The Demonstrative Pronoun

I think “So Is This” underlined Benveniste’s assertion that speech is as worthy of study as language. Out of curiosity, I attempted to count the number of times “this” appeared on the screen and came out with a number in the ballpark of 130-140 (though I’m sure I missed some and counted others twice, so this approximation is pretty rough). The film occasionally tripped me up with the constant use of “this,” as I wasn’t always aware of what “this” was referring to in context; “this” of course doesn’t always allude to the same referent, and therefore its meaning is in essence dependent on the words around it. Benveniste ties this into the importance of speech and discourse, saying that demonstrative pronouns and their importance “will be measured by the nature of the problem they serve to solve, which is none other than that of intersubjective communication.” (Benveniste 219)

This is also why I found the choice to display each word of the film one frame at a time interesting. “This” might rely on the surrounding words of the sentence and paragraphs to give it meaning, but it’s simultaneously divided from them by the film’s structure. All words, including “this,” are kept distinct from each other by means of this technique, but “this” must always be referring to some other word or concept that has come before it because it has no fixed meaning. The discourse between the words and the audience members is what imbues “this” with meaning because, despite the fact that it stands alone on each frame, the referent is vital to its meaning.