Ferdinan De Saussure (Structuralism)

Question 1

Who is Ferdinan de Saussure?

Answer 1

Father of modern linguistics & French Structuralism
Saussure had great contribution to the realm of linguistics through a book he
never wrote ➔ A General Course in Linguistics → a compilation of his lectures
gathered by his students

Question 2

Different generations of linguistics

Answer 2

1st : late 18th c / British
Colonization of India, European was translated to Sanskrit => as a result, a kind of
comparative study among Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin language took place.

2nd gen (Saussure’s teachers) were called New Grammarians or
Pilologists (19th C). They were a generation of Saussure’s teachers. These
linguists had a diachronic method of analysis of language → choosing one
element in a language and study how this one element has changed throughout
the time.

Question 3

Saussure’s contributions? Methodology

Answer 3

A. synchronic method of analysis → he was in the habit of
freezing the language system at a historical movement & then he studied the way
all the constituent elements of lang acted & interacted at that particular historical
movement.

Question 4

Saussure’s Contributions?
Rejecting

Answer 4

B. Reaction of the mimetic theory of language
Before him, they believed that language mirrored the external world/ natural motivation or natural resemblance/ the external world is primary and language is secondary

The words and objects have a substantial and essential relationship.

FdS: Language constituents our external world. The external world remains incomprehensible unless language is used to describe it.

Question 5

Saussure’s Contributions.
Sings

Answer 5

C. A structured (comes from within) system (the elements contribute to the overall system )of conventional sings
The atom of language is not words of symbols but signs (linguistics is a subcategory of semiology)

Question 6

Saussure’s Contributions.
Sign

Answer 6

D. Sings = signifier (sound image)/ signified (mental image, concept)
Like two sides of a paper they co-exist and become functional only when they’re together

Question 7

Saussure’s Contributions.
Terminology to describe different layers of meaning

Answer 7

E.
1. Le language : the very general faculty of human beings that enables us to
speak of anything/ the body of language/ the language of food / dress codes, …

2. La langue : language but in a particular context (eg: when speaking of subject
   of study in linguistics, or when speaking of different languages, we are
   using langue) the abstract laws and rules of grammar employed by the users. These rules pre-exist the users.
3. La Parole: ordinary speech (the actual utterances we have in ordinary life) the actualization of the abstract knowledge and words and sentences.

Question 8

Saussure contributions.
Features of sings.

Answer 8

1. Signs are arbitrary -> they’re conventional ( قراردادیthe relationship between
   the signifier & the signified isn’t substantial or essential but conventional / no natural
   resemblance between them)
2. They are relational -> there’s no positive term & what creates meaning is
   ‘difference’ / e.g: sat / bat / cat / hat ~> different phonemes
3. Language is linear -> words combine together like a chain, in 1 dimension sings connect to each other like a chain. —>
   a.Syntagmatic relationship: when all the elements in the process of signification
   exist in mind as well

b.
Paradigmatic / associated: when some elements that exist in mind are absent
from the process of signification.