Course in General Linguistics
Encyclopedia
Course in General Linguistics (Cours de linguistique générale) is an influential book compiled by Charles Bally
and Albert Sechehaye that is based on notes taken from Ferdinand de Saussure
's lectures at the University of Geneva
between the years 1906 and 1911. It was published posthumously in 1916 and is generally regarded as the starting point of structural linguistics
, an approach to linguistics that flourished in Europe
and the United States
in the first half of the 20th century but is now regarded by professional linguists as outdated. Though abandoned by linguists, Saussure's ideas are still widely used in some branches of academe: "Saussure's views are not held, so far as I know, by modern linguists, only by literary critics, Lacan
ians, and the occasional philosopher."
Although Saussure was specifically interested in historical linguistics
, the Cours develops a theory of semiotics
that is more generally applicable. In 1996 a manuscript, later published as Writings in General Linguistics, was found that contained Saussure's original notes.
that express ideas," and suggests that it may be divided into two components: langue, referring to the abstract system of language that is internalized by a given speech community, and parole, the individual acts of speech
and the "putting into practice of language".
While speech (parole) is heterogeneous, that is to say composed of unrelated or differing parts or elements, language (langue) is homogeneous, composed of the union of meanings and 'sound images' in which both parts are psychological
. Therefore, as langue is systematic, it is this that Saussure focuses on since it allows an investigative methodology
that is rooted, supposedly, in pure science
. Beginning with the Greek word ‘semîon’ meaning 'sign’, Saussure names this science semiology: ‘a science that studies the life of signs within society
’.
A popular view of language is that it is a natural organism
, that grows and evolves in accordance with fixed laws and is not determinable by the will of humans. Saussure argued against that organicist view of language. Instead, he defined language as a social product, the social side of speech
being beyond the control of the speaker. According to Saussure, language is not a function of the speaker, but is passively assimilated. Speaking, as defined by Saussure, is a premeditated act.
The focus of Saussure’s investigation is the linguistic unit or sign.
The sign
(signe) is described as a "double entity", made up of the signifier, or sound image, (signifiant), and the signified, or concept (signifié). The sound image is a psychological, not a material concept, belonging to the system. Both components of the linguistic sign are inseparable. One way to appreciate this is to think of them as being like either side of a piece of paper - one side simply cannot exist without the other.
The relationship between signifier and signified is, however, not quite that simple. Saussure is adamant that language cannot be considered a collection of names for a collection of objects (as where Adam is said to have named the animals). According to Saussure, language is not a nomenclature. Indeed, the basic insight of Saussure's thought is that denotation, the reference to objects in some universe of discourse, is mediated by system-internal relations of difference.
In Figure 2 above, the signified "tree" is impossible to represent because the signified is entirely concept
ual. There is no definitive (ideal
, archetypical
) "tree". Even the picture of a tree Saussure used to represent the signified is itself just another signifier. This aside, it is Saussure's argument that it is only the consistency in the system of signs that allows communication
of the concept each sign signifies.
The object itself - a real tree, in the real world - is the referent. For Saussure, the arbitrary involves not the link between the sign and its referent but that between the signifier and the signified in the interior of the sign.
In Jabberwocky
, Lewis Carroll
exploits the arbitrary
nature of the sign in its use of nonsense words. The poem
also demonstrates very clearly the concept of the sign as a two sided psychological entity, since it is impossible to read the nonsense words without assigning a possible meaning to them. We naturally assume that there is a signified to accompany the signifier.
The concepts of signifier and signified could be compared with the Freudian concepts of latent and manifest meaning. Freud
was also inclined to make the assumption that signifiers and signifieds are inseparably bound. Humans tend to assume that all expressions of language mean something.
