Différance

Derrida’s punning term, a homophonic play combining the French terms ‘to defer, postpone, delay’ and ‘to differ, to be different from’. Derrida’s point, by combining these terms, is to illustrate that writing does not copy or follow speech as the written form cannot be heard discretely in its utterance. Words cannot ever fully summon their own meaning and are constantly appealing or deferring to additional words or meaning from which they differ. Relating to ''difference, Derrida is concerned with the force in language that differentiates elements from one another and, by doing so, engenders binary oppositions and heirachies that come to underpin meaning itself. The word is used to illustrate that language involves at once the differences between and the deferral of meanings.