Theater аs а Cultural System

The internal code of a cultural system regulates: (a) which material products are to be valid in the system as units of meanings, i.e., signs; (b) which of the units thus identified can be combined in what manner and under what conditions with each other, i.e., it governs a syntactic code; and (c) to what these units can be related and under what conditions (i) in connection with different possible syntagmas or (ii) in isolation, i.e., it regulates a semantic code.
Thus, the code of every language, English, German, or Chinese, regulates (a) which sounds are to be identified as the smallest units of meaning, i.e., as words of this language; (b) the possible combinations of this words in order to form syntagmas; and (c) the allocation of significations to these sound signs both as a lexical and as a contextual meaning. In other words, both the production and the understanding of utterances within a language function on the basis of a code that we shall term the internal code of the language. The same is true of all cultural systems: these regulate the process whereby meaning is produced on the basis of a respectively specific internal code on which the production or interpretation of all meanings is then based.
An external code is involved if, first, several of these codes are subordinated to another code as their hypercode in the sense that the generation and interpretation of their systems of rules are based on it, and second, the meanings produced by the individual cultural systems can now be understood in their function and meaning for the overall culture at a second level, as it were, namely, on the basis of a hypercode. Lévi-Strauss has shown that a commonly shared code is at the root of the structure of codes of such different cultural systems as, for example, language, family relations and marriage practices, eating habits, and the myths of various tribes indigenous to Latin America.
The meaning of the signs and/or sign complexes generated by a cultural system can thus only be constituted comprehensively, given the application of both the system’s internal code and the external code shared by it and other systems.
The codes on which cultural systems are based differ in terms of stability from one culture to the next. Thus, the syntactic code of language is quite stable in Western culture – it has only undergone minor modifications over the centuries. By contrast, the code regulating clothing habits – fashion – is particularly prone to change: it has been in a process of continual restructuring over the last few decades.
The potential instability of every code stems from its historical specificity, and this is expressed in the dialectical relation of code and message. Meanings are generated and messages formulated on the basis of the code. The messages formulated in this manner can be of such a nature that they make it necessary to restructure the underlying code. This restructuring, in turn, enables new meanings to be produced, which themselves lead to the formulation of new messages, etc.
The early sixteenth-century European code for astronomy envisaged the possible message that the sun circled around the earth. This message was, on the one hand, drawn up on the basis of an internal code for astronomy and, on the other, was only possible against the background of the external theological code which structured the whole of social life at the time by decreeing it an iron law that humans, created in God’s image, could only be placed at the center of the universe.
When a new message arose that was also based on the code for astronomy, namely, that the earth revolved around the sun, this initially led to a restructuring of the code. However, this process caused the internal code for astronomy and the external code of theology to contradict one another. Following vain retroactive attempts to annul the restructuring of the astronomical code, it became necessary to restructure the external theological code in such a way that it would be possible to uphold the validity of the message it insisted on, namely, that humans were created in God’s image. At the same time, it was also necessary to revise the message which had previously been based on this and was now invalid, namely, that humans were factually and not simply spiritually the center of the Universe. The restructuring of the theological code that was subsequently effected led inevitably, in its capacity as the external code of other cultural systems, to a restructuring of the latters’ respective codes in such a manner that these were then able to generate new meanings that could be used to formulate messages. These subsequently resulted in the final instance in the theological system being stripped of its function as the external code for the whole culture in question.
The system of different codes present in a culture is, in other words, a dynamic structure in which changes can continually occur that cause a reorganization of the overall structure. Both the codes which function as internal or external codes for the cultural systems and the meanings generated by such codes can therefore only be adequately described and grasped with respect to their respective historical specificity.
Theater, understood as one cultural system among others, can therefore be construed as fulfilling the general function of generating meaning on the basis of an internal code. This code regulates (a) what is to be valid as a unit of meaning – as a sign – in theater; (b) in what way and under what conditions which of these signs can be combined with one another; and (c) which meanings can be accorded these signs both in specific contexts and, in part, in isolation. Furthermore, the theatrical code may depend on the rules of an external code with respect both to the production and to the interpretation of its signs and/or sets of signs. These conclusions, which touch on the question of the extent to which theater is just one cultural system among others, already provide the justification for suggesting that theater is a cultural system sui generis. For the internal code of theater constitutes itself precisely as an internal code, i.e., a quite specific code that is to be distinguished from all other codes of the culture. It does so by prescribing the use of quite specific signs and quite specific syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic rules during the process in which meaning is constituted.
Before, however, going on to describe, analyze, and discuss the details of the theatrical code’s special nature, we shall briefly examine the fundamental differences between it and the respectively specific internal codes of other cultural systems. It has thus far been assumed that all cultural systems function to generate meaning. The individual systems clearly fulfill this function in quite different ways, if one ignores the fact that they respectively fulfill it on the basis of particular, unique internal code. I, for example, use the sound /hammer/ only as a sign, for instance for an object with which I can drive a nail into a wall. Yet I not only view the object “hammer” as a sign for the fact that I can hit a nail with it, but also actually use it in this function in order to drive a nail into the wall. I can use the hammer precisely for this function because the object “hammer” denotes a particular function on account of its specific material nature. Here the sign function serves, as it were, as the precondition for its utility function. I can, however, hardly drive a nail into a wall using the sound /hammer/. For the sound can only be used meaningfully in its function as a sign and not in a utility function.
A fundamental distinction must therefore be made between those cultural systems which deploy signs to denote a certain utility function, and those in which signs do not have a utility function. Whereas the firs type of system includes, among other things, clothing, food, utensils, tools, arms, and buildings, the second involves language, traffic signs, mimic signs, religious customs, painting, theater, etc.
It is, however, by no means the case that those cultural systems which involve signs that do not denote a utility function form one homogenous group. Thus, for example, linguistic signs used in poetry are diametrically opposed to those used in all types of nonpoetic applications, and iconic signs in painting are opposed in this respect to iconic signs used in pictograms, traffic signs, etc. Likewise, mimic and gestural signs used in theater are the opposite of those mimic and gestural signs used in everyday situations. The meaning of these signs can change in nonaesthetic contexts to the extent that meaning quite generally is a semiotic unit, the constitution of which depends on the three semiotic dimensions – i.e., the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic dimensions. However, the meaning can be changed to a far greater extent if the sign is used in an aesthetic application, for in this case the autonomous semantic dimension ceases to play a role as a stabilizing factor. Aesthetic meaning differs fundamentally from nonaesthetic meaning in terms of this potential intensification of what is in principle an ever-present capacity to change.
The first differentiation made above must, in other words, be complemented by a second distinction, namely, between cultural systems which generate meaning on the basis of aesthetic codes and those which generate it on the basis of non-aesthetic codes.