An Introduction to Saussurian Linguistics

Lison Joseph

Mob: 9946138576

Brief introduction to Ferdinad de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure the Swiss linguist is considered the father of modern

linguistics. He has influenced almost every critic or theorist involved with the investigation

of language. His ideas provided the impetus for the formation of the structuralist movement.

He published very little and gave only the lectures. After his death two of his students

assembled his lecture notes into a book and it became the Bible of modern linguistics.

Definition of a Sign.

A sign is anything which stands for something else. Anything can be a sign as long

as some one interprets it as signifying something or standing for something other than itself.

The systematic study of signs is called semiotics.

Importance of Sign System

We live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except

through signs. A text is an assemblage of signs. We make meanings through our creation

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and interpretation of signs. According to C.S Pierce we think only in signs. There is no

external reality beyond sign systems. Studying semiotics can assist us to become more of

the mediating role of sign and of the roles played by ourselves. Semiotics is not only

confined in language systems but all other human activities like signals, bodily postures,

gestures, social ritual forms, kinds of clothes we wear , buildings we live and even our body

odour.

Basic features of a sign.

a) A sign consists of two inseparable components or aspects, the signifier( a set of speech

sounds or marks) and signified(concept or idea which is the meaning of sign)

b) A sign is arbitrary. There is no inherent or natural connection between a signifier and

what it signifies.

Example: dog, naai, Patti, kukka (different languages have different names for

dog)

c) The identity of all elements of language (including its words, sounds, meanings) are not

determined by positive qualities but by differences or a net work of relationships,

consisting of distinctions and oppositional from other speech sounds or words.

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 Example: That is a cat.( not a dog ,snake ,horse, rat and so on..)

d) The aim of linguistics is to regard the parole as only a manifestation of the langue.

Parole is a single verbal utterance or a particular use of a sign or set of signs. Langue is

the general system of implicit differentiations and rules of combination which underlie

and make possible a particular use of signs.

e) He identified languages social aspect as the synchronic and its historical aspect as the

diachronic. Synchronic means at a particular moment in time. Diachronic means

languages development over time.

f) All languages are based on two relationships they are paradigmatic and syntagmatic

relations. Paradigmatic is a vertical relationships between any single word in a

sentence and other words that are phonologically, syntactically and semantically

similar can be substituted for it.

Example: That is a dog.(cat,rat,horse )

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 Syntagmatic is horizontal relationships which determine the possibilities of

putting words in a sequence so as to make well-formed syntactic unit.

Example: This is a house.

Assignments.

Discuss Saussurian contribution to structuralist and post-structuralist theories.

Saussurian linguistics is negation of history?

Notion of sign is arbitrary?

Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations?