Contesting the Sacred and the Profane: A Semiotic Analysis of the Logic of Queer Practice

Abstract

本文採用符號學的觀點分析在日常生活中，對酷兒議題所展現的實行邏輯。基於這樣的目的，本文的前提認為文化乃是意義生產與型塑行為的容器，這也是人們在日常生活的例行實行中所採行的依據。因此，文化的本身就是個巨大的符碼，這構成了一指示的網絡，整合個體的符號至相互凝結的意義之上。其次，在相關理論的探討上，本文分析符號學、俗民方法論、文化心理學與馬派意識形態論述之間的系譜關係，認為符號學的探討必須掌握內外在的符號於抽象與具體的層次上。因此，俗民方法論、文化心理學與意識形態的概念可以強化符號學的分析。基於符號學的啟發，本文指出目前異性戀與酷兒之間的區分，正是建立在神聖與世俗的二分之上，但是本文並不認為這樣的二分是絕對地穩固，並且強調權力與抗拒往往是一體的兩面。因此，抗拒異性戀霸權乃是一種對神聖與世俗異議的倒轉論述。

This paper uses semiotic theory to analyze the logic of the practices that define queerness in everyday life. To follow this purpose, this paper considers that culture can be defined as a container for the meaning-making strategies and forms of behavior that people employ to carry out their daily routines. Thus, culture itself is one huge code constituting a signifying network that unites individual signs into a cohesive circuitry of intertwined meanings. In advance, this paper also focuses on the genealogical relationships among different disciplines such as semiotics, ethnomethodology, cultural psychology and ideology in Marxist tradition. The reason is this paper insists that semiotic analysis must be in search of outer and inner codes at all kinds of abstract and concrete levels. Thus, the disciplines of ethnomethodology, cultural psychology, and Marxist tradition have an elective affinity with semiotics. Through the relevant semiotics discussion, this paper points out that the sacred and the profane comprise a prevalent dichotomy in current straight and queer cultures. Meanwhile, this paper also does not think this dichotomy is very stable or fixable and emphasizes the power and resistance are the double sides of the same coin. Resistance takes the form of a reverse discourse in the process of contesting the sacred and the profane.