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The Thinking of Speaking
Issue #1 January / February 2013
Biographies
Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure

Signs of Language

Signs of Language

by Sofia Ozols
January / February 2013 |  asd

Swiss born linguist Ferdinand de Saussure is widely recognized as the creator of the modern theory of structuralism as well as the father of modern linguistics of the 20th century.

He laid the foundation for many developments in linguistics, and his perception of linguistics as a branch of a general science of signs, which he called "semiology" would influence many generations to come. His work also laid the basic foundation for the concept known as structuralism in the larger fields of the social sciences.

His Life

Ferdinand de Saussure was born on November 26, 1857, in Geneva, Switzerland, into a family of well-known scientists.

Young Ferdinand was a bright and eager student, and he showed promise early on in the area of languages. He learned Latin, Sanskrit, Greek, English, German, and French. His mentor at that age was the eminent linguist Adolphe Pictet who encouraged the young man to pursue his growing passion for languages.

Because of his parent's work, he attempted to follow in their footsteps and began attending the prestigious University of Geneva in 1875, studying chemistry and physics. He was only there a year, however, before he convinced his parents to allow him to go to Leipzig in 1876 to study linguistics.

He studied Sanskrit and comparative linguistics in Geneva, Paris, and Leipzig, as well as a variety of courses at the University of Geneva, and commenced graduate work at the University of Leipzig in 1876.

While in Leipzig, he became part of a circle of young scholars known as the Neogrammarians. Karl Brugmann, a prominent member of the group, was one of his mentor. He was also close to Karl Verner and others in the group.

University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig

Two years later, in 1878, Saussure, now 21, published his first full-length book, "Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européenes" (Dissertation on the Primitive Vowel System in Indo-European Languages). It was considered by most as a brilliant work, and the book launched de Saussure's reputation as a new expert because of its contributions to the field of comparative linguistics. This work also revealed an important discovery in the area of Indo-European languages that became to be known as de Saussure's laryngeal theory. However, the theory would not become widely accepted until the mid-20th century. De Saussure also published "Remarques de grammaire et de phonetique" (Comments on Grammar and Phonetics) in 1878.

In 1880, he completed his doctoral dissertation and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Leipzig. Shortly afterwards he moved to Paris and began lecturing on ancient and modern languages.

Karl Brugman

Who Were The Neogrammarians

The Neogrammarians (also known as Young Grammarians, German Junggrammatiker) were a German group of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century. The group flourished between 1875–1893, and its primary members were Karl Brugmann, August Leskien, Hermann Osthoff, and Berthold Delbruck. Most modern linguists share the Neogrammarians' objective approach to language data and their insistence on its systematic nature.

They proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change, in which a diachronic sound change affects simultaneously all words in which its environment is met, without exception. That is, if within a language, the way a letter or combination of letters is pronounced is alterred, all words using that combination immediately have their pronunciations change within the same area the change has been implemented.

The Neogrammarian hypothesis was the first hypothesis of sound change to attempt to follow the principle of falsifiability according to scientific method (any exception that can be reliably reproduced should invalidate the simplest theory). However, today this hypothesis is considered more of a guiding principle than an exceptionless fact, because numerous examples of lexical diffusion (where a sound change affects only a few words at first and then gradually spreads to other words) have been shown.

Other contributions of the Neogrammarians to general linguistics were (from Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics):

  • The object of linguistic investigation is not the language system, but rather the idiolect, that is, language as it is localized in the individual, and therefore is directly observable.
  • Autonomy of the sound level: being the most observable aspect of language, the sound level is seen as the most important level of description, and absolute autonomy of the sound level from syntax and semantics is assumed.
  • Historicism: the chief goal of linguistic investigation is the description of the historical change of a language.
  • Analogy: if the premise of the inviolability of sound laws fails, analogy can be applied as an explanation if plausible. Thus, exceptions are understood to be a (regular) adaptation to a related form.

His first professional work in the field of linguistics was as a teacher at the École Pratique Des Hautes Études in Paris. There, he taught numerous languages, including Lithuanian and Persian, which he had added to his range of languages. He also became an active member of the Linguistic Society of Paris, in which he served as its secretary in 1882. He remained at the École Practique for 10 years before leaving in 1891 to accept a new position as professor of Indo-European languages and comparative grammar at the University of Geneva.

De Saussure lectured on Sanskrit and Indo-European as well as teaching historical linguistics at the University of Geneva for the remainder of his life. It wasn't until 1906 that Saussure began to teach his course of "General Linguistics". It was this class which would become the basis for his perhaps most influential work "A Course in General Linguistics". This was published in 1916, three years after his death, and was edited entirely by two of his students, Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye. The book transformed the comparative and historical philology 19th-century into the 20th-century contemporary linguistics.

While living and teaching in Geneva, de Saussure married and had two sons. Saussure continued to lecture at the university for the remainder of his life until his death from cancer on February 22, 1913.

There has been indication, through historical records, that de Saussure had a great fear of publishing any of his works until they were proven to be absolutely accurate. Therefore, many of his works were never released during his lifetime, and many of his theories have since been explained in books by other authors.

