Prolegomena to a Possible Translation (3): Derrida, Saussure, and the Chain of Possible Substitutions

Letter to a Japanese Friend. AI image

“The word ‘deconstruction’, like all other words, acquires its value only from its inscription in a chain of possible substitutions, in what is too blithely called a ‘context’. For me, for what I have tried and still try to write, the word has interest only within a certain context, where it replaces and lets itself be determined by such other words as ‘écriture’, ‘trace’, ‘différance’, ‘supplement’, ‘hymen’, ‘pharmakon’, ‘marge’, ‘entame’, ‘parergon’, etc.”
(Derrida, Letter to a Japanese Friend)

Introduction

In Letter to a Japanese Friend, Jacques Derrida responds to a question that appears deceptively simple: how should the term deconstruction be translated into Japanese? One might expect a concise definition. Instead, Derrida offers something quite different. Rather than explaining what deconstruction is, he reflects on how words acquire value and why no single expression can capture a fixed meaning.

His reply rests on a bold claim:

"The word 'deconstruction', like all other words, acquires its value only from its inscription in a chain of possible substitutions" (Derrida, 1985/1988, p. 4).

This remark is often read exclusively within the framework of deconstruction. Yet it can also be illuminated by Ferdinand de Saussure's theory of linguistic value. Read alongside the Course in General Linguistics, Derrida's account suggests that the meaning of deconstruction does not reside within the term itself but emerges from its relations to other terms. The series of terms he invokes—écriture, trace, différance, supplement, pharmakon, and others—functions less as a glossary of concepts than as a differential network.

To see why Derrida answers a question about translation by discussing relations among words, it is useful to begin with his reflections on the status of the word itself.

Why Derrida Distrusts Definitions

Derrida begins by recalling a central gesture of Of Grammatology:

"Of Grammatology questioned the unity 'word' and all the privileges with which it was credited, especially in its nominal form" (Derrida, 1985/1988, p. 4).

The target here is not merely a particular expression but the traditional assumption that a word can serve as the stable vehicle of a thought. Throughout much of Western philosophy, language has often been understood as the external expression of an internal meaning. Derrida challenges this picture. No isolated sign can fully coincide with what it seeks to express.

For this reason, the problem is not simply that words are imprecise. Rather, the very expectation that a single term could adequately contain a thought is called into question. Derrida therefore adds:

"Only a discourse or rather a writing can make up for the incapacity of the word to be equal to a 'thought'" (Derrida, 1985/1988, p. 4).

The reference to writing should not be reduced to marks on a page. Rather, it points toward the broader play of differences and relations that make signification possible. Meaning arises through a network rather than through a self-sufficient unit.

Although Derrida is often presented as a critic of Saussure, this point already resonates with one of Saussure's most important insights: language is a system in which values emerge from relations rather than from intrinsic properties.

Saussure, Value, and Associative Relations

In the Course in General Linguistics, Saussure insists that linguistic values depend entirely upon relations. To explain how these relations operate, he distinguishes between two forms of linguistic association. Syntagmatic relations arise among terms present together in a sequence. Associative relations, by contrast, connect terms that are absent yet linked in memory:

"Outside the context of discourse, words having something in common are associated together in the memory" (Saussure, 1916/1983, p. 123).

These associations do not depend upon linear sequence. Rather, they form what Saussure describes as a distinct order of relations. The word enseignement ("teaching"), for example, may evoke enseigner, éducation, apprentissage, and numerous other terms.

A linguistic sign therefore possesses no autonomous value. Its significance emerges from a network of differences and associations extending beyond the word immediately before us. Meaning is relational from the outset, and the associative series surrounding a sign constitutes an essential part of that relational structure.

This insight shifts attention away from isolated terms and toward the network in which they function. Once this principle is established, Derrida's description of deconstruction as part of a "chain of possible substitutions" begins to appear in a different light. Rather than searching for the meaning of a word in isolation, one is led to consider the constellation of relations through which that word acquires its value.

A Chain of Possible Substitutions

With Saussure's account of associative relations in view, Derrida's remarks on deconstruction take on a new significance. Deconstruction, as Derrida puts it, "acquires its value only from its inscription in a chain of possible substitutions".

The resemblance to Saussure's theory is difficult to miss. Derrida does not direct the reader toward an underlying essence of deconstruction. Instead, he points toward a network of related terms: écriture, trace, différance, supplement, hymen, pharmakon, marge, entame, parergon, and others.

Many readers approach these notions as though each named a self-contained concept waiting to be defined. Derrida's letter suggests another approach. Their significance emerges through their relations to one another. Much as Saussure's enseignement evokes a series of associated terms, deconstruction acquires its value through the differential network in which it is situated.

In this respect, Derrida's vocabulary resembles a Saussurean langue in miniature. No term stands alone. Différance points toward trace; trace leads to writing; writing invokes supplement; each element receives its place within a broader system of relations.

The comparison, however, should not erase the differences between Derrida and Saussure. Associative series in Saussure may be indefinitely extendable, yet they remain situated within a particular état de langue, a synchronic linguistic system. Derrida, by contrast, emphasizes the impossibility of establishing a final closure:

"By definition, the list can never be closed" (Derrida, 1985/1988, p. 4).

Nevertheless, the underlying lesson remains strikingly similar. Neither for Saussure nor for Derrida does meaning reside within a self-contained unit. In both cases, value emerges through a network of differences.

Conclusion

The importance of Letter to a Japanese Friend lies precisely in its refusal to provide the definition that readers often seek. Derrida does not reveal the hidden essence of deconstruction. Instead, he explains why such an essence cannot be found within a single term.

From this perspective, translation becomes less a transfer of meaning than a reconstruction of value within another linguistic system. The translator is not searching for a concept concealed behind a word. The task is to reconstruct, as far as possible, the network of relations through which that word acquires its value.

Read in this way, Derrida's letter offers more than a reflection on translation. It provides a practical demonstration of a principle that Saussure had articulated decades earlier: linguistic value emerges through relations. The question is therefore not "What does deconstruction mean?" but rather "Within what web of differences does it acquire its value?"

The letter thus suggests that translation is not the transfer of a fixed meaning from one language to another, but the reconstruction of a network of relations within a new linguistic system.

References

Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1967).

Derrida, J. (1988). Letter to a Japanese friend. In D. Wood & R. Bernasconi (Eds.), Derrida and différance (D. Wood & A. Benjamin, Trans.). Warwick. (Original letter written 1985).

Saussure, F. de. (1983). Course in general linguistics (R. Harris, Trans.). Duckworth. (Original work published 1916).