National University of the Peruvian Amazon

Faculty of Educational Sciences and Humanities

Foreign Languages Department

Course: Applied Linguistics II

Topics: Linguistic and philosophical currents, basis of

the communicative approach for the teaching
and learning of English Language, from
Ferdinand de Saussure’s thought.

Teacher: Julia Victoria Vasquez Villalobos

Student: Johan German Cuya Garcia

Carlos Enrique Davila Utia
Richard Billy Saavedra Ricoc
Rodrigo Panduro Perez

IQUITOS
DECEMBER- 2018
 INDEX

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………3

 Structuralism ……………………..………….……………………..…………4

 Langue versus parole………..…………………………………………….…..8

 Synchrony Versus Diachrony …………………………………………….......9

 Paradigmatic Versus Syntagmatic……………………………………………10

 Signifier and Signified ……………………………………………………….11

SUMMARY……………………………………………………………………..13

CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………14

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES….…………………………….…………15

2
 INTRODUCTION

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) was a Swiss linguist who occupies an

important place in the history of linguistics and is generally considered the founder
of modern linguistics. It was he who first of all emphasized the importance of
viewing language as a living phenomenon. He was the founder of a “theoretic
foundation to the newer trend in linguistics study," and European scholars have
seldom failed to consider his views when dealing with any theoretical problem.
Ferdinand de Saussure is the father of modern linguistics, the man who reorganized
the systematic study of language and language in such a way as to make possible
the achievements of twentieth-century linguists. This alone would make him a
Modern Master: master of a discipline which he made modern.
De Saussure’s contribution to modern linguistics was responsible for the directions
in the study of language. He distinguished between Synchrony and Diachrony,
between langue and parole, between signified and signifier. He also contributed by
describing the distinction between syntagmatic and paradigmatic, the theory of
associative value. Saussure’s contributions to linguistics are presented in this
essay.

3
 STRUCTURALISM
Structuralism is an intellectual movement that began in France in the 1950s and
1960s. Before that we had Formalism where linguistics was applied in the study
and criticism of literature. Formalists used ‘devices’ like sound, imagery, rhythm,
syntax, meters and their ‘Defamiliarising’ effects. Although they were interested
in analyzing literature structurally, they were particularly not concerned with
meaning as differential and analyzing text into basic deep structures, and hence
‘Formalism’ is not exactly modernday ‘Structuralism’.

Unlike the Formalists, who were interested in finding the uniqueness of a literary
text, ‘Structuralist critics are primarily interested not in what makes an individual
literary work unique, but in what it has common with other literary works’ (Morner
and Rausch, 1998: 23). Structuralist literary critics, try to analyze texts as product
of a system with a specific ‘grammar’ that controls its form and meaning. A reader,
who has mastered the grammar that governs the production of a text and operates
within it, can understand the text.

Structuralism in fact has its roots in the thinking of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand
de Saussure (1857- 1913). His ‘Course in General Linguistics’, published after his
death, influenced Russian formalists to try to isolate the underlying set of laws by
which different elements are universally structured in any text. Saussure’s
approach to language differs significantly from that which 19th century
philologists offered us. In opposition to a ‘historical’ – diachronic linguistics which
looks at the changes which take place over time in specific languages, Saussure
pursed a synchronic linguistics.

According to Saussure,
‘The term synchronic is really not precise enough; it should be replaced by
another—rather long to be sure—idiosynchoronic.’
His course focussed on the nature of linguistic sign.

Before we start looking at the principles, Saussure thought, we should clarify what
‘SIGN’ (<Greek Semion) actually means.

Actually anything that tells us about something other than itself is a ‘SIGN’. There
are many terms that mean one thing in everyday usage and something quite
different when they are used as technical terms by Saussure and by other
linguists—like the word ‘SIGN’.

We have said sign tells us about something other than itself, what we think it really
means. Now here comes the question, what is meant by ‘other than itself’? Because
the red light at an intersection of a few roads does not make us think about its
redness; it’s there to make us stop.

