Ferdinand Saussure

10 Key excerpts on "Ferdinand Saussure"

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  Doing Cultural Theory

  • David Walton(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  2

  Structuralism and the Linguistic Turn

  Ferdinand de Saussure

  Introduction

  The next three sections are dedicated to some of the ways structuralism has been of interest to cultural studies. This chapter will introduce one of the founders of structuralism: Ferdinand de Saussure. It will start by contextualizing the publication of his key work and will discuss the way in which his theories have been mediated to the academic world. It will then introduce his revolutionary theory of the sign, describe his main concepts and demonstrate how they may be used in practice with relation to questions of gender and patriarchal forces.

  Learning goals   To appreciate how Ferdinand de Saussure’s ideas have been communicated to the academic world. To understand Saussure’s theory of the sign and how this relates to what he called semiology. To see how cultures can be seen to code reality through dominant binary oppositions and construct gender identities through them. To develop a firm conceptual basis in order to be able to see how structuralism can work in practice.

  Concepts The key concepts introduced in this chapter are: structuralism, theory of the sign, signifier, signified, semiology, the code, signification, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, langue, parole, binary oppositions and patriarchy.

  Second-hand Saussure

  Of all the theories that have influenced twentieth-century thought structuralism has been one of the most important and revolutionary. It is primarily associated with the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), who is seen as the father of structuralist thought. Although structuralism was developed within linguistics, it has left its influence on many academic areas within the arts, not only on cultural studies but on other fields including Anthropology, Philosophy, Communications and Media Studies, Political Theory and Literary Studies (to mention only a few). I shall begin discussion of structuralism by outlining, very briefly, something of the publishing history of Saussure’s key work: his Course in General Linguistics

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  Critical Theory to Structuralism

  Philosophy, Politics and the Human Sciences

  • David Ingram(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  9 FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE AND LINGUISTIC STRUCTURALISM Thomas F. Broden Along with psychology, sociology, and anthropology, linguistics figures among the human and social sciences established in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that have differentiated themselves as disciplines and have achieved widespread intellectual and institutional recognition, particularly since the First World War. Like the comparative grammar that launched modern linguistics in the early nineteenth century, the structuralist paradigm that marked the first half of the twentieth century concentrated on sound in language, and secondarily on morphology. But Ferdinand de Saussure 1 and like-minded linguists such as Émile Benveniste, 2 Louis Hjelmslev, Roman Jakobson, and Nikola Trubetzkoy redefined their discipline in the spirit of their era’s scientific epistemology, elaborating an explicit theory and methodology, emphasizing a holistic approach, and establishing a synchronic perspective on a par with historical perspectives. While steeped in the cultures and texts of the idioms they studied, most structuralists called for modern linguistics to distinguish itself from the wider philological arts by concentrating on the rigorous analysis of internal linguistic mechanisms. Among the scores of groundbreaking works, Saussure’s 1916 Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General Linguistics) has made the biggest impact and generated the most debate, particularly outside linguistics. In modern continental thought, Saussure and structural linguists share certain affinities with Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche, the “masters of suspicion” who decenter rationalist and even existentialist models of man focused on the individual’s conscious introspection

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  Critical Theory for Library and Information Science

  Exploring the Social from Across the Disciplines

  • Gloria J. Leckie, Lisa M. Given, John E. Buschman, Gloria J. Leckie, Lisa M. Given, John E. Buschman(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Libraries Unlimited

    (Publisher)

  Pettigrew and McKechnie (2001) also mention Saussure (semiotics) as one of the humanities theorists who have been used in library and information science research. STRUCTURALISM Radford and Radford (2005) focus on SaussureÊs contributions from a structuralist point of view (by way of the CLG), and Michel FoucaultÊs contributions, from a post- structuralist point of view. Through their consideration of the contributions of these 278 CRITICAL THEORY FOR LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE two theorists, the authors focus on ways of conceptualizing the role of the library. The authors view SaussureÊs contribution as involving the identification of a variety of elements that together comprise the whole of language. These elements create a sys- tem, where the value of any one element depends on the others. They note that meaning through language is created by patterns and not by a correspondence between a thing and its label. Radford and Radford see FoucaultÊs poststructuralist view of language as continuing the consideration of the organizing principles of language with a shift from an objective scientific view of language to one that takes note of the place of context in the creation of meaning. Meanings become contingent on the arbitrary configurations of signs in contrast to some independent reference point. Radford and Radford meld SaussaureÊs structuralist view with FoucaultÊs poststructu- alist views to create something new that highlights the evolution of thinking on language as a vehicle for helping people make sense of their worlds. While Saussure focused on signs, Foucault emphasized discursive formations, which highlight configurations or regularities in concrete items present as humans communicate. This view embraces the cumulative nature of science as it recognizes that seemingly disparate contributions may offer a deeper understanding of the social phenomena related to language in theory and in use.

