Page 65 – 98
PART ONE: General Principles
Critical summary:
Part one consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, the nature of linguistic sign is discussed. In the second chapter, the invariability and variability of Sign is discussed, and the in the third, the distinction between static linguistics (synchronic) and evolutionary linguistics (diachronic) is drawn.
This is the part of the book where Saussure famously distinguished synchronic and diachronic linguistics and analyze their individual characteristics. By doing this, he provides a comprehensive and clear view of language as a complex social system. By analyzing language as such a system, his analysis bears significant implication for all such social institutions, although his analysis is focused mostly on linguistics.
What follows is the quotes and notes arranged by chapters.
Chapter 1 Nature of the Linguistic Sign (page 65 – 70)
In this chapter, Saussure famously reintroduced the concept of sign as the unity of the signification (concept) and signal (sound pattern).
Q: For some people, a language, reduced to its essentials, is a nomenclature: a list of terms corresponding to a list of things… This conception is open to a number of objections. It assumes that ideas already exist independently of words. It does not clarify whether the name is a vocal or a psychological entity… it leads one to assume that the link between a name and a things is something quite unproblematic, which is far from being the case. Nonetheless, his naive view contains one element of truth, which is that linguistic units are dual in nature, comprising two elements.
N: Saussure’s statement confirms one of the observations that I long held, which is that ideas cannot exist independently of words. Or rather, the assumption of pre-existing ideas which leads to the appearance of language is not a correct assumption.
Q: A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but between a concept and a sound pattern. The sound pattern is not a actually a sound; for a sound is something physical. A sound pattern is the hearer’s psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of his senses.
N: My initial reaction to this statement is to ask, whether a language must be bound to a sound pattern. Can the signal be visual instead of audial? But a quick objective observation reveals that a language must necessarily consists of the audio component because it must be actualized in speech, and that’s why in many aspect it is bound by the characteristic of speech. Including it’s linear, one-dimensional nature, and its emphasis of a sound pattern. We do not think in terms of writing, even with a ideographic writing system like in Chinese. When we think, it always resembles a monologue, which points to the primacy of speech sound.
Q: The linguistic sign is, ten, a two-sided psychological entity… These two elements are intimately linked and each triggers the other… only the connexions institutionalised in the language appear to us as relevant… it is forgotten that if arbor is called a sign, it is only because it carries with it the concept ‘tree’, so that the sensory part of the the term implies reference to the whole… We propose to keep the term sign to designate the whole, but to replace concept and sound pattern respectively by signification and signal. The latter terms have the advantage of indicating the distinction which separates each from the other and both from the whole of which they are part.
Q: The link between the signal and signification is arbitrary… we can express this more simply as: the linguistic sign is arbitrary.
N: This statement deserves its own section between it is often overlooked. There is no inherent and internal cause to the formation of a linguistic sign. It is purely arbitrary. Because it is arbitrary, there is no internal motivation or rather direction of evolution; all changes must result from external factors: social and conventional. There is thus no inherent “truth” value to any linguistic phenomenon: all are equally valid because all are equally arbitrary.
N: Although we accept that the signs themselves are arbitrary, is it possible to establish general laws, for example, the economy of physiology (how convenient it is to utilize our physical organs), which influence the sets of possible sound patterns (signal) which is used in the formation of signs?
Q: It may be noted in passing that when semiology is established one of the questions that must be asked is whether modes of expression which rely upon signs that are entirely natural (mime, for example) fall within the province of semiology. If they do, the main object of study in semiology will none the less be the class of systems based upon the arbitrary nature of the sign.
N: This statement seems out of place, because in principle, mime and speech has no principle: the physical movement is used to produce a psychological distinguishable units, (visual pattern for mime and sound pattern for speech). In that sense, all modes of expression rely upon signal which is produce entirely based on natural (physiological) means.
Q: We may therefore say that signs which are entirely arbitrary convey better than others the ideal semiological process. That is why the most complex and the most widespread of all systems of expression, which is the one we find in human languages, is also the most characteristic of all.
N: A line of inquiry may be developed along the line of “what is the semiological process”. The creation of a sign, if we observe further, is a prevalent phenomenon in the human society. To associate a signification (a concept, or an abstraction of concrete entities) to a signal (another physical entity) is a common method by which human explain and “make sense” of our world. This is what I would say is the microcosm of all thinking process.
Q: The word symbol is sometimes used to designate the linguistic sign… the use of the word symbol is awkward, for reasons connected with our first principle. For it is characteristic of symbols that they are never entirely arbitrary.
Q: The word arbitrary also calls for comment. It must not be taken to imply that a signal depends on the free choice of the speaker… The term implies simply that the signal is unmotivated: that is to say arbitrary in relation to its signification, with which is has no natural connexion in reality.
N: In other, the word arbitrary doesn’t mean that the connexion can be freely chosen, rather that there is no logic nor laws governing the association between the signal and the signification.
Q: Two objections may be mentioned which might be brought against the principle that linguistic signs are arbitrary: Onomatopoeic words, and exclamations.
N: Onomatopoeia: the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named.
N: Saussure’s two arguments against onomatopoeia as exception to the arbitrary rule is brilliant: First, the onomatopoeia is also an conventionalized approximation, which is also arbitrary in nature. Second, when the onomatopoeic words enter the language, it is subjected to the same phonetic and morphological evolution as other words.
Q: The second principle: linear character of the signal. The linguistic signal, being auditory in nature, has a temporal aspect, and hence certain temporal characteristic: (a) it occupies a certain temporal space, and (b) this space is measured in just one dimension: it is a line.
N: Considering that language must be realized in speech sound, it must consider that auditory nature, which means it must be linear, even for a language which utilize a two-dimensional writing system like Chinese. This feature of language has a far-reaching effect on how language is utilize and how we think. This is a very significant limit of language.