4
When we write something on the pages they are not just ink-marks - they are there
to bring ideas to our minds. Umberto Eco hence says, a sign is anything that can
be used to lie.

We are actually interested here about specifically defined linguistic signs - we will
call them ‘sign’ in short. Now our point of concern is how Saussure broke with
earlier ways of analysing language and why? When Saussure prepared his lectures
for ‘Course in General Linguistics’, he did not take a high and wide survey of
linguistic thinking from ancient times.

Saussure raised a valid question that had been astonishingly overlooked by earlier
linguists— i.e.

‘what is the nature of the subject-matter under study in linguistics?’

The earlier linguists actually confined their interests to the historical study and the
origin of language. Saussure, instead of written texts, stressed on spoken words as
a starting point of understanding of expressive act.

Saussure raised a valid question:

“Psychologically, what are our ideas, apart from our language? They probably do
not exist. Or in a form that may be described as amorphous. We should probably
be, unable according to philosophers and linguists, to distinguish two ideas clearly
without the help of a language (internal language naturally)”

Saussure said, when we utter words, sounds are made from vibrations and this
sound image creates in the brain of the listener a mental concept of the
corresponding object; e.g. if one utters ‘TREE’—the sound image forms a mental
imprint of the concept of a tree.

Here Saussure argues:

“... beside this entirely indistinct realm of ideas, the realm of sound offers in
advance quite distinct ideas (taken in itself apart from the idea.”

If we take the word ‘dog’ in English (made up of signifiers /d/, /o/, and /g/) what
is engendered for the hearer is not the ‘real’ dog but a mental concept of ‘dogness’.
the real dog might be a spaniel or gray hound etc. rather than a general dog.

The signs which make up the code of the circuit between the two individual
‘unlock’ the contents of the brain of each. Signifier and signified are body and
soul, or they are recto and verso of a leaf of a paper. Its two sides are ultimately
inseperable— one side does not exist without the other. Thus a linguistic sign does
not link a name and a thing, but a concept (signified) and an acoustic image
(signifier).

5
Saussure, in accordance with the view of Plato, decided that the nomenclature view
of language is inadequate, because it is an oversimplification of the process of
interaction between mind, world and words at the time that language came into
being. It assumes that humans already had ideas and that they simply put words to
these ideas as Adam is said to have named the animals.

Here Saussure made two propositions:

“There are no:
(a) Ideas already established and quite distinct from one another.
(b) Signs for these ideas” 12– Lecture on 4 July, 1911.

It is like the linguistic equivalent of the fallacy— whether the chicken or the egg
came first.

Saussure’s intuition was that just as the chicken might have been the egg’s idea for
getting more eggs, the emergence of ideas and words must have occurred under a
process of mutual influence. The nomenclature view is also vague, it gives no
indication whether the name linked to a thing is basically a psychic entity or a
vocal entity. For Saussure, it is only oversimplification of the processes involved
in the birth of language that needed to be avoided. Central to Saussure’s
understanding of the linguistic sign is the arbitrary nature15 of the bond between
signifier and signified.

The mental concept of a dog need not necessarily be engendered by the signifier
which consists of the sounds /d/, /o/, and /g/.

In fact, for German people the concept is provoked by the signifier ‘hund’, while
for French, the signifier ‘chien’ does the same job. That is to say, there is no neutral
reason why the signifier ‘dog’ should engender the signified. The connection
between the two is arbitrary13. If it were not so, there would be only one language
in the world. For Saussure, this arbitrariness involves not the link between the sign
and its referent, but that between the signifier and the signified in the interior of
the sign.

Further issue is onomatopoeia. Saussure recognized that his opponents could argue
that with onomatopoeia, there is a direct link between word and meaning, signifier
and signified. However, Saussure argues that, on closer etymological
investigation, onomatopoeic origins.

The example he uses is the French and English Onomatopoeic words for a dog’s
bark that is ‘Ouaf Ouaf’ and ‘Bow Wow’— respectively.