A linguistic system is a series of differences of sounds combined with a series of differences of ideas.

Also, according to Robert Godel, in an essay in "Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure", de Saussure was "terrified" when in 1906 the University of Geneva asked him to teach a course on linguistics, because he believed himself not qualified for the job. Godel wrote that de Saussure "did not feel up to the task, and had no desire to wrestle with the problems once more. However, he undertook what he believed to be his duty."

The editors of his posthumous work, "A Course in General Linguistics", Bally and Sechehaye have been criticized for not clearly showing how their professor's ideas evolved as well as for not making clear that de Saussure rarely believed his innovative concepts to be wholly formed.

Scholars have also cited evidence that de Saussure was strongly influenced by his academic peers, William Dwight Whitney and Michel Bréal, suggesting that de Saussure's theories were not as original as they were once believed to be.

Before he died, de Saussure had told some friends that he was writing up his lectures himself, but no evidence of this was found. In 1996, eighty years later, a manuscript in Saussure's handwriting was found in his family home in Geneva. This proved to be the missing original of the work, and in 2002, "Écrits De Linguistique Générale" (Writings in General Linguistics, prepared by Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler) was published.

This new textual source answers several questions about what de Saussure believed. It also brings to light new elements which require a revision of the legacy of Saussure, and call into question the reconstruction of his thought by his students in the Course in General Linguistics.

Theories

Synchronic vs. Diachronic Linguistics

Two ways of studying languages are synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Synchronic is the study of a language at a certain point. It looks at the way the language works at a particular point, like Shakespearean English. The English of that time is different from Modern English. Diachronic is the study of the changing state of language over time. That would compare the differences between Shakespearean English and Modern English, seeing how the first became the second. In a sense, it's looking at languages as an evolving being rather than a fixed entity.

De Saussure brought about many changes in linguistic studies. He emphasized a synchronic view of linguistics in contrast to the earlier diachronic view. The synchronic view looks at the structure of language as a functioning system in whole at any given point of time. The diachronic view looks at the way a language develops and changes over time. This distinction was considered a breakthrough and became generally accepted.

His work was wide ranging, and the three most predominant contributions are those dealing with Indo-European philology (Laryngal Theory), the relations between words and rules (Structuralism), and the combinations of "signs" in a language (Semiology).

Laryngeal Theory

In Saussure's first major publication, which dealt with Indo-European philology, he proposed the existence of "ghosts" in Proto-Indo-European (PIE) called "primate coefficients". The Scandinavian scholar Hermann Möller suggested that these might be laryngeal consonants, leading to what is now known as the laryngeal theory, and the sounds became known as "laryngeals".

These consonants have mostly disappeared or have become identical with other sounds in the recorded Indo-European languages, so their former existence has had to be deduced primarily from their effects on neighbouring sounds. There were three such laryngeals: h1, the "neutral" laryngeal; h2, the "a-colouring" laryngeal; and h3, the "o-colouring" laryngeal.

The theory did not begin to achieve any general acceptance until Hittite was discovered and deciphered in the mid-20th century. At that point, it became apparent that Hittite had phonemes (tiny sound units that help distinguish between utterances), for which the laryngeal theory was the best explanation.

Nowadays, the existence of these sounds is widely accepted by philologists, mainly because proposing their existence helps explain some sound changes that appear in the language descendents of PIE.

It is most likely that de Saussure's attempts to explain how he was able to make systematic and predictive hypotheses from known linguistic data to unknown linguistic data stimulated his development of structuralism.

Structuralism

De Saussure created two terms to define a way to look at language. The first, "parole", which is French for "speech", refers to the sounds that a person makes when speaking, or a graphic representation of that sound. The same paroles might exist in multiple languages, but have very different meanings. The second term, "langue", which is French for "language", refers to the system of conventions and rules that are applied to paroles, to make them understandable between people. As an example, the sound we make in English for "see" ([si:]), has multiple meanings in English: it is a verb meaning to visualize with an eye, a large body of water, and a letter of the alphabet. We understand its meaning by its context, which is part of the rules set up in the langue. Moreover, the same parole means "yes" or "if" in Italian, and is understood by the langue of that language.

Speaking of linguistic law in general is like trying to pin down a ghost, or wrestle a gorilla.

Both of these ideas are integral to the modern theory of structuralism. De Saussure put forth that a word's meaning is based less on the object it is referring to and more on its structure. That is, when a person selects a word, he does so in the context of having had the chance to choose other words. This idea adds another dimension to the chosen word's meaning, since humans normally instinctively base a word's meaning upon its difference from the other words which were not chosen. So the words we use are decided upon by our refining our meanings in a logical, structured fashion.

De Saussure's theories on this subject laid down the foundations for the structuralist schools in both social theory and linguistics. His impact on the development of linguistic theory in the first half of the 20th century is huge. Two currents of thought came about independently of each other.

In Europe, the most important work was being undertaken in the Prague School. Nikolay Trubetzkoy and Roman Jakobson headed the efforts of the Prague School in setting the course of phonological theory for the decades following 1940. Jakobson's universalizing structural-functional theory of primatology, which dealt with how primates developed languages, was the first successful solution of a plane of linguistic analysis, using the de Saussure's hypothesis. In the Copenhagen School, Louis Hjelmslev proposed new interpretations of linguistics from the structuralist theoretical framework.

