Signature+(Hubbell)


 * Signature**

Signature is a critique of attributing an utterance to an author or speaker via personal pronouns or byline. The attribution of a statement to an author, through a signature, assumes that the author’s presence will continue throughout the future presence of the statement and that the signature is not a representation of multiple individuals.
 * Overview**

Signature speaks to the problematic nature of “source” or authorship in communication. One aspect of signature is the signature of a personal pronoun or name and the other is a speaker’s presence. Derrida derives these two related problems of signature as source from Austin: “This notion of //source//—and what is at stake in it is clear—frequently reappears in what follows and governs the entire analysis in the phase we are examining. Not only does Austin not doubt that the source of an oral utterance in the present indicative active is //present// to the utterance [//enunciation//] and its statement [//enonce//] (I have attempted to explain why we had reasons not to believe so), but he does not even doubt that the equivalent of this tie to the source utterance is simply evident in and assured by a //signature//: ‘Where there is //not//, in the verbal formula of the utterance, a reference to the person doing the uttering, and so the acting, by means of the pronoun ‘I’ (or by his personal name), then in fact he will be 'referred to' in one of two ways: (a) In verbal utterances, //by his being the person who does// the uttering—what we may call the utterance-//origin// which is used generally in any system of verbal reference-co-ordinates. (b) In written utterances (or 'inscriptions'), //by his appending his signature// (this has to be done because, of course, written utterances are not tethered to their origin in the way spoken ones are).’” (p. 19-20)
 * Explication**

The written signature, because it is written and because the rules of written communication—namely iterability—apply to it, is always an mark of an absent author. Yet, this author must always be present for the signature to have a source referent. These two competing notions come together to create a reproducible event: “By definition, a written signature implies the actual or empirical nonpresence of the signer. But, it will be claimed, the signature also marks and retains his having-been present in a past //now// or present [//maintenant//] which will remain a future now or present [//maintenant//], thus in a general //maintenant//, in the transcendental form of presentness [//maintenance//]. That general maintenance is in some way inscribed, pinpointed in the always evident and singular present punctuality of the form of the signature. Such is the enigmatic originality of every paraph. In order for the tethering to the source to occur, what must be retained is the absolute singularity of a signature-event and a signature-form: the pure reproducibility of a pure event.” (p. 20)

Since a signature must function, it is iterable like any other sign. This iterability means that it does not need to be and cannot be defined by a particular context, such as the present. Again, the iterability of the written sign removes it from a realm of intentionality. “In order to function, that is, to be readable, a signature must have a repeatable, iterable, imitable form; it must be able to be detached from the present and singular intention of its production. It is its sameness which, by corrupting its identity and its singularity, divides its seal [//sceau//].” (p. 20)

The separation of the author from intentionality in signature mirrors the death of the author in Barthes closely. In both cases the author is removed from intentionality; however, in Derrida’s typology, removal is on account of the double absences of language from its referents and the author from the time(liness) of the statement, and the absences negate the performance of language. Barthes’s death of the author is on account of the separate temporality, like Derrida’s, and on account of the multiplicity of referents, unlike Derrida’s, but Barthes leaves performance in the language while removing from the author the power of genius (1977, p. 143, 145-6).
 * Discussion**

These texts, Barthes’s and Derrida’s, arrive at a conversation about understanding or interpretation that mirrors that of Bakhtin. This conversation rotates around alterity in language and calls on us to see how the myriad meanings which the audience(s) draw on to understand language changes or challenges a Saussurian ideal of a general/universal language. Barthes places this alterity in the death of the author while allowing language to perform as utterances—Barthes does not use “utterance,” which is more appropriately Searle and Austin’s terminology, instead he arrives at a similar place through “signification”. Bakhtin retains the “utterance” terminology but only to implicate the audience in the performance of language, a performance which exists in the dialogue between the text, other texts, and the reader.

Barthes, R. (1977). //Image Music Text//. S. Heath, ed. London: Fontana. Derrida, J. (1988). //Limited Inc//. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP.
 * References**

Bakhtin, M. (1981). //The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays//. M. Holquist, ed. C. Emerson & M. Holquist, trans. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. [A member of the same conversation on authorship and language’s multiplicity of meanings] Saussure, F. (1986). //Course in General Linguistics//. Peru, IL: Open Court. [The troll of general language for whose theory of language and its implicit approaches to interpretation Barthes, Derrida, and Bakhtin are opponents]
 * Further Reading**

Iterability Event Context
 * See Also:**
 * Communication**
 * Deconstruction**