Ferdinad de Saussure

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Hi, everybody!Hope all is well! I have come across some vague terms related to Ferdinand de Saussure's ideas. I would be so grateful if you helped me get a vivid picture of the terms.Saussure has mentioned when "sound and thought combine", they "produce a form, not a substance"; "all the mistakes in our terminology, all our incorrect ways of nameing things that pertain to language, stem from the involuntary supposition that the linguistic phenomenon must have substance" ( Course in General Linguistics, pp. 113, 122).It appears that what Saussure intended to convey by the term "form" was so different from what modern linguists refer to.The sources I have do not give a clear definition (or explanation) of the term form as used by Saussure. I would appreciated if you provided me with a clear definition or explanation of the terms "form" and "substance" as used by Saussure. Besides, what does Saussure mean when he says the unit of language is "form", not "substance", as said in "Ferdinand de Saussure" written by Jonathan Culler.Saussure believes that "language" is "organized thought coupled with sound"; and "each linguistic term is a member, an 'articulus' in which an idea is fixed in a sound and a sound becomes the sign of an idea" ( Course in General Linguistics, pp. 111, 113). He concluded that sign results from associating a signified (signifi=E9 or concept) with a signifier (signifiant or sound image).When I refer to a carnivorous animal with four limbs, two eyes, two ears, sharp front teeth, which lives in African deserts and takes its prey up on a tree before eating it, I articulate the word "LEOPARD", which is a combination of some sounds. Now the question is: Is this combination of sounds that altogether refer to the animal "sign" or "signifier" as defined by Saussure? How to do you differenciate between the two terms practically rather than theoretically? I know that by defintion "signifier" is part of "sign". But how does it realize in the above example?I would like to sincerely thank you for all your much-needed helps. Thank you so very much!Regards,Farhad

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Hi, everybody! Hope all is well! I have come across some vague terms related to Ferdinand de Saussure's ideas. I ... appears that what Saussure intended to convey by the term "form" was so different from what modern linguists refer to.[/nq]
That depends on what you think modern linguists mean by "form"! There are a few different meanings, depending on what kind of linguistic theory you are working in and, more generally, what aspect of language you are looking at. Another problem here is that the ideas you refer to have several wide-reaching implications. I'll deal with one here, and another in the next section further down.

On one definition, he's not too far out. What he is saying, and what is really emphasized throughout his lectures, is that the link between linguistic sign (the "signifiant", or English "signifier") and the real- world thing it refers to (the "signifié", or English "signified") is arbitrary. Saussure is very big on arbitrariness. (As well as analyzing many aspects of language in terms of divisions: parole/langue, synchronic/diachronic, signifier/signified, etc.)

So if we take "form" to mean something referring to the pattern or shape or property of a thing, then what he's saying is that words are just shapes with no inherent/absolute meaning, no inherent/absolute substance. If we want "dog" to mean a feline creature, then there is nothing stopping such an assocation if everyone agrees to it. There is no substance in any of the linguistic forms anchoring them to the real world, forcing them to be one particular pattern. This applies to words quite easily, but some schools of linguistic theory have also applied this to syntax, most famously in the Generativist tradition of the late 1950s onwards.
The aim of modern linguistics in the Generativist tradition is to create a bunch of formal rules that can describe all and only all the possible sentences in a language. FORMal rules, with no regard to tying the form of those rules/descriptions to what the sentences mean. (Although, this strictly formal approach seems to be getting somewhat looser with every incarnation of the latest Generative theories. Compare the Minimalist Program with some of the early Transformational Grammar theories and you'll see the move towards incorporating slightly more consideration towards meaning/semantics.)
So, under this definition, I think Saussure's "form" is still alive and well in modern linguistics.
It does contrast, however, if you immerse yourself in other schools of linguistic thought. Halliday's Functional Grammar, or Croft's "cognitive linguistics" theories, to give two examples, don't try to separate form from meaning/substance so disjointedly as the Generativists do (or did, at least).
[nq:1]The sources I have do not give a clear definition (or explanation) of the term form as used by Saussure. ... he says the unit of language is "form", not "substance", as said in "Ferdinand de Saussure" written by Jonathan Culler.[/nq]
And here, you can take the content of his lectures and go in a slightly different direction with the "form/substance" split, since Saussure's definition of "substance" included "meaning" as well as referring to the real-world manifestation of a linguistic object.
When he says that "form" is the unit of language, it can be taken to mean that you can/should study language as a bunch of features, of characteristics, that follow patterns and can be generalized. So, for instance, when delving into some kind of phonological analysis of a word, using the "unit of language = 'form'" dictum, you might look at the sound (kap) as a collection of phonological features. (k), for example, has a set of features (which specific ones you want to use depends on which school of phonological thought you follow for sake of example let's stick with the now-classic binary features of Chomsky & Halle's SPE).