In further support of the arbitrary nature of the sign, Saussure goes on to argue that if words stood for pre-existing concepts they would have exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next and this is not so. Different languages divide up the world differently. To explain this, Saussure uses the word bœuf as an example. He cites the fact that while, in English
, we have different words for the animal and the meat product: Ox and beef, in French
, bœuf is used to refer to both concepts. A perception of difference between the two concepts is absent from the French vocabulary
. In Saussure's view, particular words are born out of a particular society’s needs, rather than out of a need to label a pre-existing set of concepts.
But the picture is actually more complicated, through the integral notion of 'relative motivation'. Relative motivation refers to the compositionality of the linguistic system, along the lines of an immediate constituent analysis. This is to say that, at the level of langue, hierarchically nested signifiers have relatively determined signified. An obvious example is in the English number system: That is, though twenty and two might be arbitrary representations of a numerical concept, twenty-two, twenty-three etc. are constrained by those more arbitrary meanings. The tense of verbs provides another obvious example: The meaning of "kicked" is relatively motivated by the meanings of "kick-" and "-ed". But, most simply, this captures the insight that the value of a syntagm—a system-level sentence—is a function of the value of the signs occurring in it. It is for this reason that Leonard Bloomfield
called the lexicon
the set of fundamental irregularities of the language. (Note how much of the 'meaningfulness' of 'The Jabberwocky' is due to these sorts of compositional relationships!)
A further issue is onomatopoeia. Saussure recognised that his opponents could argue that with onomatopoeia there is a direct link between word and meaning, signifier and signified. However, Saussure argues that, on closer etymological
investigation, onomatopoeic words can, in fact, be coincidental, evolving from non-onomatopoeic origins. The example he uses is the French and English onomatopoeic words for a dog's bark, that is Ouaf Ouaf and Bow Wow.
Finally, Saussure considers interjection
s and dismisses this obstacle with much the same argument i.e. the sign / signifier link is less natural than it initially appears. He invites readers to note the contrast in pain interjection in French (aie) and English (ouch).
Saussure realized that if linguistics was going to be an actual science, language could not be a mere nomenclature; for otherwise it would be little more than a fashionable version of lexicology
, constructing lists of the definitions of words. Thus he argued that the sign is ultimately determined by the other signs in the system, which delimit its meaning and possible range of use, rather than its internal sound-pattern and concept. Sheep, for example, has the same meaning as the French word mouton, but not the same value, for mouton can also be used to mean the meal lamb, whereas sheep cannot, because it has been delimited by mutton.
Language is therefore a system of interdependent entities. But not only does it delimit a sign’s range of use, for which it is necessary, because an isolated sign could be used for absolutely anything or nothing without first being distinguished from another sign, but it is also what makes meaning possible. The set of synonyms redouter (“to dread”), craindre (“to fear”), and avoir peur (“to be afraid”), for instance, have their particular meaning so long as they exist in contrast to one another. But if two of the terms disappeared, then the remaining sign would take on their roles, become vaguer, less articulate, and lose its “extra something”, its extra meaning, because it would have nothing to distinguish it from.
This is an important fact to realize for two reasons: (A) it allows Saussure to argue that signs cannot exist in isolation, but are dependent on a system from within which they must be deduced in analysis, rather than the system itself being built up from isolated signs; and (B) he could discover grammatical facts through syntagmatic
and paradigmatic
analyses.
These two forms of relation open linguistics up to phonology
, morphology
, syntax
and semantics
. Take morphology, for example. The signs cat and cats are associated in the mind, producing an abstract paradigm of the word forms of cat. Comparing this with other paradigms of word forms, we can note that in the English language the plural often consists of little more than adding an s to the end of the word. Likewise, in syntax, through paradigmatic and syntagmatic analysis, we can discover the grammatical rules for constructing sentences: the meaning of je dois (“I should”) and dois je? (“Should I?”) differ completely simply because of word order, allowing us to note that to ask a question in French, you only have to invert the word order.
Since syntagmas can belong to speech, the linguist must identify how often they are used before he can be assured that they belong to the language.
