Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

His ideas about language:

1. Linguistic signs

1. Linearity – the sounds are in some order, we can’t say them at once, they go one another one

2. Arbitrariness – the particular form is chosen arbitrarily to represent the given meaning

Exceptions:

1. Onomatopoeic words

2. Sound symbolism (sounds give you some impression)

3. Reduplication (malilinkatý, piga – pigapiga)

• A language does not simply assign names to independently existing concepts

• A concept is defined by its relations to and differences from other concepts in the system

• tree is delimited by shrub and cactus

• Crosslinguistic differences (šaty=oblečení, ale v angličtině dresses-clothes)

1. conventionality

2. discreteness

Structuralism

• a theoretical paradigm that emphasizes that elements of culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure.

• ‘Their most precise characteristic is that they are what the others are not.’

• Both signifiers (forms) and signigieds (concepts) can change over time

• Form: Good bye < God be with you (500 yrs)

• Nice < not knowing, ignorant, stupid, silly (400 yrs)
  … lat. nescius (nescīre = not to know) – sciō mē nescīre (Socrates)

• silly < worthy, good, holy, pious, nice (decent) (450 yrs)

• The change of the form or the meaning of a language sign should not be confused with changes of the relationships between language signs

• Pre-Saussure linguistics – problems with defining what they were actually studying

Saussure distinguished:

• Langue - the linguistic signs, the system of relations between them, rules for combining them

• Parole - the act of selecting particular elements, combining them and giving them a concrete form (pronouncing them/writing them)

• Chomsky gave new term, that we use today – performance/competence

• The main reason for distinguishing langue and parole is to define the object of linguists’ investigation

• Linguists should not just describe specific speech acts (parole) but try to determine the units and rules of their combination which make up the language system (langue)

• Units are defined in relative terms, not absolute

• Paradigmatic relations

  • Relations between a unit and other units that could appear in the same position (things that can replace each other)

    • Inflectional affixes within a morphological paradigm

    • Phonemes in overlapping distribution

    • A pronoun (proform) and what it refers to

    • Synonyms, antonyms

• Syntagmatic relations

  • Relations between units that combine with each other

    • A verb and its object

    • An allophone and its context, an allomorph and its context

    • Members of a collocation