So, instead of seeing that linguistic object as a series of compressions and rarifications of air that hit your eardrums, you instead view it as a collection of features such as (-voice, -anterior, -coronal, etc) and then you can compare that formal description with, say, (p) to create another list of features (-voice, , -coronal, etc) and from this you can create a set of formal rules that describe the sound system of your language (given enough data, of course).

Instead of a rather unwieldy description that refers to each specific phoneme in a language or dealing with the real-world soundwaves that reach your eardrums, you can generalize large chunks of the data to create much neater rules. These rules, however, are formal descriptions because they deal with properties of the data and the (often abstract) patterns that those properties display.

Does that make sense? Saussure has had a major impact on a lot of linguistics, and it's difficult to capture all the implications of what he taught and how it has been adopted and appears in linguistics today.
[nq:1]Saussure believes that "language" is "organized thought coupled with sound"; and "each linguistic term is a member, an 'articulus' in ... theoretically? I know that by defintion "signifier" is part of "sign". But how does it realize in the above example?[/nq]
I'm not sure what your question is, to be honest. Saussure had the two things in his "sign" classification: signified and signifier. It's probably unfortunate that we also have in English the word "sign" since this is, basically, used the same as Saussure's "signifier".

Anyway, the word "leopard" is the sign/signifier, and the real-world creature is the signified. The word "leopard" has, under Saussure's view, only an arbitrary link to the real-world object.
I should also point out that this is probably not the best group to post your question in, since most of the discussion here is more specifically about English and not the more theoretical areas of linguistics you are asking about.

johnF
"I hope, one day, to feature in your sig....."
Rob Saville, APIHNA, 17 Feb 2000

Usenet · Answer

Dear John,
John, my question had somewhere around 350 words; your response a little less than 850! You know what that means? It means that I terribly lack words to express my deep sincere thanks. Thank you for your response!
That part of your answer that related to the explanation of Saussure's "form/substance" was quite convincing to me.
But I do not agree with the part of your response that relates to "sign/signifiant/signifie". First, you have taken the term "sign" as an equivalent of Saussure's "signifiant", which is not true. His "signifiant" literally translates as "signifier", but not as "sign". Second, the real world thing you mentioned was not labeled by him as "signifie". He referred to the real world thing as "referent", and the concept belonging to that referent in any individual's mind as "signifie".
My question was how I could draw a clear-cut line between the concepts of "sign" and "signifiant". Of course, it is not a question to me any longer. A great Iranian linguist, named Dr. Mitra Jebraeili, clarified the issue for me. In case you are interested to know what her response to my question was, I can send it to your private email.

Again, thank you,
Farhad

Usenet · Answer

(snip)
[nq:1]But I do not agree with the part of your response that relates to "sign/signifiant/signifie".[/nq]
[nq:1]My question was how I could draw a clear-cut line between the concepts of "sign" and "signifiant". Of course, it ... you are interested to know what her response to my question was, I can send it to your private email.[/nq]
I'm curious about any distinction that might exist between each term, since in my own experience I have never had any cause to make such a distinction between "sign" and "signifier". If, as you say, there is a difference, then I'm interested in knowing what it is.

My knowledge of Saussure is how his work influenced the linguistics that is around today (for extended definitions of "today", of course). As can be seen by the fact that I expended far more words on that bit than on the details of Saussure qua Saussure's linguistics!

Email sent.

johnF
"We do not have to believe this stuff, just because it was said centuries or millennia ago by immensely famous men."
Educating Eve , Geoffrey Sampson

Ferdinad de Saussure

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