Saussure's semiotic theory.

[Igby]

I'm just wondering about people's opinions of Saussure's theory, that the sign is completely arbitrary and that language may not undergo rapid widespread change yet cannot avoid evolution. Last semester I took a linguistics subject, and wrote a tute paper about semiotic theory. I'm too lazy to write a big spiel, so I'll just paste a bit of my paper. Heh.

 

Saussure asserts that language is a system of arbitrary signs, that society must necessarily exist for language to exist, and that, while language evolves with the passage of time, it is essentially immutable as individuals are not able to circumvent the laws of the language they’re speaking and still make sense.

 

Saussure begins his thesis by proposing that language is composed of “signs”; he says the linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image. The sound-image “pen” calls to mind the concept of a pen. Culler, in his discussion of Saussure, stresses that “sound-image” does not refer to phonetics, but rather to phonology. Phonetics deals with the production of speech sounds by humans, without necessitating prior knowledge of the language being spoken. Phonology is about patterns of sounds, especially different patterns of sounds in different languages, or within each language, different patterns of sounds in different positions in words etc. Saussure replaces the terms “concept” and “sound-image” with “signified” and “signifier”; the signifier, or word, signifies a concept. The combination of signified and signifier is the linguistic sign.

 

Saussure assures us that the identity of the sign is arbitrary. The word “pen” has no intrinsic relevance to a pen; rather, the word signifies the concept of a pen simply by the meaning given to the word. A pen could easily be called a dog, if the idea of a pen was linked to the word dog; the signifier has no natural connection to the signified. Saussure uses the differences between signifiers in different languages to show that the sign is arbitrary. He claims the idea of “sister” is not linked by any inner relationship to the succession of sounds s-ö-r which serves as its signifier in French. The signifiers “sister”, “Schwester” and “soeur” all represent the same concept.

 

The second part of Saussure's argument dealt with the mutability and immutability of language. I found his argument lacking; he simply reaches his conclusions and says that everyone will reach the same conclusions a priori. This might be a dumb question, but can anti-languages be seen as refutations of Saussure's theory? And, more generally, do you agree with Saussure on the arbitrariness of the sign, and the im/mutability of language?

[eric l]

Saussure asserts that language is a system of arbitrary signs, that society must necessarily exist for language to exist, and that, while language evolves with the passage of time, it is essentially immutable as individuals are not able to circumvent the laws of the language they’re speaking and still make sense.

 

 

If you consider language as an instrument for communication only, it is obvious that society must exist for language to exist : if you talk about a pen, you and your listeners have to agree more or less on what a pen is.

 

But language is also an instrument for reasoning. If I start reasoning about a new subject, and keep the development of my ideas to myself at first, it may be very helpful to develop a new language for myself, without bothering (at the start) about anyone else, about society. Very much like Newton developped his "fluxions theory" (the name he used for what is known nowadays as "calculus" in English) for checking his theories on universal gravitaty.

 

Of course, when I start publishing, I'll have to incorporate this new language into a common language, by explaining the vocabulary (= giving definitions) and grammar (= rules) of it. But, as an instrument for reasoning, it will be a language before that.

[Turtle]

...And, more generally, do you agree with Saussure on the arbitrariness of the sign, and the im/mutability of language?

My only familiarity with Saussure is what you wrote in the post. What comes to mind is the quote by Korzybski, Polish-American Philosopher, "the map is not the territory". :doh:

[livingproof]

I agree with the Saussurian descriptions of signified, signifier, arbitrary sign, and the so-called "immutability" of language. In cognitive development, a child at first associates a word with an object, then through transformation of the lower cognitive functions, he begins to associate the signifier (whatever that is) with the signified (the concept or sense of what an object is). Language in a human goes from the concrete to the abstract. This shift is marked by metaphorical speech. If "dog" expresses the sense or a particular sense of an animal, its uses, behaviors, or appearance, and if a pen were considered to be a man's "dog" (as in, man's best friend), then dog could be used to refer to a pen in an utterance that is meaningful, relevent, and descriptive (the phrase for salesmen lately when pitching a new product: "this dog can hunt", when holding a chainsaw, for instance). At no point are the rules of syntax and semantics violated. Jokes and irony, poetry, metaphors - all are possible because language is an arbitrary, analytical, and abstract phenomenon involving the manipulation of a set of rule-governed signs, regardless of efficacy.

What I think Saussure didn't say regarding mutability is that, human language may be immutable, but language itself is mutable. Saussure investigates more as a descriptive linguist, and falls short of theory. Most of the applications of his taxonomies and systems analyses that I know of show up in the folklorist shelves and are applied to literature, poetry, and fiction.

 

There are some observations made of Saussure's ideas:

For two speakers to establish a mutually intelligible system of signs, context must be established. (Otherwise, all jokes would fall flat, as stated previously)

To learn a new language, a radical and abrupt reconstruction of signs must be undertaken, so a speaker striving for fluency can "think in the foreign language" (absorb, accept, and begin processing the signs of the new language). Again, human languages may be immutable, but the capacity to acquire languages is not.

