Course in General Linguistics () is a book about linguistics compiled by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye from notes on lectures given by historical-comparative linguist Ferdinand de Saussure at the University of Geneva between 1906 and 1911.
Background It was published in 1916, after Saussure's death, and is generally regarded as the starting point of structural linguistics, an approach to linguistics that was established in the first half of the 20th century by the Prague linguistic circle. One of Saussure's translators, Roy Harris, summarized Saussure's contribution to linguistics and the study of language in the following way:
Although Saussure's perspective was in historical linguistics, the Course develops a theory of semiotics that is generally applicable. A manuscript containing Saussure's original notes was found in 1996, and later published as Writings in General Linguistics.
The task of linguistics Following a brief introduction to the history of linguistics, Saussure sets the tasks of linguistics. He largely equates general linguistics with historical-comparative and reconstructive linguistics arguing that "the scope of linguistics should be
a) 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; b) 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; and c) to delimit and define itself." In later parts of the book, Saussure demonstrates the limitations of the reconstructive method owing to insufficient historical data and to the unpredictability of language change. He concludes that, in order to understand why a language at a certain historical stage has the forms it has, one must also uncover the universals, which are present throughout the development of all languages. Saussure's suggestion is that the dynamic interaction of meaning and expression governs language change.
Language versus speech: the speech circuit
A core task of Saussure's Course in General Linguistics is to define the subject matter of general linguistics. To do this, a definition of 'language' is required. Saussure distinguishes between language (la langue) and speech (la parole) introducing his concept of the 'speech circuit' (le circuit de la parole). The speech circuit emerges when at least two persons (A and B in the picture) interact verbally. It consists of two physical elements: the brain, representing the personal-psychological aspect of speaking; and speech, which is the result of the vocal organs producing sound waves. Third, language (not visible in the picture), with its rules, arises from the speech circuit socially and historically as a non-physical phenomenon. However, Saussure considers it "concrete" and not an abstraction, making language the suitable subject of linguistics as a natural science.
The rules of language are gradually learned by the child, but adult perceptions of language vary to some degree. Saussure explains that
"Among all the individuals that are linked together by speech, some sort of average will be set up : all will reproduce—not exactly of course, but approximately—the same signs united with the same concepts."
Beginning with the Greek word semîon meaning "sign", Saussure proposes a new science of semiology: "a science that studies the life of signs within society". However, based on William Dwight Whitney's The Life and Growth of Language (1875), Saussure emphasizes that the concept of 'life' is in this context metaphorical and not biological. Saussure does not engage in the research of any other signs than linguistic ones, but the idea of social interaction being based on sign systems was later extensively exploited by the structuralists.Blackburn, Simon, ed. 2008. "Structuralism." In Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (2nd rev. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. . p. 353.
Cultural historian Egbert Klautke notes that Saussure borrowed his language-versus-speech distinction from his teacher Heymann Steinthal, who proposed Völkerpsychologie. In this concept, language is a part of the spirit of the nation or Volksgeist. Saussure advocates the commonly accepted view of his time.Klautke, Egbert. 2013. Mind Of The Nation Völkerpsychologie in Germany, 1851-1955. Berghahn. This collectivist view became later known as the standard social science model (SSSM), thus also representing the most common understanding of culture in contemporary sociology.Scott, John. 2005. Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology. Sage. What is special in Saussure's treatise is his theory that social behavior is symbolic or semiological, consisting of socially regulated combinations of signs. Based on the Course, linguistics is a sub-field of social and cultural studies, and these belong to the sphere of semiology, the study of sign-systems. Semiology itself is a type of systems theory.
Saussure explains further that language arises as a well-defined homogeneous object from the heterogeneous mass of speech facts. Speech is many-sided and heterogeneous because it belongs partly to the individual. Language is a self-contained whole: it is fully social and cannot be changed by the individual. Language is not complete in any speaker: it is a product that is passively assimilated by the individual. It exists only within a collective. Language is "a system of signs that express ideas". Through the interaction of language and speech, however, concepts (the signified part of the sign), are likewise founded on social contract.
