Lesson 05 - Ferdinand De Saussure PDF

LESSON 05 FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE 1. Biography: Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist born on November 26, 1857, in Geneva, and passing away on February 22, 1913, in Vufflens-le-Château. He significantly influenced the linguistic sciences of the 20th...

LESSON 05 FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE 1. Biography: Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist born on November 26, 1857, in Geneva, and passing away on February 22, 1913, in Vufflens-le-Château. He significantly influenced the linguistic sciences of the 20th century through his pioneering ideas on language structure. Saussure contended that language must be considered as a social phenomenon, a structured system that can be viewed synchronically (as it exists at any particular time) and diachronically (as it changes in the course of time). He thus formalized the basic approaches to language study and asserted that the principles and methodology of each approach are distinct and mutually exclusive. He also introduced two terms that have become common currency in linguistics— “parole,” or the speech of the individual person, and “langue,” the system underlying speech activity. His distinctions proved to be mainsprings to productive linguistic research and can be regarded as starting points on the avenue of linguistics known as structuralism. 2. Structuralism: Structuralism is one of several schools of the 20th-century linguistics committed to the structuralist principle that a language is a self-contained relational structure, the elements of which derive their existence and their value from their distribution and oppositions in texts or discourse. This principle was first stated clearly, for linguistics, by the Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913). Saussurean structuralism was further developed in somewhat different directions by the Prague school, glossematics, and other European movements. In the United States the term structuralism, or structural linguistics, has had much the same sense as it has had in Europe in relation to the work of Franz Boas (1858–1942) and Edward Sapir (1884–1939) and their followers. Nowadays, however, it is commonly used, in a narrower sense,  to refer to the so-called post-Bloomfieldian school of language analysis that follows the methods of Leonard Bloomfield, developed after 1930. Phonology (the study of sound systems) and morphology (the study of word structure) are their primary fields of interest. Little work on semantics has been done by structural linguists because of their belief that the field is too difficult or elusive to describe. 3. De Saussure’s Dichotomies: Various theoretical dichotomies can be extracted from Saussure’s work. This has become a tradition as he made a clear distinction between several new concepts: i. Signifier/Signified. ii. Langue/Parole. iii. Synchronic/Diachronic studies. iv. Syntagmatic/Paradigmatic studies. ▪ Signifier/Signified: One of the concepts introduced by Saussure in his linguistic theory is the linguistic sign. He regards langue as a system of arbitrary signs. First, he defines the sign as a relationship between two equally participating characteristics: the signifié (signified) and the signifiant (signifier). The first refers to an idea or a concept, the second to a form or an acoustic image. The sign is a meaningful entity, and it is the basic unit of communication. Arbitrariness of the linguistic sign means that there is no inherent or inevitable link between the signifier and the signified: it is a matter of convention within a speech community. ▪ Langue/Parole: Saussure distinguished between three main senses of language, and then he emphasized two of them. He sees that language is composed of two aspects langue and parole. These terms have obtained a wide approval in modern linguistics, without any specific translations in European languages. Language is the hereditary propensity of human speech present in all normal human beings. For its correct development, it needs the appropriate environmental prompts. It is a natural bequest distinguishing the human species. Langue refers to the abstract system shared by all the speakers of the same language, like English, Arabic, French, etc. It is an underlying system of abstract rules of lexicon, grammar and phonology which is implanted in each individual’s mind resulting from his nurture in a given speech community. Being peculiar to the speech community, langue is something which the individual can make use of but cannot influence by himself. It has a social nature according to Saussure. Parole refers to the real speech of the individual, an instance of the use of system. It is the concrete side of language. According to Saussure, it is langue that should be the primary concern of the linguist. ▪ Synchronic/Diachronic: Contrary to the entirely historical view of language of the earlier hundred years, Saussure emphasized the value of seeing language from two dissimilar views, which he called synchronic and diachronic. A synchronic approach to language studies investigates the state of language at a particular phase of its development without allusion to its history. Saussure referred to this state as an état de langue. In order to study this, linguists will collect samples of language within a fixed period, describing them not considering any historical factor which might have influenced the state of language up to that time. The time factor is irrelevant. A diachronic approach, in contrast, is the study of the history of a language, focusing on language change in pronunciation, grammar or vocabulary. This approach deals with the never-ending successions of language states. A diachronic study presupposes a synchronic study. Saussure emphasized that modern linguistics should be synchronic in perspective. ▪ Syntagmatic/Paradigmatic: Syntagmatic relationships exist between items in a sequence. They are also called linear, co-occurrence, sequential or horizontal relations. By contrast, paradigmatic relationships hold between existing items and other items in the same language that can take the same position in the sequence: between actual elements and their substitutes. Taken together, all elements form a class, a system. These relationships are also called associative, substitution, vertical relationships. According to Saussure, language, then, has a two-dimensional structure. Task 01: Research and summarize what you have understood of De Saussure’s Dichotomies. Task 02: Search for the term European Structuralism.