Linguistics

Profesora: Emilse Hidalgo

Alumna: María Agustina Parto
Curso: 3° 2a T.M
Año: 2020

Saussure’s Reading and Study Guide

1). The object, the scope and the subject matter of linguistics as a science
The subject matter of linguistics comprises all manifestations of human speech, whether
that of savages or civilized nations, or of archaic, classical or decadent periods. In each
period the linguist must consider not only correct speech and flowery language, but all other
forms of expression as well. However, since he is often unable to observe speech directly,
he must consider written texts, for only through them can he reach idioms that are remote in
time or space.
The scope of linguistics should be:
● To describe and trace the history of all observable languages, which amounts to
tracing the history of families of languages and reconstructing as far as possible the
mother language of each family.
● To determine the forces that are permanently and universally at work in all
languages, and to deduce the general laws to which all specific historical phenomena
can be reduced.
● To delimit and define itself.
The object of study of linguistics is langage (human speech), which is the system of all the
languages that exist in the world. However, Saussure is interested in langue, which is both a
social product of the faculty of speech as well as a collection of necessary conventions that
have been adopted by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that faculty. According
to him, speech is many-sided and heterogenous.

2). The difference between the “substantive” view of language and Saussurean
linguistics? Exemplify this difference.
Some people see nothing more than a name-giving system in language, which is called the
substantive view of language: the “common sense view of language”. Language is
therefore reduced to its elements, a list of words, each corresponding to the thing that it
names. But if this was the case, language would not be a problem because there would not
be any misunderstandings. We have certain words or “labels” that we assign to certain
material things in order for us to identify them. Nevertheless, this view tell us nothing about
the connection between the labels and how something where I can sit down on can be a
table instead of a chair.
Since the substantive view could not solve this problem, Saussure proposed that, instead of
focusing on the substance behind the word and just studying these isolated words, he
proposes a relational approach: how “words” or linguistic signs relate to each other. In
addition to his, we need to study what rules governs language, and because there are rules
for the combination of words, language constitutes a system.
3). Why Saussure is considered a structuralist; what a structure is and what
properties it has.
Saussure is regarded as a structuralist because he proposed a change from the diachronic
view of language (which focused on history and how language involved) towards a
synchronic study of the language, which evaluates all the elements of a language in any
given moment, and how language works as a system. It is non-historical.
Because language is a system, it is dynamic: it can mutate, change or expand. It is possible
that a new word enters the language because of mutability: any language can add new
words while some may fall out of use. However, when a word is incorporated into the
system, it should follow the rules of the language.
Structuralist linguistics will bracket-off reality, and it is not going to be interested on parole
(the speaker’s actual use of the language and the word’s signification) but on langue (the
abstract system, which exists perfectly in the minds of each and every speaker of the
language).
A structure is the way in which the parts of a system or object are arranged or organized to
form part of a whole. The structure share its properties with the properties of a system:
● Wholeness
● Self-regulation or self-governed by rules
● Dynamic (adaptable to change; therefore, mutable).

4). Why language is a system?

Saussure proposes a relational view of language that establishes language as a system. A
system has three features:
● Wholeness: the system is complete at any one time. If it cannot be proven complete,
it is not a system.
● Self-governed totality: refers to the rules, since they can be applied without fail to any
new item or existing ones.
● Dynamic: because is capable of transformation (like the change from “thou” used in
the Middle Ages to its modern form “you”).
The system is so perfect and well-contained that it can logically absorb any new element and
incorporate them into their logic.
Saussure says that speech is heterogeneous and that language is homogeneous because it
is a system of signs in which the only essential thing is the union of meanings and sound-
images, in which both parts of the sign are psychological. Language then 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. However, language is the
most important of all these systems.The unit of analysis of the system will be the linguistic
sign.