Finally Saussure concludes that interjections as well have arbitrary signifier-

signified links and thus sign/signifier link is less natural that it initially appears.
He asks the readers to note the contrast in paininterjection in French (aie) and
English (ouch).

6
But even though the sign is arbitrary as far as connection between its signifier and
signified goes, it is not arbitrary for language users. If it were, everybody would
come up with whether signs they wanted and thus communication would
breakdown.

The only reason that the signifier does entail the signified is because, there is
conventional relationship at play. Agreed rules govern the relationship (and these
are in action in any speech community). But if the sign does not contain a ‘neutral’
relationship with signifiers, then how is it that signs function?

Signs in different languages divide up the world differently. To explain this,

Saussure uses the word ‘boeuf’ as an example. He cites the fact that while, in
English, we have different words for the animal and the meat product: ox and beef,
in French, ‘boeuf’ is used to refer to both concepts.

A perception of difference between the two concepts is absent from French

vocabulary. In Saussure’s view, particular words are born out of a particular
society’s needs, rather than out of a need to label a preexisting set of concepts. For
Saussure, the sign signifies by virtue of its ‘difference’ from other signs and it is
this difference which gives rise to the possibility of a speech community.

A sign’s form differs from that of other signs as form: a sign’s concept differs from
that of other signs’ concept. When we utter words, we hear some sounds during
that utterance,—its form creates a sound image in our brain. It has obviously two
inseparable parts— signifier and signified as we have proved earlier. But how do
we recognize them?

‘CAT’ and ‘MAT’ are different signifiers – before recognising them collectively
we have to make distinction between ‘C’ and ‘M’. ‘C’ is not ‘M’ or ‘P’ or ‘S’.
Thus sign acts by different minimal pairs (rat/ hat) show us how linguistic forms
function to give meaning by difference.

Language is therefore a system of interdependent entities. But not only does it

delimit a sign’s range of use, for which it is necessary, because an isolated sign
could be used for absolutely anything or nothing without first being distinguished
from another sign, but it is also what makes meaning possible.

Saussure focuses on what he calls language, i.e. ‘a system of signs that expresses
ideas’ describes the way in which the general phenomenon of language (in French,
language) is made up of two factors— ‘Parole’15 is the individual acts of speech
and putting into practice of languages and ‘Langue’16—is a system of differences
between signs. It refers to the absract system of language that is internalized by a
given speech community.

7
Saussure defines ‘speaking’ (or utterance) as a wilful and intellectual individual
act. ‘Speech’ is a natural phenomenon: human beings have ‘the faculty to construct
a language, i.e. a system of distinct signs corresponding to distinct ideas’.

By contrast, ‘language’ is ‘both the social product of the faculty of speech and a
collection of necessary conventions that have been adopted by a social body to
permit individuals to exercise that faculty.’ Saussure argued against the popular
orgainicist view of language as the natural organism, which without being
determined by the will of man, grows and evolves in accordance with fixed laws.

Instead, Saussure defined language as a social product that is beyond the control
of the speaker. Saussure is of the opinion that language is not a function of the
speaker, but is passively assimilated. Speaking is a premeditated act, as Saussure
concludes.

While parole is haterogeneous—composed of unrelated or differing parts of

elements and ‘sound images’ in which both parts are psychological. Concepts of
signifier and signified can be compared to the Freudian concepts of latest and
manifest meaning. Freud was also inclined to make an assumption that signifiers
and signifieds are inseparably bound.

One further structure of language existing within Saussure’s conception of langue

concerns the restrictions on combination and substitution of linguistic elements.

Langue works through relations of difference, then which place signs in opposition
to one another? Saussure asserted that there are only two types of relations:
syntagmatic and paradigmatic.

Thus by analysing language synchronically, Saussure frames a linguistic structure

and finds a system, mechanism or structure in which a language works. Hence his
approach to linguistics for which he laid the ground work came to be known as
structuralism.

