Literary Interpretation - Saussure - Structuralism

Ferdinand De Saussure

1       Course in General Linguistics

a.     From Chapter III

                                               i.     Language is summarized as:

1.     The fusion of a thought and an “auditory image.”

2.     Existing outside oneself and belonging to the community that shares it.

3.     Having to be learned.

                                             ii.     Language can be studied on its own.

                                            iii.     Language is a system of signs that fuse meanings and sound-images (auditory image).

1.     Both parts of language are psychological.

                                            iv.     Language is not abstractions.

1.     Meaning is agreed upon by the collective.

2.     Meaning has a reality in the brain.

3.     Linguistic signs can be reduced to written symbols.

4.     Language is the storehouse of sound-images, and writing is the tangible form of those images.

b.     Language is a system of signs that express ideas and is comparable to writing.

c.     Semiology – The science that studies the life of signs within society.  Possible proposal.

                                               i.     Language needs to be studied in and of itself as it is the medium for understanding.

                                             ii.     To understand the nature of language we need to learn what it has in common with all other sign based systems.

d.     Part one, chapter 1.

                                               i.     Naming conventions over simplify language.

1.     It assumes ready made ideas before words.

2.     It doesn’t tell us if the name is vocal or psychological.

3.     Assumes the linking of name to object is a simple task.

                                             ii.     Sign – Unites a concept and a sound image.  Not a thing and a name.

1.     Distinction is made between the mental sound-images of words and their vocal expression through phonemes.

2.     A sign is a two sided psychological entity that is                                                      = Concept / Sound Image.

3.     Each element is linked and recalls the other.

4.     Signifier and Signified replace the word Sound-image.

a.     Signifier – The object.

b.     Signified – The mental construct.

5.     Principle I: The linguistic sign is arbitrary.  It could be represented in numerous ways but only one has been selected.

a.     Symbols are not arbitrary as elements describing them are needed to describe them.

b.     Arbitrary means it has no natural connection with the signified.

6.     Principle II: The Linear Nature of the Sign.

a.     Since the signifier is auditory it is linier in the sense that it represents a span of time in a single direction.

e.     Part Two, Chapter IV.

                                               i.     Language as Organized Thought Coupled with sound.

                                             ii.     Language is represented by ideas and sounds.

                                            iii.     Language doesn’t seek to express ideas, but to link thought and sound in a way that their unification can be reproduced.

                                            iv.     Language is a way of ordering thought.

                                             v.     Each idea has a sound that becomes the sign for an idea.

                                            vi.     Thought and sound produce a form, not a substance.

                                          vii.     Conceptual values.

1.     Value and signification are distinct.

2.     Values are differentiated from words outside itself but in the same language system.

3.     Values of similar things that can be compared for determination of value.

4.     The signified is determined by what other signifiers are not.

5.     Conceptual side of value is made up solely of relations and differences with respect to the other terms of language.

                                         viii.     Material values.

1.     It is the phonic differences that distinguish a word as a signifier.

2.     Sound is secondary to language. 

3.     Signs in writing are also arbitrary.  There is no connection between a letter and the sounds it make.

4.     The value of letter is purely negative and differential.

5.     The letter matters only within the limitations of the system.

                                            ix.     The sign considered in its totality.

1.     Signs are determined by the meanings of other signs.

2.     Signs can be modified without changes to themselves, but by changes to other signs around them.

3.     The signifier and signified are formed through negative associations, what they are not.

4.     The resulting sign becomes a positive and both the signifier and signified become associated with it.  They become distinct.

                                              x.     Syntagmatic and Associative Relations.

1.     Discourse – Words acquire relations based on the linear nature of language and they are chained together.

2.     Syntagm – linear chains of words.

3.     Outside Discourse – Words relating to one another.  A word sparks a concept in the mind resulting in associations with similar words.

4.     Syntagm relates to words, groups of words, and complex configurations.

5.     Words and Syntagms manifest numerous mental associations.

Works Cited

Saussure, Ferdinand De. Course in General Linguistics. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010.  845-866. Print.