For a good introduction to Derrida's theory , click here . Speech, for Derrida, is 'always already' caught up in or 'contaminated' by writing, which he characterizes as differance and which takes the place of speech as the norm for language. With all language acting, as it were, under erasure, what we are left with are only traces. In Critical Terms for Literary Study . Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin.
Culture is ordinary, and the ordinary is highly significant.
Or relevant for that matter. In The Interface Between the Written and the Oral . Cambridge UP, 1987. In Critical Terms for Literary Study . Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin.