Saussure's Concepts

3. Paraphrase Saussure’s concepts from the paper and give additional information that your group can gather from other sources (books and websites).

Saussure’s main concepts:

1. Diachronic Vs Synchronic
2. Langue Vs Parole
3. Signifier Vs Signified
4. Syntagmatic Vs Paradigmatic

1. Diachronic Vs Synchronic

An approach through Diachronically is related to individual parts. Synchronically, in other hand, is related to the relationship between the parts. Example: In the word ‘stone’, a diachronic approach will focus on the fact that the diphtong /ou/ in the word is coined from old English sound /a:/ in the word ‘stan’. Meanwhile the Synchronic approach to the word ‘stone’ will concentrate on the relations between the sounds that form it, that the word consists of three phonemes /st/, /o/, /n/. It’s the relation of the phonemes that differentiates it from other words such as ‘stun’: /st/, /^/, /n/ or ‘stand’: /st/, /ae/, /n/, /d/.

Diachronic versus synchronic view

(http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb8/misc/lfb/html/text/1-2-1frame.html)

• Diachrony
  Diachronic linguistics views the historical development of a language. Thus, on the diachronic axis we can go back and forth in time, watching the language with all its features change.
• Synchrony
  Synchronic linguistics views a particular state of a language at some given point in time. This could mean Modern English of the present day, or the systematic analysis of the system of Shakespeare's English. However, no comparisons are made to other states of language or other times.
  Modern linguistics, following Ferdinand de Saussure, is primarily interested in the synchronic point of view. Saussure postulated the priority of synchrony: no knowledge of the historical development of a language is necessary to examine its present system. He arrived at this radical viewpoint due to his conviction that linguistic research must concentrate on the structure of language. Later, the whole paradigm was hence called structuralism.

2. Langue Vs Parole

Langue and Parole are both Saussure’s philosophy in language. Langue is the abstract element of language which determines the nature of parole, which is the performing element. Briefly, Langue is the competence part of language while Parole is its performance.

(http://intepid.com/stuff/essays/002.html)

‘For such analysis to be feasible, Saussure perceived that serious reductions needed to be made. To this end he performed a series of bifurcations on language. After eliminating nonverbal systems (Saussure denigrates writing as derivative of speech-a sign of a sign), he splits verbal language into two components, la langue, the underlying system of conventions which exists in the collective mind of the linguistic community, and la parole, the actual speaking of the language. Saussure's parole is effectively an instantiation of la langue, as substance is to form, and hence considered external. Though relevant, the external is not deemed essential to an understanding of the structure of la langue’.

3. Signifier Vs Signified

Signifier is the sound image and Signified is the concept. To make it easy, we’ll take an example: The red light in the traffic-light does not signify stop, but that it is not green. The action of real stopping has no real connection with the red light. Its relation is arbitrary.

(http://intepid.com/stuff/essays/002.html)

‘Rather than looking at language as a set of names for things, or even as a set of words with meanings, Saussure's structuralism considers language as a multitude of signs, where each sign links a phonic sound (the signifier) with an idea (the signified). Whereas the notion of naming things implies a finite number of well defined objects and concepts requiring labels, Saussure's linguistic sign acts as a two-way link between the sound (or more specifically the sound image - the "psychological imprint" of a sound) and the idea. It is bi-directional in the sense that just as the word "red" may evoke notions of red objects, a notion of something red may elicit the sound image "red". A sound is meaningless if it is not so linked to an idea, and likewise for an idea to be coherent one requires the capacity to articulate it.

Structuralism recognises neither ideas nor sounds as having intrinsic or absolute value; both realms are considered as indeterminate and continuous. Just as the notion of "large" has no inherent value, without recognition of at least one other size notion, eg "small", value is perceived only in terms of difference in relation to other ideas and sound. For example, if large were the only size notion, to describe something as "large" or "not large" would be meaningless, (unless the signifier "not-large" is understood as signifying smallness, thus giving us a second size notion). Introducing a third size notion of "tiny" to our idea space alters somewhat the boundaries of large and small, reducing their scope and the distance between them, effectively narrowing their meanings. Similarly, language sounds, or sound images, are perceived largely in terms of their differences from other sounds. For example, an English word spoken at two different frequencies (or two different speeds), is generally perceived as the same word, even though the sounds are clearly different.

The linguistic sign therefore serves to link not points but regions of sound-space and idea-space, the boundaries of which are determined by the existence of other sounds and other ideas. This is to say that a sign taken on its own, without reference to a larger system of such signs, can have no meaning.

The pairing of sound with idea is considered by Saussure almost entirely arbitrary, determined purely by convention within a linguistic community. This is to say there is nothing in the sound itself that links it to an idea, nor is there anything in the idea which links it to a particular sound. That human languages can differ so much in sound (and to a lesser extent in the ideas which can be signified) is powerful support for this assertion.

If we accept that the bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, and therefore that the sign itself is arbitrary, then the chief concern of structuralism becomes the analysis of value, which in turn requires the analysis of the system as a whole, in keeping with the aforementioned relational nature of both sound and idea’.

4. Syntagmatic Vs Paradigmatic

Syntacmatic is the horizontal relations and Paradigmatic is the vertical relations or associative relations. Syntagmatic relation shows the relationship between the meaning and the function of each unit of language. The meaning can be predicted through permutation, the changing of the units to identify the meaning of a speech. Meanwhile, Paradigmatic shows relationship between each unit of language.

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‘The synchronic system can then be described in terms of two axes: the paradigmatic and the syntagmatic. The paradigmatic is concerned with meaning based on association, and the syntagmatic is based on combination. To elaborate: the paradigmatic is concerned with the 'fixed' value of signs based on their immediate associations with other signs (like the association of the sound/idea "large" with other size notions such as "small", as well as with other sound images, such as "barge"). On the other hand, the syntagmatic is concerned with the 'dynamic', pertaining to meaning conferred by the combination, order and sequence of signs (such as the sequence, or syntagm: "That is a very large bird"-The idea signified by the sound image "bird" is modified by the words preceding it).

The relationship between the paradigmatic and the syntagmatic is analogous to that between the synchronic and diachronic, in that the former is like a snapshot of related values, where the latter offers a trajectory where value is related to the sequence or progression. The paradigmatic is structuralism's primary concern, being more readily systematisable, although a consideration of both (and the correlations between them) is essential for any structuralist analysis’