Ferdinand de Saussure, (born Nov. 26, 1857, Geneva, Switz.died Feb.

22, 1913, Vufflens-le-

Chteau), Swiss linguist whose ideas on structure in language laid the foundation for much of the
approach to and progress of the linguistic sciences in the 20th century.

While still a student, Saussure established his reputation with a brilliant contribution to comparative
linguistics, Mmoire sur le systme primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-europennes (1878;
Memoir on the Original System of Vowels in the Indo-European Languages). In it he explained how
the knottiest of vowel alternations in Indo-European, those of a, take place. Though he wrote no other
book, he was enormously influential as a teacher, serving as instructor at the cole des Hautes tudes
(School of Advanced Studies) in Paris from 1881 to 1891 and as professor of Indo-European
linguistics and Sanskrit (190111) and of general linguistics (190711) at the University of Geneva.
His name is affixed, however, to the Cours de linguistique gnrale (1916; Course in General
Linguistics), a reconstruction of his lectures on the basis of notes by students carefully prepared by his
junior colleagues Charles Bally and Albert Schehaye. The publication of his work is considered the
starting point of 20th-century structural linguistics.

Saussure contended that language must be considered as a social phenomenon, a structured system that
can be viewed synchronically (as it exists at any particular time) and diachronically (as it changes in the
course of time). He thus formalized the basic approaches to language study and asserted that the
principles and methodology of each approach are distinct and mutually exclusive. He also introduced
two terms that have become common currency in linguisticsparole, or the speech of the individual
person, and langue, the system underlying speech activity. His distinctions proved to be mainsprings
to productive linguistic research and can be regarded as starting points on the avenue of linguistics
known as structuralism.

Geneva, French Genve, German Genf, Italian Ginevra, city, capital of Genve canton, in the far
southwestern corner of Switzerland that juts into France. One of Europes most cosmopolitan cities,
Geneva has served as a model for republican government and owes its preeminence to the triumph of
human, rather than geographic, factors. It developed its unique character from the 16th century, when,
as the centre of the Calvinist Reformation, it became the Protestant Rome.

Geneva, Switzerland.

Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.

The canton of Genve has a total area of 109 square miles (282 square kilometres), of which seven
square miles constitute the city ... (100 of 4,035 words)

Due to his theories on the structure of language, the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-
1913) is often known as the founder of modern linguistics.
In order to understand Saussures linguistic theories, you have to be able to grasp the basics of his
psycho-linguistic terminology and his explanation of the nature of language units.

Understanding the basic concepts of his linguistic theory is not only essential for linguistic students, but
for anyone studying semiotics, or the use of various types of signs to communicate. Semiotics is also a
basic element in film theory studies.

In Saussures Course in General Linguistics, a book summarising his lectures at the University of
Geneva from 1906 to 1911, he explained the relationship between speech and the evolution of
language, investigating language as a structured system of signs.

It is important to note that Saussure perceived a linguistic unit to be a double entity, meaning that it is
composed of two parts. He viewed the linguistic unit as a combination of:

1. a concept or meaning

2. a sound-image

Linguistic Units and Sound Images are Mental Impressions

The first point to understand is when Saussure mentioned linguistic units, sound-images and
concepts, he was referring to the mental processes that create these entities. He was not referring
to spoken or written words, but to the mental impressions made on our senses by a certain thing. It
is our perception, or how we view this thing, together with the sound system of our language that
creates the two-part mental linguistic unit he referred to as a sign.

Lets take for example the fairly new concept of Google. The sound image, or impression in our minds
is of the logo representing Google, and through our language system we know how that image sounds
mentally. We know the concept or meaning associated with this sound impression that Google is a
large search engine on the Internet. The connections between the two elements are made mentally
without uttering or writing the word Google, and the two parts formed are joined and become united
as a mental linguistic unit. Saussure calls this two-part linguistic unit a sign.

Understanding the Terms Sign, Signified and Signifier

The part of the sign Saussure calls the concept or meaning (mental impression/association of the
thing) he named, signified. The idea of what Google is, for example, is signified. The part he calls
the sound-image (the mental linguistic sign given to the thing) he named the signifier this is the
sound Googles logo creates in our minds.