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  Linguistic Theory

  The Discourse of Fundamental Works

  • Robert-Alain De Beaugrande, Robert De Beaugrande(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 2

  Ferdinand de Saussure 1

       

  2.1   Ferdinand de Saussure's Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General Linguistics) is a peculiar book, not merely published but in part composed after the author's death. Since he ‘destroyed the rough drafts of the outlines used for his lectures’, the editors, Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye, and Albert Riedlinger, used ‘the notes collected by students’ in order to ‘attempt a reconstruction, a synthesis’, and to ‘recreate F. de Saussure's thought’ (CG xviiif). To ‘draw together an organic whole’, the editors tried to ‘weed out variations and irregularities characteristic of oral delivery’, and to ‘omit nothing that might contribute to the overall impression’ (CG xix). Thus, the ‘Saussure’ of the Cours is a composite voice, speaking from a lecture platform between 1897 and 1911 and passing through the notebooks of followers who confess that ‘the master’ ‘probably would not have authorized the publication of these pages’ (CG xvii, 38, xviiif). Many problems with its formulation and interpretation may reflect the difficulties of its composition.

  2.2  Saussure – or ‘Saussure’, as I should write perhaps – seems fully conscious of his role as founder of a ‘science’. He constantly searches for generalities, high-level abstractions, and fundamental definitions. Over and over, he states what is ‘always’ or ‘never’ the case, what applies in ‘each’ or ‘every’ instance, what are the ‘only’ relevant aspects, and so on. At times, these universalizing assertions may go beyond what can be demonstrated, or conflict with each other in puzzling ways.2 Formulating the common denominators of Saussurian ‘thought’ can thus be quite challenging.

  2.3  His ‘hesitation to undertake the radical revision which he felt was necessary’ in linguistics seems to have deterred him from writing a general book; in fact, ‘he could not bring himself to publish the slightest note if he was not assured first of the fundamental foundations’ (Benveniste 1971: 33). In a letter to Antoine Meillet dated 4 January, 1894 he proclaimed himself ‘disgusted’ ‘with the difficulty’ of ‘writing ten lines concerning the facts of language which have any common sense’, and with ‘the very great vanity of everything that can ultimately be done in linguistics’ (ibid. , 33f). He lamented ‘the absolute ineptness of current terminology, the necessity to reform it, and, in order to do that, to show what sort of subject language in general is’. In the Cours , he still finds ‘current terminology’ ‘imperfect or incorrect at many points’, and its components ‘all more or less illogical’ (CG 44). Still, he often proposes and defends terms with bravura, and many of these have become standard. And he ‘does not hesitate to use’ ‘the expressions condemned’ by ‘the new school’ he envisions (CG 5n) (cf. 2.30 ).3

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  Reinventing Structuralism

  What Sign Relations Reveal About Consciousness

  • Rodney B. Sangster(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  To close out this study, let us look more closely at how the various struc-tural and post-structural trends in modern linguistics have developed, from the time of Saussure down to the present. This exercise will give us yet another opportunity to clarify the position we have been developing here and more clearly situate sign theory in the context of both its theoretical antecedents and current theories of language. Since such an exercise can take us in many different directions, we will limit this discussion to two key areas: the ontologi-cal locus of structure in language, and the role of internal as opposed to exter-nal factors in determining the ultimate nature of language. 10.1 Saussure’s langue and parole We begin with Saussure, rather than other pioneers of structuralist principles in anthropology, who include of course Emile Durkheim and ultimately, as Charles Laughlin argues in his most recent book (Laughlin 2011: Chap.2), the 182 The position of structuralism in the modern era nineteenth century ethnographer Adolf Bastian, only because we are concen-trating here specifically on the provenience and development of a theory of signs within this movement. Saussure’s position is in many ways difficult to pin down, in part because he wrote so little himself and consequently his major contribution to intellectual history derives from what his students subse-quently published from his lecture notes, but also just as significantly because his work has been variously interpreted over the years to support one or another thesis about the ultimate nature of the structuralist enterprise. (For a comprehensive overview of these interpretations, see especially Strozier 1988.) Nevertheless, certain relatively indisputable conclusions can be drawn.

