Lefebvre criticises that structural linguistics has shattered “the living (dialectical) unity” of language (CEL2, 293). It would reduce the semantic field to the sign. Behaviourism such as Pavlov’s theory would reduce the semantic field to signals. Signification is the process of making meaning of a sign. Lefebvre sees it as a fixed and stable process that is attached to the sign. Expression is in contrast a creative process that involves the voice, gestures, and the face and has a certain level of unexpectedness. “Expression is speech. Signification is language as form” (293). Lefebvre says that a dialectical contradiction between signification and expression shapes the semantic field. This contradiction constantly results in the production of sense, the goal, orientation and direction of dialogue. Sense is the sublation of the contradiction between signification and expression.
136
Theorists