Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 – 1913) Swiss professor of linguistics Interested less in etymologies of individual words and lineages of particular languages and more in underlying principles of all language Founder of what we now call STRUCTURALISM (search for unconscious infrastructures, influences, relationships, organizing patterns in cultural phenomena) Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 – 1913)

Languages are made up of SIGNS. ONE OF SAUSSURE’S UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE

SIGN = SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED (word) + (concept) (“cheese”) + (concept of cheese) SIGN =

Neither the signifier nor the signified is the actual cheese Neither the signifier nor the signified is the actual cheese. Language rests on the pairing of two abstractions.

Language is no longer regarded as peripheral to our grasp of the world we live in, but as central to it. Words are not mere vocal labels or communicational adjuncts superimposed upon an already given order of things. They are collective products of social interaction, essential instruments through which human beings constitute and articulate their world. - Saussure’s translator on Saussure’s contributions to linguistics and semiotics

And so … Language is abstract Language is arbitrary (there’s no reason why cheese is called cheese) Language is socially constructed, not inherently meaningful There is no pure experience of reality; our experience is mediated by language (which is influenced by culturally specific understandings, ideologies, conventions, traditions); meaning is not inherent in the world but is the product of our structures of representation And so …