As Saussure explains, the connection between all signifiers which are sound images or linguistic
signs and what they are signifying their signified object or concept is arbitrary. In other words,
there is not necessarily any logical connection between the two. Again, the word Google exemplifies
this well.

There is nothing in the word Google that would suggest that it is a digital means of searching for
information on the Internet. It is a random invented word. With the arrival of the Internet, in the waning
years of Yahoo! a name, or sound image/linguistic sign had to be created to describe a new search
engine. However, now, when you see the linguistic unit Google (the sign), you automatically
connect it to its sound image, the signifier Google a linguistic sign which signifies a large search
engine on the internet.
Ferdinand de Saussure Introduction
Ever heard of words? Well, then you're already interested in the work of Switzerland's very own
Ferdinand de Saussure, the granddaddy of linguistics (the science of language) and semiotics (the
"science of signs," in case you aren't fluent in Greek). We'll get into the hairy details later, but for now,
it helps to know that semiotics studies the social function of languagelanguage as it is spoken by real,
live people.

Saussure and his peeps held the strong conviction that language forms the way we think, and that, in
turn, in turn influences culture. According to Saussure, if you're interested in understanding a culture,
you have to start with that culture's language. It's all in them words, so get out your toolkit and start
taking apart any and every metaphor, symbol, narrative device, and figure of speech that comes your
way.

It's a truth pretty much universally acknowledged that Saussure is the founder of twentieth-century
linguistics, more specifically known as Structural Linguistics. It may not seem like much in our 140-
character world, but Saussure recognized the important cultural meaning of words.

If you want to get all Sherlock Holmes with a language, you can discover 1) what that language says
about a culture's social interactions, and 2) how its speakers use language to describe and understand
the world. Words are embedded in society. Language allows us to communicate within society, but it
also tells us a lot about the society in which it is used.

If you are student of language, philosophy, or anthropology, you will inevitably run head-on into
Saussure's world-famous Course in General Linguistics. (Fun fact: this guy didn't even write the work
he's most famous for. Devoted students put it together from notes they had taken in his lectures.)

So, what is Saussure's big point in the Course in General Linguistics? We'll take this slowly: he analyzed
language scientifically by considering it a formal system in which words are understood only by
comparing and contrasting them to other words.

Saussure also believed that language is arbitrary. Huh? Well, that just means that, according to
Saussure's argument, the word for toe has no tangible connection to an actual toe. Unlike a lot of Chinese
characters, words in English and French (for example) do not look (or even, usually, sound) like the
things they represent.

For Saussure, the word "toe" is what he calls a "signifier," while the actual, real-life toe is called a
"signified." Together, the signified and signifier make up a "sign." You still with us? Well, according
to Saussure, the connection between signified and a signifier is arbitrary (translation: it's, like, totally
randomthere is no physical or natural relationship between the two).

Signifiers are differential and relational: they only make sense in relation to other signifiers. In other
words, we only know that "toe" refers to a toe because we know that "finger" doesn't; it's not that there's
something inherent in the word "toe" that just has some deep connection with toes.

Basically, all words must be different from each other, or things would get really confusing. A toe is a
toe because it's not a finger or a flower. But other than that, it has nothing to do with an actual toe.

Yeah, it just got real. Or... maybe the point is that it didn't get real? Either way, Shmoopers, fear not:
we're here to tackle this thing for you Ferdinand de Saussures Bio
All the deets on your favorite critics personal life. Basic Information
Tagline "Please! Just give me a sign! Any sign."

