Ferdinand de Saussure, ideas from Course in General Linguistics (outline)
 

Outline of ideas

Nature of the Linguistic Sign

1. Sign, Signified, Signifier
• Terms involved in the linguistic sign are psychological and have and associative bond
• The linguistic sign unites a concept and a sound image
• Sign: designates the whole relationship
• Signified: the concept part
• Signifier: the sound-image part
2. Arbitrary Nature of Signs
• The bond between signified and signifier is arbitrary
• The whole, represented by that relationship, is arbitrary
• Linguistics will be the "master-pattern" for all signifying systems because it is the most complex and arbitrary.
• Symbol cannot replace sign in this system because symbol is not truly arbitrary
• Onomatopoeia and interjections can't be used to call the whole system into question because they are of "secondary importance, and their symbolic origin is open to dispute" (they are also a very small part of the whole language system.)
3. Linear Nature of the Signifier
 
• Auditory expression has duration and it is linear
• The mechanisms of language and language construction are dependent on this

1. Language as Organized Thought Coupled with Sound
 
• Thought is dependent on language. There can be no clearly distinct concept to think about without language.
• Language creates a link between sound and idea. Sounds by themselves don't have any real significance to thought.
• Linguistics combines thought and sound to produce a form, not a substance.
• vLanguage is contingent on social interaction. The individual cannot create the arbitrary system alone. It requires agreement.
2. Linguistic Value from a Conceptual Viewpoint
 
• Value saves language from being simply a naming process
• Terms are interdependent and derive their value from the presence of other terms
• This works through the exchange of dissimilar things and in the comparison of similar things "of which the value is to be determined"
• This can be tested by attempting to exchange terms.
3. Linguistic Value from a Material Viewpoint
 
• This is the phonic differences that "make it possible to distinguish one word from all others
• Language is both arbitrary and differential
• Signs also occur in writing and are arbitrary again in their relation top sound (just as the sound word's relationship to a thing is arbitrary). The value of letters is negative and differential. The forms depend on the imposition and limits of a given system. The means of sign production (writing, engraving, chiseling) don't matter

1. Definitions
 
• Words have definition in that they are part of discourse or they are outside it. In discourse, the linear relationships of sound parts (syntagms)--whether parts of words or words in a sequence--the sounds have to be uttered separately and their definition is based on their relationship in that sequence. Outside discourse, individual words make associations in the brain with other words they call to mind an acquire definition that way.
2. Syntagmatic Relations
 
• The sentence is the ideal form of syntagm but it is not the only kind.
• There is a limited freedom of combinations of syntagms. Some are very limited as in idiomatic expressions.
3. Associative Relations
 
• Words outside of syntagmatic arrangements have an unlimited potential for association. Saussure uses as an example painful, delightful, and frightful. Because of association, these words could call up an unlimited number of associations because each word associated would carry another who set of associations.

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