Illustration by Mike O’Shaughnessy.
In this article I prepared as an assignment, I aimed to simply present the introduction to Saussure’s Cours de Linguistique Générale (Course in General Linguistics) as is, which is in my opinion the main introductory text to the study of linguistics.
Chapter 1 – A Glance at the History of Linguistics
In antiquity, the notion of ‘grammar’ was heavily studied by Greeks and later by the French. It was based on logic, lacked scientific approach, and was more like a “study of the correct way of speaking a language”. Then came philology. This movement improved on the more focused study of grammar and focused more on corrections, interpretations and comments on written texts. They were simply interested in criticism and comparison. They also examined archaic or obscure langages, which could be considered an early starting point for historical linguistics. Philology (and philological criticism) is still studied by some nowadays, but it lacks in the way it neglects the living language and focusing mostly on Greek and Latin antiquity.
The third stage is ‘comparative philology’, which was born out of the discovery that it is possible to compare languages. When one of the pioneers of the school, Franz Bopp, compared Sanskrit with European languages and recorded their similarities, he speculated that these languages belong to a single family. More studies followed by names like Max Müller, G. Curtius, and August Schleicher. Saussure points out that despite opening up a new and fruitful field, the comparative school failed in setting up the true science of linguistics by not seeking out the true nature of its object of study: They never asked themselves the meaning of their comparisons or the significance of the relations that they discovered. Moreover, they brought in a set of false notions, which have no basis in reality. Here, Saussure criticizes the immensely absurd reasoning and terminology the comparative school used to justify their baseless claims; and points out that “comparison is only a means or method of reconstructing the facts”.
A new school emerged later on, formed by the neogramarians (Junggrammatiker). Their contribution was in “placing the results of comparative studies in their historical perspective and thus linking the facts in their natural order”. Thanks to them, language is no longer considered an independent organism, but as a collective product of linguistic groups. At the same time, scholars realized how insufficient the notions of philology and comparative philology were at solving the fundamental problems of general linguistics.
Chapter 2 – Subject Matter and Scope of Linguistics; its Relations with Other Sciences
The scope of linguistics is divided into a) the exploration of the history of all observable languages (diachronic approach), and b) the search for the forces that are permanent and universal in all languages, deducing to general laws (synchronic approach). Saussure proposes that linguistics should blend these approaches and delimit and define itself in the process. It must carefully distinguish itself from ethnography and prehistory where language is used merely to document, from anthropology where humankind is studied solely from their viewpoint of their own species (for which language is a social fact). It is possible to question the relationship of linguistics with social sciences like sociology and (social) psychology here. Saussure considers “everything in language is basically psychological, including its material and mechanical manifestations”. On the other hand, linguistics’ relation to physiology is easier to examine, as the thing that constitutes language is unrelated to the phonic character of the linguistic sign.
Chapter 3 – The Object of Linguistics
For the task of defining language, Saussure looks at “what is both the integral and concrete object of linguistics”. In this sense, linguistic phenomenon always has two sides: For example, we cannot reduce language to the sounds that make it up, in the same way we cannot define the uses of vocal organs without taking the acoustical impressions they make into account. But not all sounds will constitute speech by itself: it is only an instrument of thought. We can clearly observe this relationship: “a sound, a complex acoustical-vocal unit, combines in turn with an idea to form a complex physiological-psychological unit”. The other side to all this, is that speech has both an individual and a social aspect. It implies an established system, and also by its existence, an evolution.
Here, Saussure distinguishes language (langue) and human speech (langage). Language is obviously an essential part of human speech: it is a social product of the faculty of speech, and a collection of necessary conventions that were adopted over time by a speech community. Speech is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, and it belongs both to the individual and to society. It is still debated whether speech as we know it is a natural manifestation. Language, on the other hand, is a self-contained whole. It is a convention, and the sign that is agreed upon – speech in our case, instead of gestures and visual symbols – does not matter. What is natural to mankind is not oral speech but the faculty of constructing language itself: a system of distinct signs corresponding to distinct ideas.
