différance: a standalone construct

The philosopher Jacques Derrida coined différance in his writings of the late 1960s, giving it its definitive statement in a 1968 lecture published in Marges de la philosophie (1972; English translation by Alan Bass, 1982). The word is a deliberate respelling of the French différence in which an e is replaced by an a, a change that cannot be heard, since the two spellings are pronounced identically, and is visible only in writing. Derrida built the term on two meanings of the French verb différer, to differ and to defer, arguing that the meaning of any sign is never simply present in it but is both produced through its differences from other signs and endlessly postponed, referred onward to further signs. In this he extended Ferdinand de Saussure's principle that linguistic meaning arises from differences between terms rather than from any positive content a term holds on its own. As a landmark concept of deconstruction and later literary theory, différance names not a thing that can be measured but a claimed condition of language and meaning, and it is examined through close reading of Derrida's texts rather than through empirical observation.[1][2][3]

Unit

A theoretical concept naming how meaning is generated and continually postponed within a system of signs

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Identified and interpreted through close textual reading of Derrida's writings and their reception in literary theory and continental philosophy; it is an interpretive concept, not an empirically measured variable