Language that is studied synchronically
is "studied as a complete system at a given point in time" (The AB axis). Language studied diachronic
ally is "studied in its historical
development" (The CD axis). Saussure argues that we should be concerned with the AB axis (in addition to the CD axis, which was the focus of attention in Saussure's time), because, he says, language is "a system of pure values which are determined by nothing except the momentary arrangements of its terms". We could study chess diachronically (how the rules change through time) or synchronically (the actual rules).
To illustrate this, Saussure uses a chess
metaphor
. In chess, a person joining a game’s audience mid-way through requires no more information than the present layout of pieces on the board and who the next player is. They would not benefit from knowing how the pieces came to be arranged in this way.
According to Saussure, the geographic study of languages deals with external, not internal, linguistics. Geographical linguistics, Saussure explains, deals primarily with the study of linguistic diversity across lands, of which there are two kinds: diversity of relationship, which applies to languages assumed to be related; and absolute diversity, in which case there exists no demonstrable relationship between compared languages. Each type of diversity constitutes a unique problem, and each can be approached in a number of ways.
For example, the study of Indo-European and Chinese languages (which are not related) benefits from comparison, of which the aim is to elucidate certain constant factors which underlie the establishment and development of any language. The other kind of variation, diversity of relationship, represents infinite possibilities for comparisons, through which it becomes clear that dialects and languages differ only in gradient terms. Of the two forms of diversity, Saussure considers diversity of relationship to be the more useful with regard to determining the essential cause of geographical diversity.
While the ideal form of geographical diversity would, according to Saussure, be the direct correspondence of different languages to different areas, the asserted reality is that secondary factors must be considered in tandem with the geographical separation of different cultures.
For Saussure, time is the primary catalyst of linguistic diversity, not distance. To illustrate his argument, Saussure considers a hypothetical population of colonists, who move from one island to another. Initially, there is no difference between the language spoken by the colonists on the new island and their homeland counterparts, in spite of the obvious geographical disconnect. Saussure thereby establishes that the study of geographical diversity is necessarily concentrated upon the effects of time on linguistic development. Taking a monoglot community as his model (that is, a community which speaks only one language), Saussure outlines the manner in which a language might develop and gradually undergo subdivision into distinct dialects.
Saussure’s model of differentiation has 2 basic principles: (1) that linguistic evolution occurs through successive changes made to specific linguistic elements; and (2) that these changes each belong to a specific area, which they affect either wholly or partially.
It then follows from these principles that dialects have no natural boundary, since at any geographical point a particular language is undergoing some change. At best, they are defined by “waves of innovation”—in other words, areas where some set of innovations converge and overlap.
The “wave” concept is integral to Saussure’s model of geographical linguistics—it describes the gradient manner in which dialects develop. Linguistic waves, according to Saussure, are influenced by two opposed forces: parochialism, which is the basic tendency of a population to preserve its language’s traditions; and intercourse, in which communication between people of different areas necessitates the need for cross-language compromise and standardization. Intercourse can prevent dialectical fragmentation by suppressing linguistic innovations; it can also propagate innovations throughout an area encompassing different populations. Either way, the ultimate effect of intercourse is unification of languages. Saussure remarks that there is no barrier to intercourse where only gradual linguistic transitions occur.
Having outlined this monoglot model of linguistic diversity, which illustrates that languages in any one area are undergoing perpetual and nonuniform variation, Saussure turns to languages developing in two separate areas.
In the case of segregated development, Saussure draws a distinction between cases of contact and cases of isolation. In the latter, commonalities may initially exist, but any new features developed will not be propagated between the two languages. Nevertheless, differentiation will continue in each area, leading to the formation of distinct linguistic branches within a particular family.
The relations characterizing languages in contact are in stark contrast to the relations of languages in isolation. Here, commonalities and differences continually propagate to one another—thus, even those languages that are not part of the same family will manage to develop common features.
maintained that structural linguistics was efficient for phonology and morphology, because both have a finite number of units that the linguist can collect. However, he did not believe structural linguistics was sufficient for syntax, reasoning that an infinite number of sentences could be uttered, rendering a complete collection impossible. Instead, he proposed the job of the linguist was to create a small set of rules that could generate all the sentences of a language, and nothing but those sentences.http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/19720629.htmJohn R. Searle, "Chomsky's Revolution in Linguistics Chomsky's Revolution in Linguistics", New York Review of Books, June 29, 1972. Chomsky's critiques led him to found generative grammar
.