Building on this, Saussure outlines a speaking-circuit, that demonstrates the human mental capacity of associating mental facts (concepts) with linguistic sounds (sound-images) and how two people converse with each other. The circuit consists of an outer non-psychological part that includes the vibrations of sounds which travel from mouth to ear, and an inner psychological part that includes everything else, in other words an active and a passive part, which are used by speakers activating and passivizing their associative centers as they take turns in talking. Finally, everything that is active in the psychological part of the circuit is executive (which Saussure calls parole), and everything that is passive is receptive.
To clearly understand the roles of this faculty, we need to approach the social fact. To differentiate this social product that is language from everything else, we could embrace the sum of word-images stored in the minds of all individuals, and then we could identify the social bond that constitutes language. It is a system that has a potential existence in the brains of every individual in a group. It is not complete in one speaker, and it exists perfectly only within a collectivity: it is not a function of the speaker, but rather a product that is passively assimilated by the individual.
In summary, language is a well-defined object in the heterogeneous mass of speech facts. It is the social side of speech, outside the individual, existing only by virtue of a sort of contract signed by the members of a community. Unlike speaking, it is possible to study language separately from other sciences. Whereas speech is heterogeneous, language is homogeneous: it is the union of meanings and sound-images, and both parts of these signs are psychological. Linguistic signs are tangible, reduceable to conventional written symbols; whereas it is impossible to capture speech acts completely, where the pronunciation of even the smallest word represents an infinite number of muscular movements to identify – in language, there is only a sound-image, which can be fixed into a visual image. If the vast number of movements necessary to realize these sound-images, we see that each sound-image is only the sum of a limited number of elements or phonemes that can be called up by a corresponding number of written symbols.
Saussure then explores the idea of a science that studies the life of signs within society, which he calls semiology. It is a science that would show what constitutes signs and what laws govern them. However, to determine the exact place of semiology is the task of the psychologist. The task of the linguist, instead, is to find out what makes language a special system within the mass of semiological data. Why have semiology and linguistics not yet been recognized as proper, independent sciences? Firstly, there is the notion that language is nothing more than a name-giving system, which does not constitute a need to study deeper. Then, there is the viewpoint of a psychologist who studies the sign-mechanism in the individual, but it does not lead beyond the individual and does not reach the sign, which is social, and always eludes the individual.
In conclusion, according to Saussure, if we are to discover the true nature of language, we must learn what it has in common with all other semiological systems. Linguistic forces like the role of the vocal organs may seem important, but they will only receive secondary consideration as they only serve to set language apart from other systems. Saussure points out that we should study rites, customs, etc. as signs, include them in a science of semiology, and explain them by its laws.
Chapter 4 – Linguistics of Language and Speaking
As we discussed in Chapter 3, language and speaking are clearly distinct. As Saussure puts it, the vocal organs are as external to language as are the electrical devices used in transmitting Morse code to the code itself. In addition, phonation i.e., the execution of sound-images, does not affect the system itself in any way, therefore the mistakes an individual might make in daily speech does not compromise the fact.
An argument against the distinction between language and phonation is the concept of phonetic changes. Is it possible to pretend that language exists independently of phonetic changes? Do they not only affect the material substance of words? Saussure believes that there is nothing phonetic in the phenomenon. Determining the causes of phonetic changes may be of interest but none of this is essential: in the science of language, all we need to do is to observe the sound transformations, and to calculate their effects.
We reach a similar conclusion as we did by dividing language and speech here. The study of speech itself is twofold: the basic part with language as its object – which is purely social – and its secondary part which has the individual side of speech as its object (i.e, speaking, phonation); and while the first one is exclusively psychological, the latter is psychophysical. Despite the distinction, these two are dependent on each other, as language is necessary if speaking is to be intelligible, but speaking is necessary for the establishment of language, and historically it always exists first. Speaking is also what causes language to evolve: impressions gathered from listening to others modify our linguistic habits. In conclusion, we can say that Language is both the instrument and the product of speaking.
Language exists in the form of a sum of impressions deposited in the brain of each member of a community, almost like a dictionary of which identical copies have been distributed to each individual. Speaking, on the other hand, is not a collective instrument, as its manifestations are purely individual and momentary. Therefore, it would not make sense to consider these two from the same viewpoint. As a whole, it is not possible to study speech as it is not homogeneous, but the distinction and subordination Saussure proposes here clarifies the whole issue: They must be followed separately. The linguistics of speaking must not be confused with linguistics proper, whose sole object is language.
