Saussure and His Main Contributions
The Saussure’s contribution to modern linguistics was responsible for three key
directions in the study of language. He distinguished between;
Synchrony and Diachrony,
First, he began by distinguishing between historical linguistics (diachronic analyses)
and descriptive linguistics (synchronic analyses)
Diachronic linguistics is the study of language history and change. Diachronic
linguistics deals with the evolution of a language through time, as a continually
changing medium-a never-ending succession of language states. “Diachronic linguistics
will study relations that bind together successive terms not perceived by the collective
mind but substituted for each other without forming a system" (Saussure). For example:
the way in which Shakespeare's style changed from youth to maturity.
Synchronic linguistics sees language as a living whole, existing as a "state" at a
particular point in time. According to Saussure, “Synchronic linguistics will be
concerned with the logical and psychological relations that bind together co-existing
terms and form a system in the collective mind of speakers.
Saussure drew the inter-relationship of the two dimensions in the way:
C
A
B
D
Here AB is the synchronic "axis of simultaneities"; CD is the diachronic "axis of
successions". AB is a language state at an arbitrarily chosen point in time on the line CD
(at X); CD is the historical path the language has traveled, and the route, which it is
going to continue traveling. This distinction is significant because synchronic analyses
were either ignored or overlooked in the past, and most importantly, the distinction
drew attention to the current structural properties of language as well as historical
dimensions.
Langue and parole (language and speech)
The Saussure's second contribution is the distinction between language and parole. He
envisaged language (human speech as a whole) to be composed of two aspects, which
are called langue (the language system) and parole (the act of speaking).
- Langue was considered by Saussure to be the totality of a language, deducible
from an examination of the memories of all the language users.
- On the other hand, parole "comprises the actual manifestation of the system in
speech and writing”. Parole denotes the actual speech act of the individual.
The distinction between langue and parole can be summed up as follows:
Langue (language) Parole (speech)
Is a language system shared by a Is the in the individual realization of
community of speakers that system
Is a social phenomenon Is an individual phenomenon
Is what potential Is what is actual
Is a static situation Is a dynamic situation
Is concept Is the round image of that concept
Is a rule Is a behavior
The distinction between langue and parole also has important implications for other
disciplines as well. In distinguishing them we are separating what is social from what is
individual.
signified and signifier.
Saussure's third main theoretical contribution was to clarify the concept of a language
system that had the most profound influence on subsequent scholarship. He was really
interested in the larger and more abstract system of signs. Saussure characterized signs
as a relationship between "concept" and "sound" to use de Saussure's words
signified and signifier. Saussure called this relationship of signified to signifier a
linguistic sign. The sign, for him, is the basic unit of communication. The linguistic
sign is constituted by the structural relationship between the concept (e.g., "house"---the
signified) and the sound of the word "house" (signifier). A language is essentially
composed of such structural relationships, and the study of language is the study of the
system of signs that express ideas.
He argued that word comprised two elements a sound image i.e. a pronunciation form
or signifier and a meaning or sense( termed as the signified) so to use the example
Saussure himself used the word tree is made up of a sound image or signifier /tri/ and a
sense( or signified ) indicating treeness.
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic:
Another type of structural relationship in a language system presented by Saussure is
syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationship.
Syntagmatic relationship is the combinatorial or again relationship.
For example, we can come tomorrow is a sentence because in this linear arrangement of
words. 'we' is correlated with can, 'can' with come and so on. This relationship is
restricted to certain orders. "In the syntagm a term acquires its value because it
stands in opposition to everything that precedes or follows or to both” (saussure
1959:123)
The paradigmatic relationships are contrastive or choice relationships. Words that
have something in common are associated in the memory, resulting in groups marked
by diverse relations, for example the English word learning is unconsciously call to
mind a host of other words-study, knowledge discipline etc. All these words are related
in same way. This kind of relationship is called associative relationship.
