are already past, post, beyond, moving on to something. If they became their own thing, not content being post-something, then they’d stop moving. Simply put, they function in response to something, not to negate it, as such, but to go beyond it, taking what’s valuable in it, making use of it, while also moving on, abandoning what’s not valuable.
What is the problem with humanism then? Why opt for posthumanism instead? Well, the problem with it is that it takes humanity for granted and gives it special treatment. It’s not that it doesn’t do any good, because it does, but rather that it forgets to question itself. Why is the human, the subject, the self, the individual, the ‘I’, a given?
Linguists build on that, like all the time. There’s this autonomous and rational subject, i.e., the speaker, who chooses to do something in relation to something else, be it an object, or another subject, i.e., the hearer, or in relation to itself, thinking and reflecting. Language is then typically understood as communication of information between subjects, i.e., the speaker and the hearer.
He (104) objects to how we are understood as constructs, constructed from not ourselves, both physically and semiotically. Now, I don’t know about you, but this ain’t news. Ask biologists, biochemists or geneticists and they’ll tell you that, of course, humans are constructs. This is also something that Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (41) point out in ‘A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia’:
“The entire organism must be considered in relation to a double articulation, and on different levels.”
For them (42), there are three of these levels: morphogenetic, cellular, and genetic. In the first one, you have molecules which are first ordered according to their sequences or segments, and then compounded to form the various molar organs, like the hands I’m using to write this essay. In the second one, you have cellular chemistry, which deals with the internals of the molecules, as you might expect. It deals with those sequences or segments, be they small or large, and how they come to be that way, small or large, as well as how the small compound to form the large. It’s kind of like micromolecules forming macromolecules. In the third one, you have the creation of those micromolecules that involves the sequences of the proteins and the sequences of the nucleic acids. In all of these, there’s double articulation or double segmentation, so that, for example, the proteins and nucleic acids double up on themselves, as well as on one another.
We could go even further, to a fourth level, to address how those are composed, to deal with the nucleotides, and to a fifth level, to address how those are composed, but that’s beside the point. The idea here is that double articular, that double segmentation allows us to start with something small and to combine them in many, many ways to create some larger composite, and then even larger composite. We can then also think that the other way around, that so that we decompose the larger into a large number of smaller components, which we then can decompose into a large number of smaller components, and so on and so forth.
Now, I can’t vouch for how accurate that is. I totally understand how they explain double articulation in the context of geology and geomorphology, as well as in linguistics and semiotics, but the biology part, yeah, let’s just say that biology isn’t exactly my forte or, rather, still isn’t my forte, as I’ve pointed out years ago and haven’t done a whole lot to improve in that regard. Maybe one day.
Then there’s the role of retroviruses. It’s not uncommon that our genetics is … how to put it … not our own, and I don’t mean individually our own, but rather collectively not our own. It’s not that they change us, there and then, but rather that, in some cases, they have ended up changing our offspring. Deleuze and Guattari (53) also point this out:
“In addition, fragments of code may be transferred from the cells of one species to those of another, Man and Mouse, Monkey and Cat, by viruses or through other procedures.”
Now, to be fair, while some consider genetics to be semiotic, I don’t see it that way. I’d say that there are genetic codes, so there’s that encoding, yes, but it’s not semiotic. Like Guattari (73-74) in ‘The Role of the Signifier in the Institution’, I’d refer to it as an a-semiotic or non-semiotic encoding. Why? Well, I’ll let him (74) explain that:
“An example of these is the genetic code, or any type of what we call natural encoding, which functions independently of the constitution of any semiotic substance.”
Simply put, it is a code, but it is very limited to code, as he (74) goes on to add:
“These forms of code formalize the arena of material intensities without recourse to any autonomous or translatable code of inscription.”
Again, it has a very limited function. It can’t go beyond itself. To think of it as semiotic, would be a mistake, as he (74) goes on to emphasize:
“One must avoid the semiotic mistake of projecting the idea of ‘inscription’ onto the world of nature. There is no genetic ‘handwriting’.”
Anyway, so, as you can see, I actually agree with Pablé’s objection to endosemiotics. That said, I still don’t agree with him. As limited as it may be, genetic code is still code and, being organic, we our existence to it. Plus, as I pointed out, not all of it is even ours.
Then he (104) has this remark about Jane Bennett’s (112) take on that in her book ‘Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things’, how we are, in fact, “populated and constituted by different swarms of foreigners.” Now, what she states may seem like a real hot take, but, once again, this ain’t news, because what she (112-113) is actually pointing out is how we are, in fact, microbiomes, hosting bacterial cells that, to my understanding, at least match the number of our own cells.
