Course in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure

Saussure fundamentally argues that languages are system of signs that are arbitrary and defined by their different relationship. The linguistic sign is composed of signifier and signified. He gives emphasis on the arbitrary nature of signs. He views that language is closed and autonomous system or structure. In his structure each word is a unit and described entirely in terms of its difference from other words.

The fundamental unit of language is sign. This sign has two parts- “concept” and “sound image”. The sound image is not the physical sound but the psychological imprint in the mind. Therefore, the linguistic sign is made up of the union of a concept and sound image. For e.g. the concept is dog and there are different words of dog in different language. When we are speakers of a certain language, the sound image for dog in that language will automatically conjure up the concept “dog”. Therefore, the sound dog in English means the thing “dog”. In short, sign is the combination of a signifier and a signified. Sound image is the signifier and concept is the signified. Since there is no natural relationship between signifier and signified language is arbitrary and conventional. For e.g. there are different words in different languages for the same thing like Dog. It is “dog” in English “kukure” in Nepali “kutta” in Hindi and so on, so signifier and signified are based on community agreement. Similarly convention and culture also condition onomatopoeia. Although the roosters of cock are same in every place, but while imitating their sounds, the expression varies from place to place, “kukhuri ka” in Nepali “cock a doddle do” in English and “cocorico” in Spanish. The signifier exists in time, which can be measured in linearity. In written and spoken language, the words cannot be produced at a time. We say one word and next in a linear fashion. Likewise we write one word at a time. So language operates in a linear fashion or sequence and all the elements of a particular fashion form a chain so in a sentence, all the words are connected to each other.

Linguistic Value
Saussure views that thought is a shapeless mass, which is ordered only by language. He means no idea pre- exit language. Language itself gives shape to idea and makes them expressible. It means thought cannot exit without language. In this sense language shape all our reality. Sound in no more fixed than thought, though sounds can be distinguished from each other and hence, associated with ideas. Sounds then serve as signifiers for the ideas, which are the signified. Therefore, language is neither a thing nor a substance but a form, structure and system. Thought and sound are likely the two sides of a coin, which can’t be isolated. They are inseparable. It means we can distinguish between them but cannot separate them. Without language or sign, thought is vague and cannot exit. Ideas do not make any conveyable sense without language. Similarly it is thought that turns the mass of alterable sound in to distinct parts. Saussure talks about the system of language as a whole Langue and Parole. Language is underlying structure, where as parole is only a performance. In other words, language is formula and base of parole, which is universal, and abstract too. But the parole varies from person to person since it is physical manifestation of language.

In this sense, Parole is concrete and individual human behavior where as langue is internalized linguistic system and universal human behavior. It needs a community to set up the relation between any particular sound image and any particular concept to form specific parole. An individual cannot fix value of any sign. We would make up our own language but no one else would understand it. To communicate two or more people have to agree what signifiers go with what signified. So value of a sign is determined by the whole system of signs used within a community. Therefore, it is system that determines value. The most important relation between signifiers in a system is the idea of difference. One signifier has meaning with in a system, not because it is connected to a particular signified but because it is not anything of other signifiers in the system. It means language produce meaning with the help of difference. Cat is cat because it in not rat; cat does not have meaning of its own, but only in terms of difference with other units in system. So meaning is relational and it gets existence in difference.

Saussure says that while producing utterances language operates in two dimensions.

Syntagmatic and Associative
The most important kind of relation between units in s signifying system, according to Saussure is a Syntagmatic relation. This Syntagmatic relation makes a linear relation between two or more units. There are also other kinds of relations in language associative relations which are only in head but not in the structure of language itself where as syntagmatic relations are the product of linguistic structure. Signs are stored in our memory in associative groups. For example the word farmer may get liked to other words that end in er like teacher, preacher, lover or it may get linked to other words that have similar associations, fields, crop, fertilizer, vegetable etc. When we pull out the word or idea all the other words that have link with it came out tumbling by the process of selection( paradigmatic) and combination relation and the process of selection and combination goes on simultaneously in writing and in speech as well.  Vertically paradigm is a store house of words. We select a sign or single word from vertical line and combine to make a string called a syntagm. Syntagmatic relationship is the relationship of presentia because it can be seen in combination. But paradigmatic or associative relationship is the relationship of absentia because when one word is selected from one paradigm others are absent or left out. The combination of various words done by selecting from one paradigm in order to make a word or sentence is syntagmatic relationship. We form a sentence out of noun’s, verbs, adjectives, adverbs etc. This is syntagmatic. The replacement of one noun by other or one verb by other and so on is paradigmatic.

Synchronic and Diachronic Study
Saussure as a linguist distinguishes the linguistics in two parts: synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Synchronic linguistics studies the language at a given time where as diachronic linguistics studies language of period of time. To study the Nepali language of Malla period without relating it to other ages is a synchronic study and to study the same Nepali language of that period in comparison to Lichchhvi period is diachronic study. Diachronic linguistic studies a particular language of the past and present by comparing between each other. But synchronic linguistic studies a language at a given which is more reliable than diachronic study. As per him, it is more scientific so we must ignore the facts of change in a language.