Jakobson and others attempted to offer a linguistic description of literary structures

and thus encouraged the development of ‘narratology’ or a science of narrative,
which would recognize the different constituents of narrative and illustrate the
basic structures and their rules of combination. Structuralist critics examine of the
various codes, produced by prior literary works and by various conventional
systems of a culture, that allows literary works to have meaning, analyse of the
role of the reader in bringing into the meaning of a literary work, and of the ways
in which the corresponding literary text comply with the expectations of generally
accomplished readers. Structuralism in literary criticism is partially a reaction to
modern literature, which had deliberately explored the limits of meaning and
searched for stylistic effects in the deviations from all sorts of conventions of
language, literature, and social practices in the process of defamiliarisation. In its
focus on codes and structures, structuralism rejects the concept of literature as

8
imitation of the world and instead analyses its experimentation with the language
and codes of a culture. Literature for structuralist critics is valued for its inquiry of
the structuring procedures by which we organize and realize the conventional
nature of our social world.

The fundamental ideology of structuralism is that the phenomena of human life,

whether language or media, are not comprehensible except through their
association of relationships, producing the sign and the system (or structure) in
which the sign is embedded. A sign — for instance, a word — finds its meaning
only in relation to or in contrast with other signs in a system of signs.

LANGUE VERSUS PAROLE

Saussure says there are two sides to language: langue and parole. While the French
terms are generally used in English, they are sometimes translated as ‘language’
and ‘speech’ respectively, though not without some danger of ambiguity. Langue
is that part of language which ‘is not complete in any individual, but exists only in
the collectivity’ (Saussure 1969 [1916]: 30, my translation, see the footnote for the
original French1). Parole, on the otherhand, is observable in the behaviour of the
individual. According to Saussure, it is not homogeneous.

The distinction between langue and parole has suffered two major changes in
subsequent scholarship. First, a third level has been added, that of the Norm (see
especially Coseriu 1962 [1952]). Our langue would allow us to say what the time
is by saying It is ten minutes before four o’clock, or It wants ten minutes to be four
o’clock, or In ten minutes it will be four o’clock, or It is five minutes after a quarter
to four.We do not find such utterances attested in parole.

The second thing that has happened to the langue/parole distinction is that it has
been overtaken by other, similar distinctions. Chomsky (1965: 4) introduces the
distinction between competence and performance. Performance is very like
Saussure’s parole. It is prone to error, to memory lapse and the like.

Chomsky (1965: 4) also points out that for Saussure langue is ‘a system of signs’
(Saussure 1969 [1916]: 32), while for Chomsky competence is a generative
system. This is an accurate description of langue, but does not seem to be
fundamental to the notion of it in the way that its social aspect is.

SYNCHRONY VERSUS DIACHRONY

We can study a given language in two ways, Saussure maintains. The first is that
we can look at the language as it is (or was) at any particular point in time. Thus
we might study the syntax of American English in the early twenty-first century,
or the phonology of seventeenth-century French or the patterns of compounding
in Classical Chinese. These are all SYNCHRONIC studies (syn- ‘alike’, chronos
‘time’).
9
The alternative is to look at the way in which a language develops or changes over
time. In this way we might consider the development of the English verb system,
or changes in Arabic phonology from the classical period until today. These are
DIACHRONIC studies (dia- ‘through’, chronos ‘time’).

Despite such problems, the distinction between synchronic and diachronic studies
is generally maintained today.

PARADIGMATIC VERSUS SYNTAGMATIC

Thus English is written from left to right, with elements further to the left
corresponding to elements produced earlier than elements further to the right. So
in (1) cat precedes mat in linear order, corresponding to temporal structure in
speech: we would say cat before we would say mat.

(1) The cat sat on the mat

The elements in (1) are said to be related to each other syntagmatically. Together
they form a syntagm(/sɪntæm/) or construction. We can say that the verb sit (or sat
in this particular sentence) determines what it will be related to syntagmatically in
that it demands something in the position of the cat in (1) and allows, but does not
demand, an equivalent phrase after it (as in They sat the dog on the mat).

