
Jacques Derrida, “Roland Barthes”

Jacques Derrida, “Roland Barthes”
Every sign, linguistic or non-linguistic, spoken or written (in the current sense of this opposition), in a small or large unit, can be cited, put between quotation marks; in so doing it can break with every given context, engendering an infinity of new contexts in a manner which is absolutely illimitable. This does not imply that the mark is valid outside of a context, but on the contrary that there are only contexts without any center or absolute anchoring [ancrage]… . What would a mark be that could not be cited? Or one whose origins would not get lost along the way?