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  Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language and Linguistics

  • Alex Barber, Robert J Stainton(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Elsevier Science

    (Publisher)

  S Saussure: Theory of the Sign P Cobley , London Metropolitan University, London, UK ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The sign theory of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857– 1913) is principally to be found in his Cours de lin-guistique ge ´ne ´rale ( Course in General Linguistics 1916; translated into English in 1959 and 1983). Saussure’s previous work in philology and his focus on the development of Indo-European languages nec-essarily contains ruminations on the vicissitudes of the linguistic sign but it was his delivery of the course in general linguistics, at short notice to replace a sick colleague, at the University of Geneva from 1907 to 1911, which established his thought in this area. His posthumously published treatise of 1916 was based not on his own writings but on the notes of students present at the course. Specifically, the course was ‘reconstructed’ for publication by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye who stated in their introduction that they were aware of their responsibility to the author who ‘‘perhaps might not have authorized the publication of this text’’ (Saussure, 1983: xx). The preliminary fact that needs to be taken into account, then, in relation to Saussurean sign theory is that, from the outset, it was never definitive. Readers of the Cours cannot be confident that Saussure’s exact words are reproduced in full. Furthermore, they can-not be sure that the editorial choices of Bally and Sechehaye were not limited by what was available to them. For example, a notebook of notes in Saus-sure’s hand, unknown to the editors, was discovered in 1996 and may force a re-reading of previous under-standings of Saussurean sign theory. More important still, perhaps, is that Saussure’s work has been refracted through the work of many illustrious suc-cessors beyond the realms of academic linguistics.

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  Literary Theory: The Complete Guide

  • Mary Klages(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Saussure had examined language as a structure, as langue , and his ideas about the basic structures of language apply to any kind of system of making meaning, whether it’s an official “language,” like English or Spanish or Arabic, or just a set of signals or codes, like football referee signals. Such a system is called a signifying system , and can include any structure or system of organization that creates meaning out of cultural signs. For example, a work of literature, such as a poem, constitutes a signifying system; so does any tribal or community ritual (a wedding, a rain dance, a graduation ceremony), so does any kind of “fashion” (in clothes, food, cars, etc.) or advertisement. In fact, just about any part of a culture constitutes a signifying system, as long as that system contains signs that can be “read” and interpreted, along the lines Saussure laid out: by determining signification (seeing how signifiers are connected to signifieds) and by determining value (seeing how a sign differs from all the other signs in the system). This idea is at the heart of any kind of structuralist analysis. Saussure applies it to language; Levi-Strauss applies it as an anthropologist, to kinship systems, cultural organizations, and to myth; Roland Barthes applies this system to a wide variety of contemporary Western (mostly French) cultural “signs,” including food, advertising, and clothing. For Levi-Strauss and for Saussure, structuralist analysis offers a chance to discover the “timeless universal human truths” so beloved of the humanist perspective, but using a methodology that seems much more “objective” and “scientific.” For Levi-Strauss in particular, such universal human truths— what all humans share by virtue of being human—exist at the level of Structuralism 15 structure. All signifying systems, all systems of cultural organization, share the same fundamental structures, regardless of their particular content.