One of Chomsky's key objections to structural linguistics was its inadequacy in explaining complex and/or ambiguous sentences. As philosopher John R. Searle writes:
By the latter half of the 20th century, many of Saussure's ideas were under heavy criticism. His linguistic ideas are now generally considered important in their time, but outdated and superseded by developments such as cognitive linguistics
. In 1972, Chomsky described structural linguistics as an "impoverished and thoroughly inadequate conception of language," while in 1984, Marcus Mitchell declared that structural linguistics were "fundamentally inadequate to process the full range of natural language
[and furthermore were] held by no current researchers, to my knowledge." Holland writes that it was widely accepted that Chomsky had "decisively refuted Saussure. [...] Much of Chomsky's work is not accepted by other linguists [and] I am not claiming that Chomsky is right, only that Chomsky has proven that Saussure is wrong. Linguists who reject Chomsky claim to be going beyond Chomsky, or they cling to phrase-structure grammars. They are not turning back to Saussure."
In the 1950s as structural linguistics were fading in importance in linguistics, Saussure's ideas were appropriated by several prominent figures in continental philosophy
, and from there were borrowed in literary theory
, where they are used to interpret novels and other texts. However, several critics have charged that Saussure's ideas have been misunderstood or deliberately distorted by continental philosophers and literary theorists. For example, Searle notes that, in developing his "deconstruction
" method, Jacques Derrida
altered the truth value of one of Saussure's key concepts: "The correct claim that the elements of the language only function as elements because of the differences they have from one another is converted into the false claim that the elements [...] are "constituted on" (Derrida) the traces of these other elements."
(1983).
Charles Bally
Charles Bally was a French linguist from the Geneva School. He lived from 1865 to 1947 and was, like Ferdinand de Saussure, from Switzerland. His parents were Jean Gabriel, a teacher, and Henriette, the owner of a cloth store...
and Albert Sechehaye that is based on notes taken from Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
's lectures at the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
between the years 1906 and 1911. It was published posthumously in 1916 and is generally regarded as the starting point of structural linguistics
Structural Linguistics
Structural linguistics is an approach to linguistics originating from the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. De Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916, stressed examining language as a static system of interconnected units...
, an approach to linguistics that flourished in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the first half of the 20th century but is now regarded by professional linguists as outdated. Though abandoned by linguists, Saussure's ideas are still widely used in some branches of academe: "Saussure's views are not held, so far as I know, by modern linguists, only by literary critics, Lacan
Lacan
Lacan is surname of:* Jacques Lacan , French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist** The Seminars of Jacques Lacan** From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman** Lacan at the Scene* Judith Miller, née Lacan...
ians, and the occasional philosopher."
Although Saussure was specifically interested in historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
, the Cours develops a theory of semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
that is more generally applicable. In 1996 a manuscript, later published as Writings in General Linguistics, was found that contained Saussure's original notes.
Semiology: language, langue, and parole
Saussure focuses on what he calls language, that is "a system of signsSign (linguistics)
There are many models of the linguistic sign . A classic model is the one by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to him, language is made up of signs and every sign has two sides : the signifier , the "shape" of a word, its phonic component, i.e...
that express ideas," and suggests that it may be divided into two components: langue, referring to the abstract system of language that is internalized by a given speech community, and parole, the individual acts of speech
Manner of articulation
In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the...
and the "putting into practice of language".