Nickname Ferdy, Saucy, Saussure for Sure, F.D.S., The Greatest Linguist of All Time, The Word Scientist

Work & Education

Ah, Paris. After fusty old Geneva, Paris was a 24-hour booze cruise. But I still managed to hold
down a day job at the cole des Hautes tudes (School of Advanced Studies). I was even knighted
for my contributionsjust call me Chevalier de Saussure.After a decade in the City of Lights, I
moved back home to Geneva, where I served as a professor of Indo-European linguistics, Sanskrit,
and general linguistics at the local university. I taught there until my dying day.Ever heard of
Occupation
"publish or perish"? Well, thank God I didn't have to fulfill those ruthless tenure standards, or I
never would have made it. Though I am enviably famous for my Course in General Linguistics, my
students are the ones who cobbled the thing together from their lecture notes and sent it off to
be published. HeckI wasn't even alive anymore. I always longed to write a book about general
linguistics, but I was just too busy.

Is it enough to say that I completed my doctoral thesis on Sanskrit when I was 22 years old? Or
that I wrote an earth-shattering essay on Proto-Indo-European vowels entitled Memoir on the
Original System of Vowels in the Indo-European Languages when I was 21? May I quote my very
own private tutor on the subject of my intellectual capacity?: "What an unusually gifted boy is our
Ferdinand. He learns with extreme ease, and he is not superficial as overly-gifted children too
often are" (source).I give Dad credit for a lot of my smarts: he was a taxonomist, entomologist,
and mineralogist, which means he was better than a rocket scientist and a brain surgeon put
Education
together. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My education merged into the fast lane when I was in
my late teens studying at the University of Geneva. (Mom thought dorm life would distract me, so
she kept me at home.) After gaining mastery of Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, I moved on to the
University of Leipzig, where I studied under the finest scholars and picked up my Ph.D. My
dissertation title: De l'emploi du gnitif absolu en Sanscrit ("On the Sanskrit Genitive Absolute"). I
didn't stop there: I continued to study Sanskrit and Celtic languages, and then I burst on to the
scene as a professor in the Parisian academic world.

Beliefs
My interest in politics began at around age 12. I read all of the local rags and always kept up with
the political issues of the day, which I enjoyed talking about with any adult who would listen. I got
really pumped about the Franco-Prussian War, which broke out in 1870. We Swiss did not like the
idea of Prussians stepping over national boundaries into our territoryeven though, as always, we
were technically neutral. I always had some commentary about current political issues, like the
skirmishes on the Venezuelan border, not to mention the British oppression in South Africa and
Political India. It was already an era of tumultuous colonial politics, and I've always been against
views exploitation. On top of that, anti-Semitism was on the rise, and stirrings of Aryan superiority were
making things very hot under the proverbial collar. During my time, a dramatic incident occurred
when a Jewish officer named Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of espionage. The issue divided
people between those who condemned Dreyfus and those who supported him (the so-called
Dreyfusards). I took a stand against Dreyfus's accusers because I believed that he was an innocent
victim of an anti-Semitic witch-hunt. Let's just say that sometimes family dinners got awkward
because... well, Dad was kind of racist. This apple fell pretty far from that tree.

I was not raised in a religious household; as a family, we were into science. Still, you don't have to
be a religious person to care about religion, and I was always interested in the role religion played
Religious in semioticsthat's the study of signs, if you remember. If you're interested in signs, you've gotta
views pay attention to religion (and politics), which had its own set of important signifiers, and those
signifiers reveal a lot about how a specific society organizes meaning. From Catholicism to Voodoo,
signs abound.
Ferdinand de Saussures Favorite Buzzwords

All the stuffiest terms, defined for your Shmooping pleasure.

Arbitrariness
This polysyllabic word describes the relationship between the linguistic sign (a.k.a. the word) and the
thing represented. When I talk about words, I usually mean the spoken word (and therefore how it
sounds when you say it), but the written word, of course, also has an "arbitrary" relationship to what it
represents. (I was reluctant to admit this and have always been way more interested in the spoken word.)

The relationship between "hedgehog" and the spiny mammal is completely inorganic, random, and not
intrinsicget it? We could call that spiny mammal a "Big Gulp," as long as we all agreed that's what
we'd call it.

Now, once once you've decided what a linguistic sign is, you can't really change it, because by now, it's
been culturally agreed upon. That still doesn't mean that deep down, a hedgehog is more of a "hedgehog"
than a "Big Gulp." It just means that people have agreed to call it "hedgehog."