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  Paradigms of Reading

  Relevance Theory and Deconstruction

  • I. MacKenzie, Kenneth A. Loparo, Ian Mackenzie(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  On the semantic level, Saussure can only account for individual word meanings, and not sentences or discourse. Understanding utterances requires rather more than running together a chain of imprinted meanings, and speaking and writing also involve a multitude of inferential skills. In short, Saussure attributes to language processes that can only take place in hearers and readers. This results in a false model in which language does things and texts are active: words mean, differences signify, and texts control, limit, restrain or ‘imprint’ their readers. The whole range of post-Saussurean literary theory is similarly flawed by its acceptance of this mysterious notion that language itself is active, and signifies without any human interference. As the psycho- analytic critic Norman Holland puts it (1992, p. xii), much contemporary literary theory and criticism is ‘a disease of the intellect’ which ‘rests on a disproven linguistics and a dubious psychology’. One could fill many pages with examples of critical arguments prem- ised on the notion of the active sign, but I will only cite a few notable cases. Various French thinkers sought to ‘abolish’ the human subject in the 1960s, redefining the self as a construct of cultural and linguistic (or ideological) systems over which the individual has no control. Foucault, for example, famously replaced man with language in Les Mots et les choses, describing it as ‘comforting . . . and a source of profound relief to think that man is only a recent invention, a figure not yet two centuries old, a new wrinkle in our knowledge’, and declaring that ‘he will disappear again as soon as that knowledge has discovered a new form’ (Foucault, 1973, p. xxiii) and that ‘man is in the process of perishing as the being of language continues to shine ever brighter upon our horizon’ (p. 386). Derrida (1976, p. 50), meanwhile, insists that ‘from the moment that there is meaning there are nothing but signs.

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  René de Saussure and the theory of word formation :

  • Louis de Saussure, Stephen R. Anderson(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Language Science Press

    (Publisher)

  1 Te theory of meaning in the scienti fc context René claims at the beginning of his book: “the logical principles of the forma-tion of words are thus the same for all languages” but further adds a nuance: “…or at least for all [languages] that start from the same primitive elements” (de Saussure 1911: 4). Unfortunately, he does not elaborate any further on the distinc-tion between types of languages in this respect before looking at some (scarce) crosslinguistic data in the 1919 text where he strengthens his universalist claim. Tis is a conception that departs seriously from the more structuralist and rela-tivist views that were soon to emerge in the structuralist trend based on some interpretations of his brother Ferdinand’s (1916) Course in General Linguistics . Tis has implications at the level of semantics and places René on the side of the “naturality of meaning” hypotheses which relate categorial language to cat-egorial thought without assuming the prevalence of language but rather that of mind (thought) as bearing universal pa terns, while Ferdinand’s theory is rather that languages have irreconcilable semantic systems — all built, however, upon a similar and thus natural mechanism, the “faculty” of language. 230 3 Te theory of meaning in René de Saussure’s works It is clear in the 1911 book that René chooses to ignore linguistic variation as much as possible, and this a ti tude is also palpable in his conception of meaning. His general approach is one of simpli fcation: he aims at reducing the principles in play to the strictest possible minimum (in striking similarity with Ferdinand, who goes as to posit only one overarching axiom, ‘ langue is a system of signs’). It is noteworthy that Ferdinand’s views also disregard linguistic variation, but only at the level of dialectal di ferences. René chooses to overlook diferences across languages in general as much as possible.

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  The Reading of Theoretical Texts

  • Peter Ekegren(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  It is within the system that the sign gets its value and meaning; 73 in its relation to other signs, ‘each term has its value through its contrast with all other terms’ (Saussure, 1988:88). Langue, then, is characterized by the contrasts between its integral parts (Saussure, 1988:105); in short, but most importantly, the consequence of this is, according to Saussure, that In langue itself, there are only differences. Even more important than that is the fact that, although in general a difference presupposes positive terms between which the difference holds, in langue there are only differences, and no positive terms…. In a sign, what matters more than any idea or sound associated with it is what other signs surround it. (Saussure, 1988:118, italics added, see also pp. 114ff) Thus, signs are wholly dependent upon other signs, they are relational (‘The content of a word is determined in the final analysis not by what it contains but by what exists outside it’; Saussure, 1988:114). It is from this principle of differentiation and from the statement that in language there are no positive terms, that I will return to Derrida and his critique of the Saussurean system, a critique resulting in a conception of language upon which a distinction between literary/philosophical texts on the one hand and scientific texts on the other may rest. In reality, Derrida’s critique or deconstruction of Saussure’s linguistics commences with quite other, more basic points, those of phonocentrism, presence and logocentrism present in and characterizing the whole of Saussure’s system, 74 but it would take me too far astray were I to rehearse this

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