Saussure & Modern Linguistics 瞿康莉 罗丽荣,General Introduction to Saussure,Ferdinand de Saussure (26 November 1857 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century.,Saussure is widely considered to be one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics and of semiotics(符号语言学), and his ideas have had a monumental impact throughout the humanities and social sciences.,Biography,He was born in Geneva, in 1857, Switzerland. By age 15, he had learned Greek, French, German,English, and Latin. At the age of 21, Saussure studied for a year in Berlin, where he wrote his only full-length work. He returned to Leipzig(莱比锡城)and was awarded his doctorate in 1880. Afterwards he relocated to Paris, where he would lecture on ancient and modern languages for eleven years. In 1891. living in Geneva, teaching Sanskrit（梵文）and historical linguistics, he married there and had two sons. It was not until 1906 that Saussure began teaching Course in General Linguistics that would consume the greater part of his attention until his death in 1913.,His Major Work,Course in General Linguistics (Cours de linguistique gnrale) is the influential book compiled by Charles Bally and , that is based on notes taken from Ferdinand de Saussures lectures at the University of Geneva between the years 1906 and 1911.,It was published posthumously(死后出版的) in 1916 and is generally regarded as the starting point of structuralism, an approach to linguistics that flourished in Europe and America in the first half of the 20th century.,Saussures theories,SIGN theory Saussure believed that language is a system of signs that express ideas . Sounds count as language only when they serve to express or communicate ideas; otherwise they are nothing but noise. To communicate ideas, they must be part of a system of conventions, part of a system of signs. This sign is the union of a form and an idea-the SIGNIFIER and the SIGNIFIED.,In Saussures view, language is a system of signs, each of which consists of two parts:Signified(所指/受指), stands for concept; Signifier(能指/施指), stands for sound image.The sign (signe) is described as a “double entity“, made up of the signifier, or sound image, (signifiant), and the signified, or concept (signifi). 索绪尔最早指出，语言符号联系的不是事物和名称，“而是概念和音响形象”; “语言符号是一种有两面的心理实体”，他用“能指”和“所指”这两个术语来分别指称符号的“两面”，并进一步提出能指和所指之间的联系是不可分割的。 语言符号具有任意性和线条性的特点。,Saussure offered a dyadic or two-part model of the sign. He defined a sign as being composed of: a signifier (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes (sound-image); and the signified (signifi) - the concept it represents (the idea). The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred to as signification, and this is represented in the Saussurean diagram by the arrows. The horizontal line marking the two elements of the sign is referred to as the bar.,The signifier is now commonly interpreted as the material (or physical) form of the sign - it is something which can be seen, heard, touched, smelt or tasted. For Saussure, both the signifier and the signified were purely psychological . A sound pattern is the hearers psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of his senses. The other element is generally of a more abstract kind: the concept.,What Saussure refers to as the value of a sign depends on its relations with other signs within the system - a sign has no absolute value independent of the context (Saussure 1983, 80; Saussure 1974, 80). Saussure uses an analogy with the game of chess, noting that the value of each piece depends on its position on the chessboard. The sign is more than the sum of its parts. Whilst signification - what is signified - clearly depends on the relationship between the two parts of the sign, the value of a sign is determined by the relationships between the sign and other signs within the system as a whole. 索绪尔有一句口号式的言论:“从总体来考虑符号”。并且,这个至关重要的总体结构恰恰是我们无法直观的东西。捕捉一种抽象的语言系统结构,正是后来结构主义理论逻辑中最关键的思想本质。,ARBITRARINESS,the forms of linguistic signs bears no natural relationship to their meanings. There is no motivated relationship between the sign and what it is a sign for.The symbols have been chosen arbitrarily for the message. Illustrations: One form of language can mean differently in different contexts. The same meaning can be expressed in different linguistic forms.,Arbitrariness & Onomatopoetic（拟声） dimension,There are animal names derived from sounds the respective animal makes, but these forms did not have to be chosen for these meanings. Non-onomatopoetic words can stand just as easily for the same meaning. In time, onomatopoetic words can also change in form, losing their mimetic status. Onomatopoetic words may have an inherent relation to their referent, but this meaning is not inherent, thus they do not violate arbitrariness.,The principle of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign was not an original conception: Aristotle had noted that there can be no natural connection between the sound of any language and the things signified (cited in Richards 1932, 32). In Platos Cratylus Hermogenes urged Socrates to accept that whatever name you give to a thing is its right name; and if you give up that name and change it for another, the later name is no less correct than the earlier, just as we change the name of our servants; for I think no name belongs to a particular thing by nature .,