While speech (parole) is heterogeneous, that is to say composed of unrelated or differing parts or elements, language (langue) is homogeneous, composed of the union of meanings and 'sound images' in which both parts are psychological
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
. Therefore, as langue is systematic, it is this that Saussure focuses on since it allows an investigative methodology
Methodology
Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specificcomponents such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools . It can be defined also as follows:...
that is rooted, supposedly, in pure science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
. Beginning with the Greek word ‘semîon’ meaning 'sign’, Saussure names this science semiology: ‘a science that studies the life of signs within society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
’.
A popular view of language is that it is a natural organism
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
, that grows and evolves in accordance with fixed laws and is not determinable by the will of humans. Saussure argued against that organicist view of language. Instead, he defined language as a social product, the social side of speech
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...
being beyond the control of the speaker. According to Saussure, language is not a function of the speaker, but is passively assimilated. Speaking, as defined by Saussure, is a premeditated act.
The sign
The sign
Sign (semiotics)
A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. It is defined as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity" It includes words, images, gestures, scents, tastes, textures, sounds – essentially all of the ways in which information can be...
(signe) is described as a "double entity", made up of the signifier, or sound image, (signifiant), and the signified, or concept (signifié). The sound image is a psychological, not a material concept, belonging to the system. Both components of the linguistic sign are inseparable. One way to appreciate this is to think of them as being like either side of a piece of paper - one side simply cannot exist without the other.
The relationship between signifier and signified is, however, not quite that simple. Saussure is adamant that language cannot be considered a collection of names for a collection of objects (as where Adam is said to have named the animals). According to Saussure, language is not a nomenclature. Indeed, the basic insight of Saussure's thought is that denotation, the reference to objects in some universe of discourse, is mediated by system-internal relations of difference.
Arbitrariness
The basic principle of the arbitrariness of the sign (l'arbitraire du signe) in the extract is: there is no natural reason why a particular sign should be attached to a particular concept.Concept
The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
ual. There is no definitive (ideal
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
, archetypical
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
) "tree". Even the picture of a tree Saussure used to represent the signified is itself just another signifier. This aside, it is Saussure's argument that it is only the consistency in the system of signs that allows communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
of the concept each sign signifies.
The object itself - a real tree, in the real world - is the referent. For Saussure, the arbitrary involves not the link between the sign and its referent but that between the signifier and the signified in the interior of the sign.
In Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
, Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
exploits the arbitrary
Arbitrary
Arbitrariness is a term given to choices and actions subject to individual will, judgment or preference, based solely upon an individual's opinion or discretion.Arbitrary decisions are not necessarily the same as random decisions...
nature of the sign in its use of nonsense words. The poem
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
also demonstrates very clearly the concept of the sign as a two sided psychological entity, since it is impossible to read the nonsense words without assigning a possible meaning to them. We naturally assume that there is a signified to accompany the signifier.
The concepts of signifier and signified could be compared with the Freudian concepts of latent and manifest meaning. Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
was also inclined to make the assumption that signifiers and signifieds are inseparably bound. Humans tend to assume that all expressions of language mean something.
In further support of the arbitrary nature of the sign, Saussure goes on to argue that if words stood for pre-existing concepts they would have exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next and this is not so. Different languages divide up the world differently. To explain this, Saussure uses the word bœuf as an example. He cites the fact that while, in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, we have different words for the animal and the meat product: Ox and beef, in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, bœuf is used to refer to both concepts. A perception of difference between the two concepts is absent from the French vocabulary
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
. In Saussure's view, particular words are born out of a particular society’s needs, rather than out of a need to label a pre-existing set of concepts.
But the picture is actually more complicated, through the integral notion of 'relative motivation'. Relative motivation refers to the compositionality of the linguistic system, along the lines of an immediate constituent analysis. This is to say that, at the level of langue, hierarchically nested signifiers have relatively determined signified. An obvious example is in the English number system: That is, though twenty and two might be arbitrary representations of a numerical concept, twenty-two, twenty-three etc. are constrained by those more arbitrary meanings. The tense of verbs provides another obvious example: The meaning of "kicked" is relatively motivated by the meanings of "kick-" and "-ed". But, most simply, this captures the insight that the value of a syntagm—a system-level sentence—is a function of the value of the signs occurring in it. It is for this reason that Leonard Bloomfield
Leonard Bloomfield
Leonard Bloomfield was an American linguist who led the development of structural linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and the 1940s. His influential textbook Language, published in 1933, presented a comprehensive description of American structural linguistics...
called the lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
the set of fundamental irregularities of the language. (Note how much of the 'meaningfulness' of 'The Jabberwocky' is due to these sorts of compositional relationships!)