In America, de Saussure's ideas helped guide Leonard Bloomfield and the post-Bloomfieldian Structuralism practices. These influenced such researchers as Bernard Bloch, Charles Hockett, Eugene Nida, George L. Trager, Rulon S. Wells III, and through Zellig Harris, the young Noam Chomsky. This further influenced Chomsky's theory of Transformational grammar, as well as other contemporary developments of structuralism, such as Kenneth Pike's theory of tagmemics, Sidney Lamb's theory of stratificational grammar, and Michael Silverstein's work.

Outside the field of linguistics, the principles and methods employed by structuralism were adopted by scholars such as Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, and were implemented in their various areas of study. However, their broad interpretations of de Saussure's theories, which already contained ambiguities, and their application of those theories to non-linguistic fields such as sociology and anthropology, led to some theoretical difficulties and proclamations of the end of structuralism in those studies.

Semiology

While de Saussure seems to have veered off the path established for him by his scientific relatives, he was and still is widely regarded as a scientist. His perception of linguistics as a branch of science he called semiology (the theory and study of signs and symbols) and through his teachings, he encouraged other linguists to view language not "as an organism developing of its own accord, but as a product of the collective mind of a linguistic community."

De Saussure's "Course in General Linguistics" laid out a notion that language may be analyzed as a formal system of different elements, which he referred to as "signs". Within a languages, these signs evolve constantly. A sign comprises of two parts: the signifier (what it sounds or looks like in vocal or graphic form) and the signified (the object the signifier represents).

For example, a small object that can be held in the hand and holds a liquid for drinking would be the "signified" of the sound "cup", which would be the signifier. The relationship between the two parts of the sign, de Saussure postulated, is hazy and the parts may be impossible to separate because of their arbitrary relationship. There is no particular reason that the sound "cup" is applied to that particular object, as can be easily shown by looking at its name in other languages (tasse, cupán, filxhan, kop, bolli, cangkir).

Moreover, because of this arbitrary nature of the relationship, signifiers can shift within a language over time. The meaning happens only when people agree that a certain sound combination indicates an object or idea. Then this agreement creates a "sign" for the object or idea. Without that, nothing has meaning.

In language there are only differences, and no positive terms.

We know what a cup is through its relationship to other things. It holds water, unlike a book, while a lake also holds water, but we can't hold that in our hands to drink from it. Our minds, therefore, develop concepts because of these relationships. When we form these relationships because of what other objects are not, we are forming negative relationships, known as "binary oppositions".

Followers of Saussure have extended this two part structure of signs to a three part one, in which the signified is an idea or concept (like the idea of holding a liquid in an object) and the object itself is called the "referent".

Despite his many and formidable contributions to the field of linguistics, de Saussure has been criticized for narrowing his studies to the social aspects of language, thereby omitting the ability of people to manipulate and create new meanings. However, his scientific approach to his examination of the nature of language has had impacts on a wide range of areas related to linguistics, including contemporary literary theory, deconstructionism (a theory of literary criticism that proposes that words can only refer to other words and which tries to show how statements about any words subvert their own meaning), and structuralism.

Fan or critic, however, one must concede that Ferdinand de Saussure's contributions to his field as well as others were far reaching and revolutionary, and have influenced generations of scholars.

WORKS
  • (1878) Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européenes (Memoir on the Primitive System of Vowels in Indo-European Languages)
  • (1878) Remarques de grammaire et de phonetique (Comments on Grammar and Phonetics)
  • (1916) Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General Linguistics); ed. C. Bally and A. Sechehaye, with the collaboration of A. Riedlinger, Lausanne and Paris: Payot; trans. W. Baskin
  • (1993) Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures in General Linguistics (1910–1911)
  • (2002) Écrits de linguistique générale (Writings in General Linguistics) (edition prepared by Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler)
Ferdinand de Saussure - Signs of Language
Writer: Sofia Ozols
Images:
DeeJer: Geneva Lake (top)
Sylenius: Entrance to University of Geneva
Petey: Ferdinand de Saussure 1, Leipzig University, Karl Brugmann
Sources:
• "Ferdinand de Saussure - Definition." Word IQ.com. September 6, 2009. <http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Ferdinand_de_Saussure>
• "Biographical sketch of Ferdinand de Saussure." Kemmer, Suzanne. September 6, 2009. <http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Found/saussurebio.html>
• "Ferdinand de Saussure." Answers.com. September 6, 2009. <http://www.answers.com/topic/ferdinand-de-saussure>
• "Ferdinand de Saussure." Nation Master.com. September 6, 2009. <http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Ferdinand-de-Saussure>
• "de Saussure, Ferdinand." New World Encyclopedia. September 6, 2009. <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ferdinand_de_Saussure>

All images are Copyright - CC BY-SA (Creative Commons Share Alike) by their respective owners, except for Petey, which is Public Domain (PD) or unless otherwise noted.

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