Then he (114-115) has this gripe about going beyond humans, as you do in posthumanism, because it is, after all, about going beyond humans, and giving a fair shake to not only animals and plants, but also to things, what we might also call objects or artifacts, as well as to supernatural beings. Okay, let’s unpack that.
I think there’s some crossed wires here. I think that he (114-115) is adhering to a view in which only humans have agency, whereas others seem to be saying that humans are not the only ones that have agency. Now, I don’t think others are really saying that, at all. It’s rather that they think of agency in a completely different way.
I can’t be sure, but I think that the people he is objecting to are asking us to think in the same way that Deleuze and Guattari ask us to think in ‘A Thousand Plateaus’. They ask us not to think in terms of subjects and objects, as people are used to in linguistics, you know, like subject+verb+object, but in terms of assemblages or, to use the French original, agencements, taking into account the material or physical aspects and the linguistic or semiotic aspects at the same time and pondering how it all comes together, how it stays the way it does, inasmuch as it does, and how it all functions, like how this and/or that functions in relation to this and/or that in this specific arrangement.
To be clear, when you think in terms of assemblages or agencements, it’s not that you insist that there are all these countless things that have agency, as we typically think of it, like this doing something to that, but rather that they all determine what can and cannot happen, there and then. It’s really about thinking in terms of affects, what actions and passions this and/or that body is capable of, in relation to the other bodies.
To give you a couple of examples, ones that they (86) use, think of knives, poison and wine. None of them have agency. Fair enough. Knives and poison have the capacity to harm you, and even kill you. Wine has the capacity to intoxicate you and, yes, also to kill you in large quantities. That’s what they are capable of. They (86) add to this:
“When knife cuts flesh, when food or poison spreads through the body, when a drop of wine falls into water, there is an intermingling of bodies[.]”
But that accounts only for half of the assemblages or agencements. That’s just the physical or material side that accounts for the bodies and their corporeal transformations. We also need to account for the semiotic or linguistic side that account for the signs and their incorporeal transformations. They (86) exemplify this with language or, should I say, with speech acts:
“[T]he statements, ‘The knife is cutting the flesh,’ ‘I am eating,’ ‘The water is turning red,’ express incorporeal transformations of an entirely different nature (events).”
These are, by the way, totally not the same thing. One side of the assemblage or agencement does not mirror the other. That might be difficult to comprehend, even if you are familiar with speech acts, so let’s just focus on the wine example, as they (86) do:
“[I]f there are good grounds for making a distinction between the incorporeal expressed ‘to become red’ and the corporeal quality ‘red,’ etc., it has nothing to with representation.”
To clarify this a bit, so, whatever we say or write, that is to say express, is always an act, which is why, for them (79), speech consists of speech acts. So, I say that the ‘wine is red’, I assert that it is ‘red’, whatever that means. I don’t describe the wine. The word ‘red’ doesn’t represent some physical quality of the wine, as they (86) point out in that example. The ‘red’ doesn’t even refer to the wine, as such, as they (86) go on to add:
“We cannot even say that the body or state of things is the ‘referent’ of the sign.”
What’s going on then? Well, a speech act is taking place, as they (86) put it:
“In expressing the noncorporeal attribute, and by that token attributing it to the body, one is not representing or referring but intervening in a way; it is a speech act.”
I think I need to provide a couple of more examples. They also exemplify the two sides of the assemblage or assemblage when they (80) state that:
“[T]he judge’s sentence that transforms the accused into a convict.”
So, here we have another speech act. I’ll specify this further, but let’s account for the physical or material aspects first, as they (80) do:
“[W]hat takes place beforehand (the crime of which someone is accused), and what takes place after (the carrying out of the penalty), are actions-passions affecting bodies (the body of the property, the body of the victim, the body of the convict, the body of the prison).”
Someone did something, let’s say that one person injured another person. That’s body acting on a body. Then there’s what happens after, when the person is put into a prison. Once again, that’s a body acting on another body. But there’s more, so let’s account for the semiotic or linguistic aspects, as they (80-81) also do:
“[T]he transformation of the accused into a convict is a pure instantaneous act or incorporeal attribute that is the expressed of the judge’s sentence.”
Indeed. One body, that of the ‘accused’, is attributed by another body, by the ‘judge’, so that we understand it differently, as a ‘convict’. Now, it does need to be a ‘judge’, which is also an attribute. A random person in the courtroom cannot do that. In other words, to account for speech acts, you also need to account for other speech acts. Note also how that act changes nothing about the bodies, as such. They remain physically the same. There is no crossover.
