Kristeva states that, ‘The drives that extract the body from its homogeneous shell and turn it into a space linked to the outside, they are the forces which mark out the chora[6] in process.’[7] Kristeva identifies a reciprocal relationship between language and humans, which is more fluid than Saussure’s structured and rigid semiotics. In the latter, the structure of language remains consistent and in the former, the structure of language is open to change. Kristeva locates an interplay between internal (psychological) and external (social text) forces that structure language. This means that humans are not limited to a language that structures us but that we can steer and deploy language differently. Humans require language to communicate and language needs humans to exist or to be kept alive. Kristeva suggest that texts insert themselves into other texts, their valuation is based on the dialogical mode and what is kept relevant and alive; ‘Any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another.’[8] Within Kristeva’s system, a single entity is never autonomous, as each unit is multi-determined and correlates or is integrated with another unit.

 I identify with elements of Kristeva’s Post-structuralist position, which claims that language could not independently exist by itself without human dialogue. In Kristeva’s account, humans act like a bridge that links language to the outside social text.However, Kristeva’s focus is on a language system centered around human perception and this could be interpreted to mean that objects (imbued with textual meaning by humans) are relevant and alive but things (self-presenting without immediate recourse to language) are irrelevant and dead. Kristeva’s language as dialogue fluctuates between the internal (human psychology) and external (human society) without recourse to nonhuman entities.

 Therefore, Saussure’s structuralist theory actually allows more possibilities for ‘things’ because the gap between signified and signifier suggests that there is a space for a thing to self-present without language (signifying without a stabilized signified). A space of potentiality that isn’t immediately related back into the interplay of human language but could affect the perceptions that inform language systems. Therefore, withdrawing the usual interplay of language between human and thing has the potential to alter the normative perceptive field of humans. Producing the following question: without relating my experience to an outside of societal norms, what will I see in things?

However, there is still room to doubt the stability of a sign within Saussure’s theory, as an interval exists between signifier and signified. This is an interval that suggests that there can be errors or manipulation within communication, in the sense that the signifier may not be able to carry over its meaning (signified). For example, when a very young preverbal child is playing with their toys and then begins to cry, it may not be clear to their parents what has caused them to be upset. The parent receives the signifier without understanding what the signified is (the actual reason for the crying, or concept) and so they do not immediately understand how to react.

Saussure’s theory highlights that human often neglect the distance between signifier and signified. Parent and child do not share the same idea of either signifier or signified, which leads to a gap between the thing and name. In effect, the thing and name have been pulled away from each other. In Saussure’s theory, the signifier operates like a thing and the signified corresponds to the name. I think of the sign as an object; with the signifier acting as the thing, which allows the viewer to experience it, and the signified as the name, which provides the viewer with the tools to recall and use it. The signifier and signified are related to each other in Saussure’s theory but he also shows that neither one can be equated to the whole object, as the sign relies on these two differentials. Although, Saussure allows for this distance between signifier and signified they are both still related to the human subject, as Saussure has produced an object through two human orientated sides (signifier and signified). Saussure presents us with a distance between two poles of the sign, but they still rely on each other through their human receiver (the third position). This entails that the most ordinary things are not granted an identity without possessing a name. For example, an art critic who writes an article comprised of subject-specific words that are intended to describe the artwork perfectly, a process in which the writer has both the signifier and signified (name and thing) in mind while describing, assumes that the reader will be able to understand the work from reading their words. If the reader does not visit the show, they will only receive the description through the critic’s or observer’s words (signified/name and definition). This is an erroneous approach, as the reader is not experiencing the work and cannot feel, sense and intuit it. If they did encounter the artwork in person, then they would most likely realize that their original mental image, which is produced from the text, is very different to their experience. For example, while looking at an artwork in a gallery, there is either a gap or an addition after looking at the artwork’s label (title). When looking at both the artwork and its title, there can be either:
a) a lack of connection in putting both together,
b) the title will seem to overpower the artwork or
c) the title becomes another material within the artwork. Either the title is an addition (as in ‘c’) or a subtraction (as in ‘a’ or ‘b’), for me they are often two individuals (title and artwork) and they are unnaturally forced to tied together tightly.