“By the Silent Writing of Its a”

Abstract

With communication as a medium, one is always already present in the economy of exchange, yet within that exchange there is a coetaneous presence of undecidability that haunts every act, where meaning is indeterminate and understanding is an impossible guarantee. This essay will illustrate how this gets literally performed visibly in the play of différance between speech and writing. This essay argues that the Derridean “neographism” différance should be the concern of communication scholars as a kind of rhetorical strategy that is medium based and cannot cross communication forms.