Download - Linguistic Turn E12 M03
Agenda
• To track, via Saussure’s theory, the modernization of language study so as to appreciate the Linguistic Turn and its many epistemological consequences for the human sciences and for communication studies
• To introduce and examine the specific terminology, methods, and axioms of Saussurean structuralism esp. in terms of their production of radical concepts of human subjectivity, communication & community, media, thought, and language
Source Text
Ferdinand de SaussureSwiss linguist, University of Geneva
Course in General Linguistics (1916)
Saussure: A Man of Science
• Found many problems with the older and previous forms of language study and sought to make an exact (or at least, precise) science of “linguistics.”
• Later: He himself became a Sign for the very theory that both professionalized linguistics & became the basis for semiotics/semiology [Structuralism]
As a Man of Science
• Sought to supersede and systematize, refine the study of lingusitic phenomena by staging a critique of previous forms of language study
• On the basis of this critique, broached the radical, fundamental Q: What is the “true & unique object” [p. 1] of a modern linguistics that could be envisioned?
As a Man of Science
• Believed that the founding objective of the new science should be “to seek out the nature of its object of study, [as] obviously, without this elementary step, no science can develop a method.” [p. 3]
• “What is both the integral and concrete object of linguistics?” [p. 7]
As a Man of Science
• Of the three objectives that should constitute the “subject matter & scope of linguistics” [see p. 6], b) & c) are the most telling in this regard
• Like colleagues in the natural and physical sciences, Saussure sought to isolate and study the structure, the constitutive/constituent units of his object of study [“linguistic phenomenon” –p. 4]
Structural or “nuclear” unit of the Object
• Cell: Cellular Biology
• Molecule: Molecular Chemistry
• Atom: Particle or Atomic Physics
• *the idea is isolate this basic structure & unit of the “linguistic phenomenon” so as to be able to explain its self-reproductive power, its elevation to a principle or law governing its reality [see b)]
Problems with Previous Schools of Language Study
1. Grammarians [Ancient Greeks to the Modern French]: normative approach to Language2. Classical Philologists: slavish attention to written texts, “to the neglect of the living language”3. Comparative Philologists: naturalist approach to Language; method exclusively comparative, not historical [Whitney & Bopp however introduce the necessity to historicize language development]
*all are unable to train their focus on the real object of study
Basic Difficulties of Language Study*range of linguistic phenomena is enormous
**object of Language Study is not given in advance***”linguistic phenomenon always has two related
sides:” [p. 8]1. acoustic—vocal
2. acoustic-vocal unit + idea [‘complex physiological-psychological unit’]
3. individual & social side of speech4. implies an ‘established system’ & an ‘evolution’
[Kristeva: synchrony/diachrony]
Langue/LangageLanguage “not to be confused with human speech, of
which it is only a definite part, though certainly an essential one”
*both “a product of the faculty of speech” & “a collection of necessary conventions….adopted by a social body to
permit individuals to exercise that faculty.”Speech [by contrast] is “many-sided, and
heterogeneous….we cannot discover its unity.” [p. 9]
Langue/LANGUAGE• ‘A self-contained whole’ [its structure can be
isolated and self-sonservative, systematic in nature]
• ‘A principle of classification’ [given ‘first place among the facts of speech,’ it can ‘introduce a natural order into a mass that lends itself to no other classificaion’]
• But if ‘speech is based on a natural faculty & language something acquired or conventional,’ shouldn’t speech take precedence? [pp. 9-10]
• This objection “is easily refuted”
Is Langue/Language Natural, Organismic?
• Cites the American linguist Whitney on the natural, organismic basis for Language (has implications for human signification: there can be other means)
• “language is a convention and the nature of the sign that is agreed upon does not matter” [p. 10]
• “WHAT IS NATURAL TO MANKIND IS NOT ORAL SPEECH BUT THE FACULTY OF CONSTRUCTING A LANGUAGE, ie, a system of distinct signs corresponding to distinct ideas.” [p. 11: linguistic faculty proper]
Language in Speech
Further Divisions of the Circuit*outer-inner
*psychological & non-psychological*active-receptive
Associative & Coordinating Faculty*”this faculty plays the dominant role in the organization of language as a
system” [p. 12]*”to understand this….leave the
individual act….approach the social fact”
AVERAGE: COMMON BOND
The Social Crystallization of Language
*nonpsychological part OUTpyschological part OUT:
execution is individual (executive side to be called speaking [parole])
SO:toward “the social bond that constitutes
language”
“Language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only
within a collectivity.”[p. 14]
*to separate language FROM speaking: social from individual;
essential from what is accessory or accidental!
‘Language is not a function of the speaker.’ [On the contrary, the
speaker is a function in/of Language’] p. 14
*implications or consequences of an axiom like this?
SUMMARY• L a well-defined object within heterogeneous
mass of speech facts [can be ‘localized’—p. 14]• L, unlike speaking, can be studied separately• L is homogeneous: “It is a system of signs in
which the only ESSENTIAL thing is the union of meanings and sound-images and in which both parts of the sign are psychological” [p. 15]
• Language is CONCRETE, representable in graphic form whereas actes de parole [individual speech acts] cannot be ‘photographed’ or similarly imaged.
‘SEMIOLOGY’“We must call a new type of facts in order to
illuminate the special nature [and structure] of L”*’L is a system of signs that express ideas, and is THEREFORE COMPARABLE TO A SYSTEM OF WRITING, THE ALPHABET OF DEAF-MUTES,
SYMBOLIC RITES, POLITE FORMULAS, MILITARY SIGNALS, etc. But it is the most
important of all these systems. [LT;L Analogy; Linguistic Model] p. 16
FORESEEING SEMIOLOGY“A science that studies the life of
signs within society is conceivable….I shall call it semiology (from the Greek
s*em*ion ‘sign’). Semiology would show what would constitute signs [no longer exclusively ‘linguistic’], what laws govern them….” p. 16;
also pp. 16-17 remarks
Nature of the Linguistic Sign
Language not a naming process or system
“The linguistic unit is a double entity: one formed by the
associating of two terms” [pp. 65-66]
TERMINOLOGY (p. 67)
• ‘Our definition of the linguistic sign poses an important question of terminology’ [problem of ambiguity; demand for precision’
• “The thing that constitutes language….is unrelated to the phonic character of the linguistic sign.”
Sign [signe]=Signified [Signifie] + Signifier [Signifiant]
• Sd to replace concept; Sfr to replace sound-image