Visual language: the graphic signifier in avant-garde literature

Abstract

Taking its point of departure in Roman Jakobson's model of the linguistic functions from his 1958 (1960) “Closing Statement” on “Linguistics and Poetics”, the paper raises a discussion of a neglected paradox or discrepancy in Jakobson's poetics, namely the fact that the model he used to describe and distinguish the poetic function of language was based on spoken language, where as most of his examples were all taken from literary, i.e. written texts. This paradox highlights a general problem in Jakobson's poetics – its strong orientation towards the phonetic or acoustic aspects of language as well as its relative lack of interest or sensibility to a fundamental, aesthetic feature of literature, namely that it is not a speech act but a scriptural and visual act, consisting of letters and other graphic signs written down on either paper or a screen. The examples are drawn from early 20th century avant-garde literature, Futurism and Dadaism, that is a material closely related to Jakobson's formative or – as he himself also called them – “futurist years” as a young linguist in Moscow and Prague.