5). What the nature of the linguistic sign is and what its properties or characteristics
are
The linguistic sign unites not a thing or a name, but a concept and a sound-image. The latter
is the psychological imprint of the sound, the impression that it makes on our senses. The
sound-image is sensory, and if I happen to call it "material" it is only in that sense. It is also a
way of opposing it to the other term of the association, the concept, which is generally more
abstract. The linguistic sign is then a two-sided psychological entity.
The linguistic sign is real, it has an existence of its own and a psychological existence in the
system of language or langue (in your mind).
The two elements are intimately united, and each recalls the other. Saussure calls the
combination of a concept and a sound-image a sign. To replace the word “concept” and
“sound-image” he proposes two new terms: signified (concept) and signifier (sound-image)
in order to separate them from each other and from the whole of which they are parts: the
sign.
Characteristics of the linguistic sign:
● It is dual because it is made up of the association or bond made up of two parts (a
twofold nature): the signifier and the signified.
● The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary because of the arbitrary
nature of the sign. Since Saussure means by sign the whole that results from the
associating of the signifier with the signified, Saussure concludes that the linguistic
sign is arbitrary.
● The bond between signifier and signified is a social convention agreed upon by a
community of speakers. Language is a social convention that exists because of a
contract signed by the members of the community of speakers. Every means of
expression used in the society is based on collective behaviour and, because of the
arbitrariness of the sign, the bond can be broken.
● The linear nature of the sign: as it is auditory in nature, the linguistic sign has a
temporal dimension. Moreover, visual signifiers have also got a spatial dimension.
The signifier, being auditory, is unfolded solely in time from which it gets the following
characteristics:
○ It represents a span,
○ The span is measurable in a single dimension (it is a line).
● The linguistic sign has both a material existence (sound) and a cognitive or mental
existence in each speaker’s brain.

6). The speaking circuit

The speaking circuit requires a minimum of two people (or roles) to complete the circuit.
● Psychological process: The opening of the circuit is in A’s brain, where mental
facts (concepts) are associated with representations of the linguistic sounds (sound-
images) that are used for their expression. A given concept unlocks a corresponding
sound-image in the brain.
● Physiological aspect/process: The brain transmits an impulse corresponding to the
image to the organs used in producing sounds. (The brain gives command to the
vocal organs to start moving).
● Physical process: Then the sound waves travel from the mouth of A to the ear of B.
Next, the circuit continues in B, but the order is reversed: from the ear to the brain, the
physiological transmission of the sound-image; in the brain, the psychological association of
the image with the corresponding concept. If B then speaks, the new act will follow (from his
brain to A's) exactly the same course as the first act and pass through the same successive
phases.
The preceding analysis is not complete, and the circuit can be divided into several different
parts:
● An outer and an inner part: the former includes the vibrations of the sounds which
travel from the mouth to the ear, the latter includes everything else.
 ● A psychological and a non-psychological part, the latter including the physiological
productions of the vocal organs and the physical facts outside the individual.
● An active and a passive part : the former being everything that goes from the
associative center of the speaker to the ear of the listener and the latter being
everything that goes from the ear of the listener to his associative center. Everything
that is active in the psychological part of the circuit is executive, and everything that
is passive is receptive.

7). Linguistic value, and illustrate the point by making reference to the terms ‘Brexit’
and ‘Grexit’.
The linguistic value is what makes a linguistic sign different from any other linguistic sign.
Value is defined as the collective and relational meanings assigned to signs, and this
includes relations and differences between signs. The value is determined by the whole
system of signs used within a community.
The value of the linguistic sign can be:
● Relational: words are related to each other on multiple levels: semantics, phonetic,
phonological, syntactical, pragmatics. The sign value is determined by its relations of
similarity to all the other signs in the system. For example: a dog, a cat, a bird; they
are all nouns, animals and living entities. Language is a system of interdependent
terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence
of others.
● Oppositional: the most important relationship between signifiers in a system is that
which creates difference: one signifier has meaning because it is not any of the
others signifiers in the system. For example: a dog, a cat, a bird, although they are
related, they differ. Language is a system of oppositions where a sign has a value
within the system by being what the others are not.
Therefore, the linguistic value is not just the signification or the meaning of the linguistic sign
(the association of the sound-image with a concept) but also all the relations in the system
(relations of similarity and oppositional relations of difference).
As regards the nouns “Brexit” and “Grexit”, we can mention that they are blendings made up
of backward clipping of the first term (the name of the country) and the noun “exit”:
● Br (Britain) + exit
● Gr (Greece) + exit
Both nouns were created to represent the interest of the countries for them to leave the
European Union. They were recently incorporated to the English language because of the
mutability of the sign and because they adapt to the rules of the English language. The
linguistic value of these terms (which is what makes these words different from any other)
can be explained in terms of:
● Similarities: they are all nouns (can fulfill the subject function in a sentence), they are
used as adjectives, they are blends and share a similar signified.
● Differences: their differences are clearly shown at the level of phonetics since they
share the end of the sound but not the first phoneme, it is either the lenis voiced
bilabial plosive or the lenis voiced velar plosive. However what makes both terms
different from one another is the fact that they do not share the same meaning nor
signifier, since they refer the desire of leaving the EU but for different countries, and
therefore different outcomes.
8). The syntagmatic and associative relations? Provide an example.
In a language-state everything is based on relations. Relations and differences between
linguistic terms fall into two distinct groups. They correspond to two forms of our mental
activity, both indispensable to the life of language:
● Syntagmatic relations (combinatory axis): they are relations in praesentia or in
discourse. They are the linear relationship between the signs which are present in
the sentence (relations in praesentia). Syntagmatic relations are the various ways in
which elements within the same text may be related to each other and govern how
linguistic signs can be combined together in a syntagm.
● Paradigmatic relations (associative axis): they are relations in absentia or outside
discourse. They are a particular kind of relationship between a sign in a sentence
and a sign no present in the sentence, but part of the rest of the language (relations
in absentia). Signs are in paradigmatic relation when the choice of one excludes the
choice of another.
To prove this, we can see the following examples:
Jane / works / at home
John / eats / at school
Jane and John / live / in Rosario
We can see both the linear relationship between the signs and how the signs are combined
and related to each other, and we can also see why some signs are selected from among
others.

