Shifter

A term used by Jakobson to describe a class of words whose meaning varies according to their situation or whose references varies. For Jakobson, a shifter is a term whose meaning cannot be determined without referring to the message that is being communicated between a sender and a receiver. Personal pronouns are shifters: the word 'I' designates both the speaker or sender who says 'I' and the 'I' contained in the message that is sent.

shifter The term 'shifter' was introduced into linguistics by Otto Jespersen

in 1923 to refer to those elements in language whose general meaning cannot

be defined without reference to the message. For example the pronouns 'I' and

'you', as well as words like 'here' and 'now', and the tenses, can only be

understood by reference to the context in which they are uttered. Roman

Jakobson developed the concept in an article published in 1957. Before this

article, 'the peculiarity of the personal pronoun and other shifters was often

believed to consist in the lack of a single, constant, general meaning'

(Jakobson, 1957: 132). In terms of Peirce's typology of SIGNs, shifters were

treated as pure indices (see INDEx). However, following Peirce's own argument

(Peirce, 1932: 156-73), Jakobson argues that shifters do have a single general

meaning; for example the personal pronoun I always means 'the person

uttering I'. This makes the shifter a 'symbol'. Jakobson concludes that shifters

combine both Symbolic and indexical functions and 'belong therefore to the

class of INDEXICAL SYMBOLS' (Jakobson, 1957: 132). In this way,

Jakobson questions the possibility of a context-free grammar, since the

 ENUNCIATION is encoded in the statement itself. Also, since grammar is impli-

cated in parole, the langue/parole distinction is also put into question (see

Caton, 1987: 234-7).

     Following Jakobson, Lacan uses the term 'shifter' (in English), or 'index-

term' as he also calls it (E, 186), to show the problematic and undecidable

nature of the I (Je). However, while Jakobson (following Peirce) defmes the

shifter as an indexical symbol, Lacan defines it as an indexical signifier. This

problematises the distinction between enunciation and statement. On the one

hand, as a signifier it is clearly part of the statement. On the other hand, as an

index it is clearly part of the enunciation. This division of the I is not merely

illustrative of the splitting of the subject; it is that split. 'Indeed, the I of the

enunciation is not the same as the I of the statement, that is to say, the shifter

which, in the statement, designates him' (Sll, 139). Lacan also identifies the

French particle ne as a shifter (E, 298).