Structuralism: Ferdinand de Saussure - Aligarh Muslim University

Structuralism: Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss Linguist, credited with finding the field of structural linguistics, a new theory applying in linguistics system. He often treated as the father of modern linguistics.

His most influential work `Course in General Linguistics' which published posthumously in 1916.

So what is Structural Linguistics?

Structural linguistics, as far as Saussure concerned, is the idea that language is a systematic contrast and equivalence.

Structural linguistics holds the view that language consists of in a string of linguistics objects, such as words, phonemes, morphemes, and each object earned its meaning to contrast of other objects in a linguistic system.

This was entirely new wave thinking about language and presented a radical trend from the previous approaches.

In order to understand the Saussure structural system, we have to first understand, the key ideas and distinction between `sign/signifier/referent', `Langue/Parole', `synchronic/diachronic' and `syntagmatic/paradigmatic'.

Saussure's central distinction is between `langue' and `parole'.

Parole: it consists of individual usages of language at particular times to make statements, ask questions, individual utterance, commands etc. Parole is the speech act.

Langue: it is the underlying system ? passively assimilated and not explicitly formulated by speakers. Langue makes all acts of speaking possible, intelligible and meaningful. It is the systematic language shared by community.

Saussure used the term `langue' to signify, language as a system or structure (langue) on the other hand by `parole' he means any given utterance in that language. For example ? a particular remark in French (a sample of parole) only makes sense to you if you are already in possession of the whole body of rules and conventions

governing verbal behavior which we call `French' ( the langue or the French linguistic structure). Again, Saussure argued that language and every other expressive system consist of signs. He gave a threefold analysis of linguistic sign: signifier/signified/referent

`Signified' the `Concept' in mind.

`Referent' refers the `actual state'. Signifier + Signified + Referent = Sign

Signifier: It is the sound image of that what we talking about, the act of speech or utterance.

Signified: It is the concept of the thing of which we are talking about. It is the idea of our mind.

Referent: The actual real thing in the world is called referent.

Thus for Saussure, the sign is trisided psychological entity. One cannot exist without the other; otherwise it just could not be a sign.

But here Saussure says, the bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. There is an arbitrary unconventional relationship between the two. For, Saussure, the meaning we give to words is purely arbitrary, and that these meanings are maintained by conventions only. Words, that is to say, are `unmotivated signs', means that there is no inherent connection between a word and it designates.

Again, Saussure highlighted another distinction between synchronic and diachronic.

Synchrony: synchrony refers to a study of complete linguistics system at a given time. Saussure's aim was to show that language can be studied synchronically and that this is the most illuminating way to explicit it.

Diachronic: it refers how the linguistic system developed over a period of time.

Another important Saussurian distinction is between `syntagmatic' and `paradigmatic' analysis.

Syntagmatic analysis can be used whenever the expressive act requires a series of signs; it can be series of words in a statement, or a series of shots in a film sequence. But often the same statement can give quite difference meaning if the word order is altered or the same shots in a film can have different meanings if the order is reverse. For example ?

The wise person is temperate

Temperate is the wise person

On the other hand paradigmatic analysis examines the signs used in the expressive act against a background of possible alternatives in each position. For example ?

The wise person is temperate The wise `person/man' is `clam/intuitive/honest'

So why are any of these interesting? As far as Saussure concerns, the study of language is liable to belief. He stresses that language is structural; thereby language can be freed from associations by the social, cultural, political or historical. Practically this approach to language means that the study of language by structural relations only. Linguistics objects and it meanings can be grasped only through its contrast with other linguistic objects in the systems.

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