![]() ![]() For Kristeva it is necessary to posit the semiotic as a register of signification because, without it, one cannot account for the endless inventiveness in and of (poetic) language, within the restraining syntax of which the semiotic irrupts unpredictably, imparting figurative novelty to it. ![]() This paper is an interpretation of Jane Campion's film, The Piano, in terms of the highly suggestive register of meaning-generation, called the " semiotic ", as elaborated by Julia Kristeva. The paper aims to show how short sighted the unqualified emphasis on ‘persuasion’ is, especially in South Africa. This is of particular importance to South Africa, given the fact that ‘persuasive communication’ forms part of curricula in communication studies. Through an analysis of the film in question an attempt is made here to demonstrate that it is a supremely persuasive piece of sophistry in the sense that Plato gave to the term, but that today (given what one has learned from the post-structuralist thinkers), instead of rejecting it on this basis, one should appropriate its lessons in rhetoric and turn it against itself, showing how a complex notion of communication and ‘truth’ of a certain kind may be uncovered in its interstitial rhetorical spaces. However, this is no reason to give up on the old-fashioned notion of communication (or ‘truth’), even if one has to reject the illusion – so long entertained by Western philosophy – of unambiguously clear communication of the ‘truth’ in any univocal or absolute sense. ![]() A closer look at the recent film, Thank you for smoking, shows it to be a stalking horse for precisely this kind of pseudo-communication and relativism, and an all the more successful one in light of its rhetorical sophistication and entertainment value. The present era is one of pseudo-communication and overwhelming relativism, where, at best, the ability to persuade one's opponents or a potential audience of the ‘rightness’ (as opposed to the communicable ‘truth’) of one's position, is all important. ![]()
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