The Theatrical and Ritual Aesthetics of Signifying

Signifying is a way people (usually in a weak position) use coded language to fool a person (usually in a position of power) who doesn’t understand the play on words. The origin of signifying goes back to the African tale of the Signifying Monkey. The Signifying Monkey is a trickster figure of Yoruba mythology; also called Esu-Elegbara in Nigeria and Legaba among the Fon in Dahomey. Signifying uses one word, preserves its original meaning, but puts another oppositional layer of meaning over it. The word is both literal and figurative. Here is how Henry Louis Gates, Jr. interprets the Signifying Monkey tales:

The signifying monkey invariable repeats to his friend, the Lion, some insult purportedly generated by their mutual friend, the Elephant. The Monkey, however, speaks figuratively. The Lion, indignant and outraged, demands an apology of the Elephant, who refuses and then trounces the Lion. The Lion, realizing that his mistake was to take the Monkey literally, returns to trounce the Monkey. It is this relationship between the literal and the figurative, and the dire consequences of their confusion, which is the most striking repeated element of these tales. The Monkey’s trick depends on the Lion’s inability to mediate between these two poles of signification, of meaning. (p.55)

The Signifying Monkey is an embodiment of the poor man’s values and dreams: He is weak and only has his speaking skills (slang ‘mouthpiece’) to survive on, and he uses it to play the powers of the jungle against one another. The same way a pimp survives on his ‘mouthpiece’ by using fast talk, sweet talk, jive, and jaw-blockin’.

The term signifying refers to the playful, humorous indirection or innuendo, the talking around an implied meaning, the ambiguous metaphor, the invective that only works if the opponent lacks humor and responds in a literal fashion. Signifying is an attitude toward language, but it is also a social gambit: signifying enables the man and the woman of words to challenge and criticize without becoming committed to any particular claim or meaning: for only the response will tell. For instance, if I say, ‘Yo mama so old, her social security number is ‘1’”, and you say, ‘Fuck you, man”, you’ve lost, you took what was in the figurative and put it in the literal thus committing yourself to the fact that your mom is old. Now, if you reply, “well YO mama so old, when she was in school there was no history class”, or “yo mama so old, when God said ‘let there be light’ she hit the switch” then the signifying can continue.