• Excerpts from Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (NATC, 956-77)
A step into Linguistics:
The human language can be identified as essentially arbitrary because the function of language incorporates arbitrary symbols to connect and communicate amongst one another. Saussure acknowledged that “the word arbitrary means not that individual speakers can just make language up, but precisely that they can’t; the sign is a convention that has to be learned and is not subject to individual will” (958). For instance, each language has its own way of expressing the term bread. Each of the terms is a symbol for what they conceive bread to be, thus using arbitrary language to express and identify the bread which they are speaking of. The representational aspect is a signifier which can be identified by any person, regardless of nationality or region such as the skull and cross-bones for poison. Saussure acknowledges that in studying these rites, customs, etc. as signs (also identified as signifiers), the facts of Semiology can be determined. However, as communicators we typically speak with arbitrary symbols that can only be identified within a group or certain nationality. This linguistic unit is therefore a “double entity, one formed by the associating of two terms” (963). Saussure’s depiction of Semiology (the study of the origin, development, and structure of human societies and the behavior of individual people and groups in society) would show what constitutes signs, and what governs them.
Utilizing this concept of thought recognized as structuralism (an analysis based on the notion of human society as a network of interrelations whose patterns and significance can be analyzed), the components of the sign are broken down into two forms: signifier and signified. Connected by an associative link, the signifier and signified complete the structure of the sign. According to Saussure, the signifier is the sound and the signified is the thought. Consequently the sign does not and cannot exist without both signifier and signified, and vice versa. Additionally, it should be noted that the means by which the sign is produced is unimportant. Saussure states, “Whether I make letters in white or black, raised or engraved…this is of no importance with respect to their significance” (972). In other words, neither ideas nor sounds exist prior to their combination regardless of pen or pencil, dialect or accent.
Signifier = signal = seignifiant Signified = signification= signifie
A step into Linguistics:
The human language can be identified as essentially arbitrary because the function of language incorporates arbitrary symbols to connect and communicate amongst one another. Saussure acknowledged that “the word arbitrary means not that individual speakers can just make language up, but precisely that they can’t; the sign is a convention that has to be learned and is not subject to individual will” (958). For instance, each language has its own way of expressing the term bread. Each of the terms is a symbol for what they conceive bread to be, thus using arbitrary language to express and identify the bread which they are speaking of. The representational aspect is a signifier which can be identified by any person, regardless of nationality or region such as the skull and cross-bones for poison. Saussure acknowledges that in studying these rites, customs, etc. as signs (also identified as signifiers), the facts of Semiology can be determined. However, as communicators we typically speak with arbitrary symbols that can only be identified within a group or certain nationality. This linguistic unit is therefore a “double entity, one formed by the associating of two terms” (963). Saussure’s depiction of Semiology (the study of the origin, development, and structure of human societies and the behavior of individual people and groups in society) would show what constitutes signs, and what governs them.
Utilizing this concept of thought recognized as structuralism (an analysis based on the notion of human society as a network of interrelations whose patterns and significance can be analyzed), the components of the sign are broken down into two forms: signifier and signified. Connected by an associative link, the signifier and signified complete the structure of the sign. According to Saussure, the signifier is the sound and the signified is the thought. Consequently the sign does not and cannot exist without both signifier and signified, and vice versa. Additionally, it should be noted that the means by which the sign is produced is unimportant. Saussure states, “Whether I make letters in white or black, raised or engraved…this is of no importance with respect to their significance” (972). In other words, neither ideas nor sounds exist prior to their combination regardless of pen or pencil, dialect or accent.
Signifier = signal = seignifiant Signified = signification= signifie
No comments:
Post a Comment