Full Idea
What Derrida calls 'différance' can be understood as the movement through which every sign is 'constituted historically as a weave of differences'....This replacement for 'speech' in the 'origin' of the system is to avoid the circularity in structuralism.
Gist of Idea
'Différance' is the interwoven history of each sign
Source
report of Jacques Derrida (Différance [1982]) by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 5
Book Reference
Glendinning,Simon: 'Derrida: a Very Short Intro' [OUP 2011], p.63
A Reaction
[compressed] Struggling to grasp this. Some English words entirely change their meaning over time (e.g. buxom). Does the lost meaning remain part of the new meaning? If so, how? He also calls différance 'sameness which is not identical'.