Langue
This little French piece of vocabulaire refers to the totally abstract arrangement of rules that makes up
a signifying system. Hold up: I'll explain. In other words, langue (pronounced lahng) is language. As
babies start to talk, they learn this system; in other words, language pre-exists its users. When you learn
a language, it's like joining a club. You didn't make that club up yourself; it existed before you were
part of it.

Langue was what really rocked my world, because langue involves all the abstract regulations and
conventions that go into the grand whole of linguistic expressionwhat I call the semiotic system
(translation: system of signs).

Not to complicate matters, but I studied language as it was used during one particular time period (that's
called synchronic), not as it evolved and changed through time (that's called diachronic). I was mostly
interested in abstract, unchanging rules.

Parole
No, I'm not referring to provisional release from prison. Parole is French for "speaking," and it refers
to a specific use of langue. For me, parole refers to individual speech acts. When you say, "I'd like to
supersize that," it's an instance of parole.

Without langue, the abstract set of rules behind a language, there would be no parole. "I'd like to
supersize that" doesn't mean anything unless the person you're talking to has internalized the words and
the grammar of that sentence.

Parole is like langue set into action. So, you can see that studying one without the other is like being a
scholar of literature without looking at individual books.

Semiology
So, semiology this is the study of signs. You might also have heard the term "semiotics." Some people
say semiology and semiotics are the same things; others try to find some difference between the two.
Don't sweat it for now.
Anyway, this term is readily associated with yours truly, but I'm not trying to claim all of the glory for
myself. Other folks who followed in my footsteps (e.g., Roland Barthes, Claude Lvi-Strauss, Julia
Kristeva, Jean Baudrillard, and a bunch of others) were semiologists (not to be confused with
seismologists) in their own right.

My big thing was language, but semiologists study all kinds of sign systemsfrom film and political
speeches to facial expressions and tribal rituals. Semiology is a huge field, because there are all kinds
of sign systems everywhere. My specific interest was in Structural Linguistics, but you can study fashion
magazines and still be a semiologist, as long as you're focusing on the system of signs in a fashion
magazine.

Signifier/Signified
Not sold separately. LOL! What I mean to say is that you really can't study signifier without signified,
or signified without signifier. It's like a Reese's peanut butter cup: you can't separate the chocolate and
the peanut butter. These two puppies make up a whole sign.

The signifier is the form of the signthe sound. Different words sound different to the ear and are
processed differently in the brain. Also, we recognize words in distinction to one another: "Cat" is "cat"
because it's not "bat" or "hat," not because there's something inherently cat-like about the word "cat."

The signified is the other half of the signit's the concept that is being represented by the signifier. A
very popular example is the word "open" on a shop sign. That word "open" is the signifier. The signified
is the abstract concept that the signifier represents: in this case, it means that we can go in and purchase
our much-needed toilet paper.

Ferdinand de Saussures Quotes

Some of the toughest quotes, translated into human English.

Don't rub it in, but I didn't publish much. Sure, I had crazy early publishing successwho else do you
know who has published something along the lines of Memoir on the Original System of Vowels in the
Indo-European Languages the same year they could legally have a scotch and soda?

However, the sad but true point is that during my long years teaching in Paris, all I published was a few
brief notes, and therefore, I never got that much-coveted tenure. (I remained a matre de conferences
bummer.) That said, my students saved my rear by publishing their lecture notes as Course in General
Linguistics. All the quotes below are from there.

Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.

This one is pretty straightforward: I believe that the most effective way to understand a culture is through
the language people use. But language is not only important because it allows one person to
communicate with another; it also allows us to formulate and organize our thoughts.

You probably don't remember what it was like being a baby. Life was full of colors and shapes, and the
most important question was: where's my mom? Once you acquired language, you started to make sense
of the worldyou labeled things and came into awareness of how everything is related to everything
else. Without language, the world is a pretty hazy place. Words are how we make meaning out of life
around us.

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. And that is not all: 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.

Linguistics concerns all forms of expression with wordsspoken and written. Although I was always
slightly keener on the spoken word (sound is my thing), you must also study written expression because
1) it gives a broader understanding of a language, and 2) it allows you to study languages of the past.