A further issue is onomatopoeia. Saussure recognised that his opponents could argue that with onomatopoeia there is a direct link between word and meaning, signifier and signified. However, Saussure argues that, on closer etymological
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
investigation, onomatopoeic words can, in fact, be coincidental, evolving from non-onomatopoeic origins. The example he uses is the French and English onomatopoeic words for a dog's bark, that is Ouaf Ouaf and Bow Wow.
Finally, Saussure considers interjection
Interjection
In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...
s and dismisses this obstacle with much the same argument i.e. the sign / signifier link is less natural than it initially appears. He invites readers to note the contrast in pain interjection in French (aie) and English (ouch).
Value
The value of a sign is determined by all the other signs in the langue.Lexicology
Lexicology is the part of linguistics which studies words, their nature and meaning, words' elements, relations between words , word groups and the whole lexicon....
, constructing lists of the definitions of words. Thus he argued that the sign is ultimately determined by the other signs in the system, which delimit its meaning and possible range of use, rather than its internal sound-pattern and concept. Sheep, for example, has the same meaning as the French word mouton, but not the same value, for mouton can also be used to mean the meal lamb, whereas sheep cannot, because it has been delimited by mutton.
Language is therefore a system of interdependent entities. But not only does it delimit a sign’s range of use, for which it is necessary, because an isolated sign could be used for absolutely anything or nothing without first being distinguished from another sign, but it is also what makes meaning possible. The set of synonyms redouter (“to dread”), craindre (“to fear”), and avoir peur (“to be afraid”), for instance, have their particular meaning so long as they exist in contrast to one another. But if two of the terms disappeared, then the remaining sign would take on their roles, become vaguer, less articulate, and lose its “extra something”, its extra meaning, because it would have nothing to distinguish it from.
This is an important fact to realize for two reasons: (A) it allows Saussure to argue that signs cannot exist in isolation, but are dependent on a system from within which they must be deduced in analysis, rather than the system itself being built up from isolated signs; and (B) he could discover grammatical facts through syntagmatic
Syntagmatic analysis
In semiotics, syntagmatic analysis is analysis of syntax or surface structure as opposed to paradigms . This is often achieved using commutation tests ....
and paradigmatic
Paradigmatic analysis
Paradigmatic analysis is the analysis of paradigms embedded in the text rather than of the surface structure of the text which is termed syntagmatic analysis. Paradigmatic analysis often uses commutation tests, i.e...
analyses.
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations
Language works through relations of difference, then, which place signs in opposition to one another. Saussure asserted that there are only two types of relations: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. The latter is associative, and clusters signs together in the mind, producing sets: sat, mat, cat, bat, for example, or thought, think, thinking, thinker. Sets always involve a similarity, but difference is a prerequisite, otherwise none of the items would be distinguishable from one another: this would result in there being a single item, which could not constitute a set on its own.These two forms of relation open linguistics up to phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
, syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
and semantics
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
. Take morphology, for example. The signs cat and cats are associated in the mind, producing an abstract paradigm of the word forms of cat. Comparing this with other paradigms of word forms, we can note that in the English language the plural often consists of little more than adding an s to the end of the word. Likewise, in syntax, through paradigmatic and syntagmatic analysis, we can discover the grammatical rules for constructing sentences: the meaning of je dois (“I should”) and dois je? (“Should I?”) differ completely simply because of word order, allowing us to note that to ask a question in French, you only have to invert the word order.