However, language is also structured in terms of the words (or other elements)
which are not there but which could have been. Each of the words in (1) could
have been replaced by a number of other possible words. Some examples are given
in (2).

(2) The cat sat on the mat

This girl sits across your bed
That student walked over her car
My frog ran by their lap

The words in each of the columns in (2) are related to each other paradigmatically.
They are related by being alternative possible choices at a position in the syntagm.
While elements which are related syntagmatically are all present, elements which
are related paradigmatically are mostly absent: they are relationships of potential.

Each of the columns in (2) can be called a paradigm (/’pærǝdɪm’/), although that
name is more usually reserved for a particular type of paradigmatic relationships,
those holding between different forms of the same word (or, more technically,
lexeme). Thus (3) illustrates a Latin noun paradigm.

(3) ‘lord’ singular plural

10
 nominative dominus dominī
vocative domine dominī
accusative dominum dominōs
genitive dominī dominōrum
dative dominō dominīs
ablative dominō dominīs

In (3) we see a number of suffixes, each of which has a syntagmatic relationship

with the stem domin-. The endings themselves are in a paradigmatic relationship.

Note that elements in paradigmatic relationships share common features. All the
words in the first column in (2) are determiners, all those in the second column are
nouns and so on. Word classes can be thought of as being derived from sets of
paradigmatic relationships. Very specific syntagms can also show semantically
related words in relevant paradigms. Thus, consider (4), where the verb – except
in figurative uses – demands the word cat or a closely related word.

(4) The cat miaowed.

kitten
tom
moggy

SIGNIFIER (SIGNIFIANT) AND SIGNIFIED (SIGNIFIÉ)

Ferdinand de Saussure developed the ‘theory of the sign’ that defined the ‘sign’ as
being made up of a pair: the signifier and the signified.

The signifier is a kind of pointer finger, a word, usually, a ‘sound-image’. The

signified is the thing (object, concept, theory) that the finger is pointing to.

What is interesting here is that what one might think the signifier (word) is less
stable, it is in fact, more stable than the signified, because it is a shared
concept (word definitions are mutually agreed upon by a group of people). The
signified is less stable because it varies for each of us, according to our personal
experience. For example, if I say dog, you may be picturing a Chihuahua, while I
may be picturing the Doberman Pinscher that bit me when I was five. The signifier
is the same and is generally agreed upon (both, in fact, are dogs) but the signified
(the dog itself) varies for each of us.

Saussure also posited that a sign cannot be made up of just the signified OR the
signifier: the signifier without the signified is just a meaningless noise. Harder to
grasp is the fact that the signified cannot really exist (in our minds, I presume)
without the signifier.

11
Signs create language only through their differences and relationships to one
another (the making of a vocabulary). The familiar example of the Eskimo works
here. When I see snow, I just think “snow”! In a way this means that different kinds
of snow do not actually exist in my mind in the same way they might for an
Eskimo, which, urban legend has it, has many different “signs” for snow, each
different from one another (I have no idea if this is actually true of Eskimos by the
way but it seems an apt example).

This notion of the ‘sign’ forms the core of semiotics.

Being a contrarian, I would probably balk at this idea of words actually creating
meaning or understanding, except for a really interesting story I heard on Radiolab
last year. The story covers the work of Ann Senghas, Associate Professor of Psych
at Barnard, who studied the development of language for previously isolated deaf
children in Nicaragua. Before they came together to form a school, deaf members
of society were treated as pariahs and had no means of communicating with each
other or really with anyone. Once a school for these deaf members of society was
formed, the deaf students, of course, began to try and communicate with each other
using their hands and bodies, in the process developing their own mutual language.
Their words first represented objects and actions (first generation signers) and only
represented concepts of thinking and feeling later on (third generation signers).
Through tests, she realized (by mistake actually) that the first generation of deaf
students who had started their own sign language could not actually conceive of
other people “thinking” or “feeling” (although they were intelligent functioning
adults)!! But as the generations came together to hang out, the older generation
learned the signs for thinking and feeling and then could understand the internal
worlds of others beside themselves, and could tell stories that included the thoughts
and emotions of people.

