ABSTRACT
The unity of the problematic of critical semiotics and phenomenology lies in the character of the linguistic sign as juncture. The critical significance in the metamorphosis undergone by semiotics is that the theory of the sign must be a dialectical materialist theory a critique of the material practice of language in light of the actual material possibilities. Written language and literature are more than the reification of the fluid rhythm of the spoken word and the consequent alienation of language from its own spontaneity. The naturalness felt there, the facility with which spoken word issues into pantomime and dance, is in fact the same encounter of level with level as that between writing and spoken language. Language is experienced in the metamorphosis effected in the passage of the sign from writing to speaking and from speaking to writing. Language itself gives witness to the shape and nature of its possibilities and in that way attests to the possibility of rationality.