What I'm also telling you here is that I'm not one of those biased Western scholars who only studies the
languages of present-day Europe. I admit I was more interested in language as used at a given time (I
wasn't that into studying a language's evolution), but I believe all languages are important, whether
spoken by the Queen of England or a kid in Timbuktu.

Finally, of what use is linguistics? [] [I]t is evident, for instance, that linguistic questions interest
all who work with textshistorians, philologists, etc. Still more obvious is the important of
linguistics to general culture: in the lives of individuals and societies, speech is more important
than anything else.

Some people have the gall to question the importance of my work. Once I recover from the shock of
such audacity, I move on to explain that speech is simply the most important feature of a culture.
Sometimes my confidence shuts down the conversation, but it's worth it to get people to finally grasp
that understanding a culture's language is not solely the concern of linguists. Anthropologists,
sociologists, historianseveryone benefits. Any further questions?

But what is language [langue]? It is not to be confused with human speech [langage], of which it
is only a definite part, though certainly an essential one. It is both a 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 []

It's always helpful to quickly review my important terms, right? When you move between French and
English, things can get a little complex with the vocab. So let's break this down: speech is but one part
of language. When I study speech, I am interested in the sounds that people make to express words.
Sometimes I refer to these as "sound images."

I refer to language in this quotation as a product, because it really is something that has been made by
people as a way of understanding their world. Without language, we'd all be really confused. You know
how adults are always telling kids to use their words instead of going around hitting people? Well, if
you ask me, that gives you some idea of what would happen if none of us had words.

Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law.

My slow jam is the synchronic nature of language, and not the diachronic. I look at language in all of
its vast systematic glory; I'm not that interested in how it evolves over time. (I leave that to other
linguists.) This brief gem suggests that not even language can resist time's winged chariot. Unpoetically
put: faces change, trends change, and words change, too. That's why they update dictionaries every year.
Ferdinand de Saussures Files

Dig into the personal files of your favorite critic.

Do you have any idea what it's like to be the Father of Twentieth-Century Structural Linguistics? I
thought not. It's one thing to have youngster linguists riding on the coattails of all of my discoveries,
but it's something else altogether when big name French theorists sweep in and don't give due respect
to all of my hard work.

I read your review of Derrida's interpretation of my work ("Sure He's Smart, But Is He All That and a
Bag of Potato Chips?" from January 6, 1985), and I have a few choice words for that dashingly
handsome Deconstructionist.

As your readers likely know, I believe that language is a "structure"or a "system," if you will. Anyone
who has read my much-ballyhooed Course on General Linguistics can tell you that I argue for a binary
structure in languagethat is, we've got the signifier and the signified. This is a solid situation.

Then Rico Suave comes along and reduces all of that to smoking rubble by saying that language is
decentered. What gives? When I say the word "croissant," everyone knows I mean a delicious buttery
crescent-shaped pastry treat. The croissantness of a croissant is somewhat abstractit is the taste of
butter, the feeling of buttery flakiness on the tongue, and the smell of a quaint patisserie. It is not a
Pillsbury crescent-dough roll-up. That has altogether different implications, not least of which is an
empty American imitation of "bread."

The two are different.

On top of that, people know the word "croissant" and what it refers to simply because this word sounds
different from all other words. Hearers know what croissant means the second I utter its two nasal
syllables (kwa-san).

Who is Derrida to question the importance of that sound? He dares to call me "phonocentric." I looked
that one up, and when I found out that it means I privilege speaking over writing, I took umbrage. Any
structural linguist who follows my school of thought knows that while I do not dismiss the importance
of writing, I do think that it puts distance between the writer and his or her wordsyou lose the intimacy
that always exists between the speaker and what the speaker says.

Derrida says that language is always unanchored from its speaker or its writer. Worse still, this situation
does not seem to disturb him. I encourage readers of his book and of your editorial to go back to the
source and save themselves from the false belief that the written sign and the spoken sign are equally
free-floating, unmoored, and disconnected.