Since syntagmas can belong to speech, the linguist must identify how often they are used before he can be assured that they belong to the language.
Synchronic and diachronic axes
Synchronicity
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner...
is "studied as a complete system at a given point in time" (The AB axis). Language studied diachronic
Diachronic
Diachronic or Diachronous,from the Greek word Διαχρονικός , is a term for something happening over time. It is used in several fields of research.*Diachronic linguistics : see Historical linguistics...
ally is "studied in its historical
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
development" (The CD axis). Saussure argues that we should be concerned with the AB axis (in addition to the CD axis, which was the focus of attention in Saussure's time), because, he says, language is "a system of pure values which are determined by nothing except the momentary arrangements of its terms". We could study chess diachronically (how the rules change through time) or synchronically (the actual rules).
To illustrate this, Saussure uses a chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
. In chess, a person joining a game’s audience mid-way through requires no more information than the present layout of pieces on the board and who the next player is. They would not benefit from knowing how the pieces came to be arranged in this way.
Geographic linguistics
A portion of Course in General Linguistics comprises Saussure’s ideas regarding the geographical branch of linguistics.According to Saussure, the geographic study of languages deals with external, not internal, linguistics. Geographical linguistics, Saussure explains, deals primarily with the study of linguistic diversity across lands, of which there are two kinds: diversity of relationship, which applies to languages assumed to be related; and absolute diversity, in which case there exists no demonstrable relationship between compared languages. Each type of diversity constitutes a unique problem, and each can be approached in a number of ways.
For example, the study of Indo-European and Chinese languages (which are not related) benefits from comparison, of which the aim is to elucidate certain constant factors which underlie the establishment and development of any language. The other kind of variation, diversity of relationship, represents infinite possibilities for comparisons, through which it becomes clear that dialects and languages differ only in gradient terms. Of the two forms of diversity, Saussure considers diversity of relationship to be the more useful with regard to determining the essential cause of geographical diversity.
While the ideal form of geographical diversity would, according to Saussure, be the direct correspondence of different languages to different areas, the asserted reality is that secondary factors must be considered in tandem with the geographical separation of different cultures.
For Saussure, time is the primary catalyst of linguistic diversity, not distance. To illustrate his argument, Saussure considers a hypothetical population of colonists, who move from one island to another. Initially, there is no difference between the language spoken by the colonists on the new island and their homeland counterparts, in spite of the obvious geographical disconnect. Saussure thereby establishes that the study of geographical diversity is necessarily concentrated upon the effects of time on linguistic development. Taking a monoglot community as his model (that is, a community which speaks only one language), Saussure outlines the manner in which a language might develop and gradually undergo subdivision into distinct dialects.
Saussure’s model of differentiation has 2 basic principles: (1) that linguistic evolution occurs through successive changes made to specific linguistic elements; and (2) that these changes each belong to a specific area, which they affect either wholly or partially.
It then follows from these principles that dialects have no natural boundary, since at any geographical point a particular language is undergoing some change. At best, they are defined by “waves of innovation”—in other words, areas where some set of innovations converge and overlap.
The “wave” concept is integral to Saussure’s model of geographical linguistics—it describes the gradient manner in which dialects develop. Linguistic waves, according to Saussure, are influenced by two opposed forces: parochialism, which is the basic tendency of a population to preserve its language’s traditions; and intercourse, in which communication between people of different areas necessitates the need for cross-language compromise and standardization. Intercourse can prevent dialectical fragmentation by suppressing linguistic innovations; it can also propagate innovations throughout an area encompassing different populations. Either way, the ultimate effect of intercourse is unification of languages. Saussure remarks that there is no barrier to intercourse where only gradual linguistic transitions occur.
Having outlined this monoglot model of linguistic diversity, which illustrates that languages in any one area are undergoing perpetual and nonuniform variation, Saussure turns to languages developing in two separate areas.
