Structural linguistics, or structuralism, in linguistics, denotes schools or theories in which language is conceived as a self-contained, self-regulating semiotic system whose elements are defined by their relationship to other elements within the system. It is derived from the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and is part of the overall approach of structuralism. Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (French: Cours de linguistique générale, CLG), published posthumously in 1916, stressed examining language as a dynamic system of interconnected units. Saussure is also known for introducing several basic dimensions of semiotic analysis that are still important today. Two of these are his key methods of syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis (paradigmatic is a later term, Saussure used a wider notion associative), which define units syntactically and lexically, respectively, according to their contrast with the other units in the system.
Structuralism as a term, however, was not used by Saussure, who called the approach semiology. The term structuralism is derived from sociologist Émile Durkheim's anti-Darwinian modification of Herbert Spencer's organic analogy which draws a parallel between social structures and the organs of an organism which have different functions or purposes. Similar analogies and metaphors were used in the historical-comparative linguistics that Saussure was part of. Saussure himself made a modification of August Schleicher's language–species analogy, based on William Dwight Whitney's critical writings, to turn focus to the internal elements of the language organism, or system. Nonetheless, structural linguistics became mainly associated with Saussure's notion of language as a dual interactive system of symbols and concepts. The term structuralism was adopted to linguistics after Saussure's death by the Prague school linguists Nikolai Trubetzkoy and Roman Jakobson, with the first usage of the terms like "structural principle of the phonological system" going back to the Prague Circle's theses presented at the first International Congress of Linguists in Hague, 1928 and the first International Congress of Slavists in Prague, 1929.
History Structural linguistics begins with the posthumous publication of Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics in 1916, which his students compiled from his lectures given between 1906 and 1911 (still going through the process of development each year). The book proved to be highly influential, providing the foundation for both modern linguistics and semiotics. Structuralist linguistics is often thought of as giving rise to more or less independent European and American structuralist traditions due to ambiguity in the term and the development of these traditions. Both traditions were influenced by Saussure's ideas; but over time Saussure's influence was weakened in the American school (vide infra).
European structuralism In Europe, structural liguistics was represented by: (1) the Geneva School of Albert Sechehaye and Charles Bally, (2) the Prague linguistic circle, (3) the Copenhagen School of Louis Hjelmslev, (4) the Paris School of André Martinet and Algirdas Julien Greimas, (5) Daniel Jones and the separate London School of Linguistics of John Rupert Firth, and (6) the Dutch school of Simon Dik. Structural linguistics also had an influence on other disciplines of humanities bringing about the movement known as structuralism.
'American structuralism', or 'American descriptivism' Some confusion is caused by the fact that an American school of linguistics of 1910s through 1950s is also often nicknamed 'American structuralism'. This American school is alternatively called distributionalism, 'American descriptivism', or the 'Bloomfieldian' school – or 'post-Bloomfieldian', following the death of its leader Leonard Bloomfield in 1949. Another founding figure of this school was Edward Sapir; other notable linguists customarily included in this group are Zellig Harris, George Trager, Bernard Bloch, Martin Joos, Henry Lee Smith Jr., Henry Allan Gleason and Charles Hockett.
The relationship of this school to Saussure and European structuralists was complex and changed over time. There is no indication that Sapir ever read CLG, but Bloomfield considered himself indebted to Saussure. Bloomfield's first book Introduction to the Study of Language was written under the influence of Wilhelm Wundt's psychological ideas, especially those pertaining to the psychology of language. However, from the early 1920s onward Bloomfield abandoned his mentalistic positions, mainly under the behaviorist influence of Albert Paul Weiss, his colleague at the Ohio State University (even though Bloomfield retained some Wundtian ideas, e.g. the idea of constituent structure, later developing into the Immediate constituent analysis in syntax). No longer being able to ground language in psychology, Bloomfield found rescue in Saussure, from whom Bloomfield "acquires his dictum that linguistics does not need psychology". Bloomfield praised Saussure's distinction between "synchronic" and "diachronic" linguistics; separation of linguistics from physiology and psychology; the trichotomy of le langage (human speech) – la langue (the language) – la parole (speech-utterance); and the view of language as an "arbitrary system of social habit". While Bloomfield did not adopt the Saussurean terminology of signifiant and signifié and considered "the statement of meanings the weak point in language study", he essentially agreed with Saussure on the importance of the joint consideration of form and meaning, calling it "the fundamental assumption of linguistics, namely: In certain communities (speech-communities) some speech-utterances are alike as to form and meaning", with the language system arising from the relational consideration of differences between utterances (especially in phonology).
