Structural Analysis of De Man’s Essay “Semiology and Rhetoric”

PART ONE
Form and content

Unwitting assumption of critical theories

FORM VS CONTENT
Outside VS inside
Extrinsic VS intrinsic
(Formalism, structuralism, historicism) VS deconstruction
Outside reference VS no outside reference
(author, period, history, reader or culture) VS text
Shell VS kernel

Even if the metaphor has been reversed, theories are still entangled in the same polarity of the same metaphor:

Content --------> outside
And
form --------> inside

OR
Content --------> inside
And
form --------> outside

PART TWO

SEMIOLOGY VS GRAMMAR

Syntagmatic VS Paradigmatic
Superior VS inferior
Conveys meaning VS cannot convey meaning
Main VS subordinate
Suspends logic VS logical

PART THREE (Conclusion)

METAPHORE AND METONYMY

Metonymy of metaphor --------->rhetoricizes grammar

Power of rhetoric ---------> discernable grammatical system