To explain how the social solidification of language comes about, Saussure proposes the notion of individual speaking. Speaking is willful and intentional. While individual speaking is heterogeneous, that is to say composed of unrelated or differing parts or elements (relating to 'external' or interdisciplinary linguistics), language is homogeneousa system of signs composed of the union of meanings and "sound images". Therefore, as the core of linguistic inquiry can be isolated focusing on the self-contained, non-physiological system of signs, which Saussure calls language, it is this that general linguistics focuses on since it allows an investigative methodology that is "scientific" in the sense of systematic inquiry. General linguistics is also analogous with biology to the extent that linguistic forms—like organisms—are analyzed anatomically (as in morphology).
In practice, Saussure proposes that general linguistics consists of the analysis of language itself by way of semantics, phonology, morphology, lexicology, and grammar. Moreover, general or internal linguistics is informed by the related disciplines of external linguistics such as anthropological and archaeological linguistics. While language is the ultimate object of research, it must be studied through speech, which provides the research material. For practical reasons, linguists mostly use texts to analyse speech to uncover the systemic properties of language.
The sign
The focus of Saussure's investigation is the linguistic unit or sign.
The sign (signe) is described as a "double entity", made up of the signifier, or sound pattern (referred to by Saussure as a 'signal'), and the signified, or concept (referred to by Saussure as 'signification'). The sound pattern is a psychological, not a material concept, belonging to the system. Both components of the linguistic sign are inseparable. One way to appreciate this is to think of them as being like either side of a piece of paper – one side simply cannot exist without the other.
The relationship between signifier and signified is, however, not quite that simple. Saussure is adamant that language cannot be considered a collection of names for a collection of objects (as it is in the conception that Adam named the animals, for example). According to Saussure, language is not a nomenclature. Indeed, the basic insight of Saussure's thought is that denotation, the reference to objects in some universe of discourse, is mediated by system-internal relations of difference.
Arbitrariness For Saussure, there is no essential or natural reason why a particular signifier should be attached to a particular signified. Saussure calls this the "arbitrariness of the sign" (l'arbitraire du signe).
No two people have precisely the same concept of "tree," since no two people have precisely the same experiences or psychology. We can communicate "tree," however, for the same reason we can communicate at all: because we have agreed to use it in a consistent way. If we agreed to use the word and sound for "horse" instead, it would be called "horse" to the same effect. Since all that is important is agreement and consistency, the connection is arbitrary.
In further support of the arbitrary nature of the sign, Saussure goes on to argue that if words stood for pre-existing universal concepts they would have exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next and this is not so. Languages reflect shared experience in complicated ways and can paint very different pictures of the world from one another. To explain this, Saussure uses the word bœuf as an example. In English, he says, we have different words for the animal and the meat product: Ox and beef. In French, bœuf is used to refer to both concepts. In Saussure's view, particular words are born out of a particular society's needs, rather than out of a need to label a pre-existing set of concepts. But the picture is actually even more complicated, through the integral notion of 'relative motivation'. Relative motivation refers to the compositionality of the linguistic system, along the lines of an immediate constituent analysis. This is to say that, at the level of langue, hierarchically nested signifiers have relatively determined signified. An obvious example is in the English number system: That is, though twenty and two might be arbitrary representations of a numerical concept, twenty-two, twenty-three etc. are constrained by those more arbitrary meanings. The tense of verbs provides another obvious example: The meaning of "kicked" is relatively motivated by the meanings of "kick-" and "-ed". But, most simply, this captures the insight that the value of a syntagm—a system-level sentence—is a function of the value of the signs occurring in it. It is for this reason that Leonard Bloomfield called the lexicon the set of fundamental irregularities of the language. (Note how much of the "meaningfulness" of the Jabberwocky poem is due to these sorts of compositional relationships!)
A further issue is onomatopoeia. Saussure recognised that his opponents could argue that with onomatopoeia there is a direct link between word and meaning, signifier and signified. However, Saussure argues that, on closer etymological investigation, onomatopoeic words can, in fact, be unmotivated (not sharing a likeness), in part evolving from non-onomatopoeic origins. The example he uses is the French and English onomatopoeic words for a dog's bark, that is ouaoua and Bow Wow.
Finally, Saussure considers interjections and dismisses this obstacle with much the same argument, i.e., the sign/signifier link is less natural than it initially appears. He invites readers to note the contrast in pain interjection in French (aie) and English (ouch).
Value
The value of a sign is determined by all the other signs in the langue.