12
 SUMMARY
The Structuralism is a movement proposed a new conception of the facts of language,
considering it as a system in which the various elements offer each other a relationship of
solidarity forming a structure. The structuralism founded by Saussure continued to develop in
Europe by later linguists, later emerging several structuralist schools, such as The Geneva School,
The Prague Linguistic Circle, and the Copenhagen School.
Langue, on the one hand is the social part of language and it only exists by virtue of a kind of
contract established among the members of the community; the individual can not modify or
create it and needs a learning to understand and know how it works. It is a purely psychic,
homogenous phenomenon and passive adoption by the community.
Parole, on the other hand, is an individual act of will and intelligence by which the speakers use
the code of the language to express themselves, heterogeneous and physical, psychic and
physiological nature.
Linguistics may be synchronous or diachronic depending on time. Since language is a system
that exists in the minds of some speakers, we must study its elements and its relations in a certain
period, we must never mix different epochs, since relations and elements vary, as we know, with
the run of time.
To study the language synchronously means to study it as it exists in a certain period. It is what
allows studying the language as a system. It's the way Saussure focuses.
Studying it diachronically, that is, in the course of time, does not allow studying it as a system.
Diachronic linguistics selects a certain fact of language and seeks to investigate its evolution as
much as possible.
Syntagmatic relation refers to the combination based on sequentiality. Words are used in
discourse, strung togethen one after another, enter into relations based on the linear character o
languages.
In its place in a syngtama, any unit acquires its value simply in opposition to what preceds, or to
what follows, or both. Here is an example. (The teacher saw the students). (b) the studen saw the
teacher. The words in these two sentences are exactly the same, but with different order, they
have opposite meanings.
Paradigm relation, what Saussure called associative relation, is a connection in the brain. This
kind of connection between words is of quite a different order. Such connections are part of that
accumulated stoe, which is the form the language takes in an individual’s brain. However, groups
formed by mental association do not only share something in common. For the mind also grasps
the nature of the relations involved in each case, and thus creates as many associative series as
there are different relations. For example, when mentioning “to teach”, one may associate the
item in various ways “teacher”, “education”, “classroom”, “school”, “students”, “study”, etc.

The signifier is a kind of pointer finger, a word, usually, a ‘sound-image’. The signified is the
thing (object, concept, theory) that the finger is pointing to.

13
 CONCLUSION

To my mind, the contribution that Saussure had on language was revolutionary as

well as important. His work had a profound influence on many aspects of
linguistics. Saussure's structuralism is based upon three assumptions: the
systematic nature of language, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts;
the relational conception of the elements of language, where linguistic “entities”
are defined in relationships of combination and contrast to one another; the
arbitrary nature of linguistic elements, where they are defined in terms of the
function and purpose they serve rather than in terms of their inherent qualities.

14
 REFERENCES

Ciudadliteraria (2010) Ferdinand de Saussure-biografía. Retrieved from:

http://ciudadliteraria.blogspot.pe/2010/04/ferdinad-de-saussure-biografia-
y.html

English Literature Essays (2009) Saussure and His Main Contributions.

Retrieved from:http://allrfree.blogspot.pe/2009/10/saussure-and-his-
maincontributions.html

Ferdinand De Saussure (2016). Development of Structuralism [PDF file].

Retrievedfrom:/http://rephip.unr.edu.ar/bitstream/handle/2133/1367/2.%2
0SAUSSURE. pdf

Linguistikid (2017). The Saussurean Dichotomies. Retrieved from:

http://linguistikid.com/saussurean-dichotomies/

Moderndictionary (2013). Signifier-vs-signified. Retrieved from:

https://postmoderndictionary.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/signifier-vs-
signified-creating-meaning-through-a-sign/

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