That’s a good example of how assemblages or agencements are dynamic. While they are relatively stable, it doesn’t take much to change them. All it takes is a corporeal transformation, one body acting on another body, or an incorporeal transformation, signs acting on signs, attributing bodies. All of that is, of course, inevitable. Even if we refrain from expressing anything linguistically, or semiotically, bodies are constantly affecting other bodies, as this constant and minute wear and tear.
What I’m really puzzled by Pablé’s (106) opposition to such views on language. His (106) opposition is largely in reference to Wee’s take on Deleuze’s or, I should correct it here, Deleuze and Guattari’s take on linguistics and, more broadly speaking, semiotics. I can kind of see why. Okay, so, in his book, ‘Posthumanist World Englishes’, Wee (17) states that
“[S]igns do not merely represent or refer as though the semiotic occupies a non-material self-enclosed realm that must then somehow try to establish a connection with the material world.”
I agree. This has already been covered. The linguistic or semiotic side of the assemblage is not referential, nor representational. Anyway, he (17) continues:
“The semiotic includes the material.”
I don’t agree. It never, ever includes the material or, to be more accurate, it never, ever includes the physical. If it did, it would collapse the distinction between the two sides of the assemblages or agencements. It can and must be understood as material though, but only in the sense that it’s then linguistic or semiotic material. What do I mean? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Well, no, it is not. Let me explain in reference to Baruch Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’.
This is Spinozism 101. There is matter, what Spinoza refers to as substance. We humans understand this matter through two attributes, extension and thought. There are infinite attributes, as substance is infinite, but we understand it through these two attributes, because we are finite. Extension is the physical aspect of matter and thought is the linguistic or semiotic aspect of matter. They do not refer, nor represent one another. They are the same matter, just understood differently.
Oh, and you do need both sides of the assemblage or agencement. You do need both attributes. You can’t have one without the other.
Now, this is not to say that Wee is not correct about other things, as he (17) goes on to add that:
“So signs can have material effects on other signs by initiating a process of assembling with the result that other signs are then ordered.”
I agree, even if I think the wording is a bit misleading. Incorporeal transformations do not alter the bodies as only bodies can alter bodies, but they do indeed trigger certain changes in the way we understand it all, which may then result in corporeal transformations. While I generally speaking agree with what he (17) still adds to this, I’m not entirely convinced by this:
“Note that this is consequential in that a sign must be understood to not only have material effects, it also goes against a strict understanding of the autonomy of signs as constituting self-contained and sharply bounded systems”
Yes, they have material effects, but only inasmuch as the incorporeal transformations alter our understanding of certain bodies and prompts us to act in relation to them in a certain way. What’s totally correct here, however, is that while the linguistic or semiotic side of assemblages or agencements remains separate from their material or physical side, the two sides depend on one another and a transformation in one can result in a transformation in the other, albeit indirectly. And I know, I know, I’m being a bit nitpicky here, giving Wee flak, even though I largely agree.
To be honest, even if one opts to just ignore Deleuze and Guattari, much of what they have to say about language is aligned with speech act theory. I mean it is pretty radical, sure, but that was like a thing before posthumanism was a thing, so I’m not sure whether opposing Deleuze and Guattari’s take on language is going to change anything. What’s different from speech act theory is that the subject is decentered, so that language is dialogic, heteroglossic and polyphonous, as Mikhail Bakhtin and Valentin Vološinov would explain it.
References
- Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Cornips, L. (2019). The final frontier: Non-human animals on the linguistic research agenda. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 36: 13–19.
- Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari ([1980] 1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
- Deumert, A. (2018). What about Ghosts? Towards a Sociolinguistics of the Spectre. Diggit Magazine.
- Guattari, F. ([1972/1977] 1984). The Role of the Signifier in the Institution. In F. Guattari, Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics (R. Sheed, Trans.) (pp. 73–81). Harmondsworth, United Kingdom: Penguin Books.
- Pablé, A. (2022). Linguistics for the apocalypse. Language & Communication, 86, 104–110.
- Pennycook, A. (2018). Posthumanist Applied Linguistics. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge.
- Spinoza, B. ([1667] 1884). The Ethics. In B. Spinoza, The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, Vol. II (R. H. M. Elwes, Trans.) (pp. 43–271). London, United Kingdom: George Bell and Sons.
- Wee, L. (2021). Posthumanist World Englishes. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.