9). Mutability and immutability of the sign. How can you prove it?
Immutability
The signifier is fixed, not free, with respect to the linguistic community that uses it. The
masses have no voice in the matter, and the signifier chosen by language could be replaced
by no other. No individual, even if he willed it, could modify in any way at all the choice that
has been made; and what is more, the community itself cannot control so much as a single
word; it is bound to the existing language.
Language always appears as a heritage of the preceding period. We might conceive of an
act by which, at a given moment, names were assigned to things and a contract was formed
between concepts and sound-images; but such an act has never been recorded. A particular
language state is always the product of historical forces, and these forces explain why the
sign is unchangeable: why it resists any arbitrary substitution. We must ask why the
historical factor of transmission dominates it entirely and prohibits any sudden widespread
change. There are many possible answers to the question:
● The arbitrary nature of the sign: the arbitrary nature of the sign is really what
protects language from any attempt to modify it. Language is a system of arbitrary
signs and lacks the necessary basis, the solid ground for discussion.
● The multiplicity of signs necessary to form any language: another important
deterrent to linguistic change is the great number of signs that must go into the
making of any language.
● The over-complexity of the system: language constitutes a system and
consequently it is not completely arbitrary but is ruled to some extent by logic. So, the
inability of the masses to transform it becomes apparent.
● Collective inertia towards innovation: of all social institutions, language is least
amenable to initiative. It blends with the life of society, and the latter, inert by nature,
 is a prime conservative force. Because the sign is arbitrary, it follows no law other
than that of tradition, and because it is based on tradition, it is arbitrary.
Mutability
Time, which ensures the continuity of language, wields another influence apparently
contradictory to the first: the more or less rapid change of linguistic signs. The principle of
change is based on the principle of continuity, and the sign is exposed to alteration because
it perpetuates itself. Regardless of the forces of change, they always result in a shift in the
relationship between the signified and the signifier and language is radically powerless to
defend itself against them due to its arbitrary nature.
The evolution is inevitable; there is no example of a single language that resists it. After a
certain period of time, some obvious shifts can always be recorded.
Therefore, mutability is inescapable because whoever creates a language controls it only so
long as it is not in circulation; from the moment when it fulfills its mission and becomes the
property of everyone, control is lost.
To prove mutability and immutability, I decided to use the word “bromance”. Bromance is a
noun, blending of two different nouns respectively, “brother” and “romance”. The meaning of
this noun is “a non-sexual friendship between two men”. Its use was first recorded in 2001,
incorporated to the language a few years later, making it a recent addition to the English
language. Some centuries ago, this open-minded idea or concept of a “close friendship
between men” was not really conceived to be common, and even less, accepted in the
society. I firmly believe this new incorporation to the language is of utmost importance for the
breaking of certain archaic ideas people used to or have as regards men and the chauvinist
ideas that were built on them too. Somehow it symbolises this new idea of freedom of
expression and liberty that came together with the twenty-first century. This is possible
thanks to the arbitrariness of the sign, breaking the bond with the signifier “romance” and its
actual signified, creating a new bond, which is a different type of love, far apart from the
couple-like one we are used to associate the noun “romance” with.
As regards immutability, the phonemes making up this blending are still maintained and still
remain unchanged when compared with the two words used in the blending. As I mentioned
before, it is still a noun, which makes this newly-created word “capable of” becoming part of
the language.