At the same time, notwithstanding this influence, Saussure is mentioned just once in Bloomfield's influential book Language, and the later generation of American structuralists almost never referred to Saussure and often didn't even read him. Zellig Harris took distributionalist ideas even further, claiming that "the structures of language can be described only in terms of the formal, not the semantic, differences of its units and their relations", operationalizing the meaning consideration into the techniques like 'paired utterance test' for distinguishing phonemic contrasts where reference to meaning was unavoidable.
The strongest link between American and European structuralists was phonology (most commonly called phonemics in America at the time). In his impactful 1925 paper "Sound Patterns in Language" Edward Sapir independently arrived at the modern conception of phonemes not as speech sounds but as abstract elements defined by their place in a language system, i.e. language's sound pattern (though he did not use the term "phoneme" in this sense at the moment, adopting it only later in the 1933 paper). Vilém Mathesius, the founder of the Prague Circle, wrote approvingly of the paper in 1926 and in other articles, as did . Trubetzkoy and Sapir held each other in high regard and maintained a lively written correspondence; the same can be said of Trubetzkoy's relationship with Bloomfield, with whom he studied together in Leipzig in 1913.
The following generation of American structuralists were more skeptical of the work that was being done in Europe. The Americans' positivistic, empiricist and behaviorist outlook and the orientation on the fieldwork with the indigenous languages of the Americas lead to the reciprocal disdain between the Americans and Europeans. Many American linguists often believed European theories to by mystical and lacking in terminological rigour. At the same time Europeans critiqued Americans of the neglect of the questions of meaning and functionality. Nevertheless, the most basic tenets of both Europeans and Americans remained the same. The separation of synchronic and diachronic linguistics; the distinction between parole (speech-act) and langue (linguistic system); the relational, structural and autonomous nature of such systems. It can be said that American structuralists often viewed these tenets in the methodological and operationalistic light, rather that the theoretical and philosophical European point of view, even if the difference was one of degree rather than absolute.
In the generative or Chomskyan conception, a purported rejection of 'structuralism' usually refers to Noam Chomsky's opposition to the anti-mentalism of the post-Bloomfieldians; Chomsky's critique of Saussure consisted of (1) the view of language as a mere store of signs; (2) placing the sentence and syntax mostly in the domain of parole; (3) focus on the social nature of langue instead of the individual's competence/I-language. Most notably, Chomsky's early transformational-generative grammar broke the Saussurean unity of the linguistic sign because the semantic module is said to interact with deep structure instead of surface structure and because of the introduction of the notion of empty category In the light of more recent lexicalist developments of the Chomskyan theory this discrepancy narrows..
Basic theories and methods The foundation of structural linguistics is a sign, which in turn has two components: a "signified" is an idea or concept, while the "signifier" is a means of expressing the signified. The "sign", e.g. a word, is thus the combined association of signifier and signified. The value of a sign can be defined only by being placed in contrast with other signs. This forms the basis of what later became the paradigmatic dimension of semiotic organization (i.e., terms and inventories of terms that stand in opposition to each other). This is contrasted drastically with the idea that linguistic structures can be examined in isolation from meaning, or that the organisation of the conceptual system can exist without a corresponding organisation of the signifying system.
Paradigmatic relations hold among sets of units, such as the set distinguished phonologically by variation in their initial sound cat, bat, hat, mat, fat, or the morphologically distinguished set ran, run, running. The units of a set must have something in common with one another, but they must contrast too, otherwise they could not be distinguished from each other and would collapse into a single unit, which could not constitute a set on its own, since a set always consists of more than one unit. Syntagmatic relations, in contrast, are concerned with how units, once selected from their paradigmatic sets of oppositions, are 'chained' together into structural wholes.
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations provide the structural linguist with a tool for categorization for phonology, morphology and syntax. Take morphology, for example. The signs cat and cats are associated in the mind, producing an abstract paradigm of the word forms of cat. Comparing this with other paradigms of word forms, we can note that, in English, the plural often consists of little more than adding an -s to the end of the word. Likewise, through paradigmatic and syntagmatic analysis, we can discover the syntax of sentences. For instance, contrasting the syntagma ("I should") and ("Should I?") allows us to realize that in French we only have to invert the units to turn a statement into a question. We thus take syntagmatic evidence (difference in structural configurations) as indicators of paradigmatic relations (e.g., in the present case: questions vs. assertions).