Exploring the Relationship Between the Word and the World

Discuss the ways in which Joyce, through Stephen Dedalus, explores the

relationship between the word and the world.

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'The Word Became Flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word

was God.'

John 1:1[1]

How do we as readers understand the difference between what 'word' and

'world' signify? The phrasing of the title question highlights a

tension of opposition that requires some clarifying of what we

understand by those terms, and even before that we need to be clear on

how our interpretation and understanding this opposition operates.

There are words printed on this page, transmitted over multi-media

networks. Words are spoken out loud for the purpose of communication

or expression, and even support and shape our own internal thought

processes. A word can be dictionary-defined as 'the smallest single

meaningful unit of speech or writing'[2] but 'the' word carries an

other emphasis that at once seems more rhetorical and inclusive. Our

conception of the word is in reference to language (and by 'language'

we encompass all modes of communication and interaction across the

full range of sensory perception from the written word, through

speech, gesture, and so on) but it also embodies the human processes

by which language operates - the application of language and the

effects of and/or on that application. It is the actual manifestations

of language both in our private psyches and our direct personal

contacts with our environment and our society; in the 'world'. 'In the

beginning was the Word' implies that we have not began until we start

to apply language. This then suggests that paradoxically the nature of

the relationship of 'word' and 'world' is one of symbiosis as well as

of opposition.

Post-Structuralist literary theory - which emphasises the application

of semiotics in interpreting literary texts - can provide us with a

framework methodology - of sorts - to better understand the conceptual

dilemma underpinning this discussion. In this way of thinking language

is perceived as a highly symbolic code of signs which is reliant on

having some form of standardised system for interpretation; in order

for us to successfully and productively interact with our environment.

The emphasis of this approach is on how we derive meaning from the web

of symbols and signs around us. Terry Eagleton, in a chapter on

Post-Structuralism, says how ' meaning is not immediately present in

a sign. Since the meaning of a sign is a matter of what the sign is

not, it's meaning is always in some sense absent from it too.' And to

illustrate this he gives the example: ''Cat' is 'cat' because it is

not 'cap' or 'bat''[3] to show how signs can only be clearly