In the case of segregated development, Saussure draws a distinction between cases of contact and cases of isolation. In the latter, commonalities may initially exist, but any new features developed will not be propagated between the two languages. Nevertheless, differentiation will continue in each area, leading to the formation of distinct linguistic branches within a particular family.
The relations characterizing languages in contact are in stark contrast to the relations of languages in isolation. Here, commonalities and differences continually propagate to one another—thus, even those languages that are not part of the same family will manage to develop common features.
Criticism
Linguist Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
maintained that structural linguistics was efficient for phonology and morphology, because both have a finite number of units that the linguist can collect. However, he did not believe structural linguistics was sufficient for syntax, reasoning that an infinite number of sentences could be uttered, rendering a complete collection impossible. Instead, he proposed the job of the linguist was to create a small set of rules that could generate all the sentences of a language, and nothing but those sentences.http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/19720629.htmJohn R. Searle, "Chomsky's Revolution in Linguistics Chomsky's Revolution in Linguistics", New York Review of Books, June 29, 1972. Chomsky's critiques led him to found generative grammar
Generative grammar
In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
.
One of Chomsky's key objections to structural linguistics was its inadequacy in explaining complex and/or ambiguous sentences. As philosopher John R. Searle writes:
- ..."John is easy to please" and "John is eager to please" look as if they had exactly the same grammatical structure. Each is a sequence of noun-copula-adjective-infinitive verb. But in spite of this surface similarity the grammar of the two is quite different. In the first sentence, though it is not apparent from the surface word order, "John" functions as the direct object of the verb to please; the sentence means: it is easy for someone to please John. Whereas in the second "John" functions as the subject of the verb to please; the sentence means: John is eager that he please someone. That this is a difference in the syntax of the sentences comes out clearly in the fact that English allows us to form the noun phrase "John's eagerness to please" out of the second, but not "John's easiness to please" out of the first. There is no easy or natural way to account for these facts within structuralist assumptions.
By the latter half of the 20th century, many of Saussure's ideas were under heavy criticism. His linguistic ideas are now generally considered important in their time, but outdated and superseded by developments such as cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
. In 1972, Chomsky described structural linguistics as an "impoverished and thoroughly inadequate conception of language," while in 1984, Marcus Mitchell declared that structural linguistics were "fundamentally inadequate to process the full range of natural language
Natural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...
[and furthermore were] held by no current researchers, to my knowledge." Holland writes that it was widely accepted that Chomsky had "decisively refuted Saussure. [...] Much of Chomsky's work is not accepted by other linguists [and] I am not claiming that Chomsky is right, only that Chomsky has proven that Saussure is wrong. Linguists who reject Chomsky claim to be going beyond Chomsky, or they cling to phrase-structure grammars. They are not turning back to Saussure."
In the 1950s as structural linguistics were fading in importance in linguistics, Saussure's ideas were appropriated by several prominent figures in continental philosophy
Continental philosophy
Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...
, and from there were borrowed in literary theory
Literary theory
Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of...
, where they are used to interpret novels and other texts. However, several critics have charged that Saussure's ideas have been misunderstood or deliberately distorted by continental philosophers and literary theorists. For example, Searle notes that, in developing his "deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
" method, Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
altered the truth value of one of Saussure's key concepts: "The correct claim that the elements of the language only function as elements because of the differences they have from one another is converted into the false claim that the elements [...] are "constituted on" (Derrida) the traces of these other elements."
Editions and resources
There have been two translations into English, one by Wade Baskin (1974), and one by Roy HarrisRoy Harris (linguist)
Roy Harris is Emeritus Professor of General Linguistics in the University of Oxford and Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall. He has also held university teaching posts in Hong Kong, Boston and Paris and visiting fellowships at universities in South Africa and Australia, and at the Indian Institute...
(1983).
- Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Eds. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye. Trans. Roy Harris. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court. 1983 ISBN 0-8126-9023-0
- Harris translation at Google books
See also
- Semiotic triangle
- Ludwig WittgensteinLudwig WittgensteinLudwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...