If words were the objects themselves, no one would be able to communicate.

Thinking is a virtual transformation of sensory-motor functions into abstraction - whether you talk out loud or not, you're using language that has already developed as a social construct and has been incorporated and transformed into a higher cognitive function in the virtual space-time of the mind. In thinking, you are esentially communicating with yourself, having already mastered communication with others.

[Darnok]

Language is not complete in any speaker, it exists perfectly only within a collectivity. :phones:

[paigetheoracle]

I'm just wondering about people's opinions of Saussure's theory, that the sign is completely arbitrary and that language may not undergo rapid widespread change yet cannot avoid evolution. Last semester I took a linguistics subject, and wrote a tute paper about semiotic theory. I'm too lazy to write a big spiel, so I'll just paste a bit of my paper. Heh.

 

Saussure asserts that language is a system of arbitrary signs, that society must necessarily exist for language to exist, and that, while language evolves with the passage of time, it is essentially immutable as individuals are not able to circumvent the laws of the language they’re speaking and still make sense.

 

Saussure begins his thesis by proposing that language is composed of “signs”; he says the linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image. The sound-image “pen” calls to mind the concept of a pen. Culler, in his discussion of Saussure, stresses that “sound-image” does not refer to phonetics, but rather to phonology. Phonetics deals with the production of speech sounds by humans, without necessitating prior knowledge of the language being spoken. Phonology is about patterns of sounds, especially different patterns of sounds in different languages, or within each language, different patterns of sounds in different positions in words etc. Saussure replaces the terms “concept” and “sound-image” with “signified” and “signifier”; the signifier, or word, signifies a concept. The combination of signified and signifier is the linguistic sign.

 

Saussure assures us that the identity of the sign is arbitrary. The word “pen” has no intrinsic relevance to a pen; rather, the word signifies the concept of a pen simply by the meaning given to the word. A pen could easily be called a dog, if the idea of a pen was linked to the word dog; the signifier has no natural connection to the signified. Saussure uses the differences between signifiers in different languages to show that the sign is arbitrary. He claims the idea of “sister” is not linked by any inner relationship to the succession of sounds s-ö-r which serves as its signifier in French. The signifiers “sister”, “Schwester” and “soeur” all represent the same concept.

 

The second part of Saussure's argument dealt with the mutability and immutability of language. I found his argument lacking; he simply reaches his conclusions and says that everyone will reach the same conclusions a priori. This might be a dumb question, but can anti-languages be seen as refutations of Saussure's theory? And, more generally, do you agree with Saussure on the arbitrariness of the sign, and the im/mutability of language?

 

So, you're not so-sure of Saussure?

 

I personally think language is a subjective label attached to a real thing and therefore any sound or combinations of sounds could be applied to any idea you like. It is the association of object or subject with the vowel sounds/ written language that makes it what it is in your mind.

 

Calling them signs is basic to what they are if you believe life is (see sthread by me on philosophy and synonyms for more details) a journey, then words could be seen as indicators of where you are headed or could go in the sujective landscape (landmarks). Every conversation is like a joke - you're waiting ffor the punchline to tell you what your destination is and that you've arrived: Every word is a step in the 'right' direction.

 

With regards to the immutability of the language, that is more open to question (interpretation). Speaking personally, each language has its rules of speech but like the words contained within them, they too change over time, however if you view them outside of time or as existing in a specific time, then yes they are immutable and incomprehensible to other language speakers: By this I mean okay you can speak maybe more than one language but the rules and the culture influence the mindset involved. To give examples - again using the joke analogy, if you don't know the culture, then the joke will mean nothing to you. To put it even more plainly by bringing in other senses - taste is unique. You can't tell somebody else what a particular taste 'is' - they can only find this out through experience but you can say what it is similar to in your own experience/language.

 

I hope this makes the situation as clear as mud as they say in England (joke).

 

I have a system for teaching English that starts off involving phonetics but then drifts off into phonology, interstingly enough.

[paigetheoracle]

Possible proof of the immutability of language is to be found in immigrants. For instance on the news last night was a gentleman with the Welsh name of Jenkins but with an obvious Scottish accent, indicating that his family adapted to the culture they found themselves in. Only enclaves or ghettoes manage to hold onto their group identity (culture/language) through the generations but this can lead to persecution, in times of national stress, where the different are tested for loyalty (Even individuals with foreign names can suffer this too as the holocaust showed but may have more sympathy/help from the local population: The eradication of a language also means the eradication of a culture (Greek and Latin are 'dead' languages after all, culturally). Unity produces an amalgamated language or hotch-potch of surviving parts from originally separate groups.

[billg]

I'd like to note that while in general the signs are arbitrary this may not always be the case. The kiki-bouba experiment provides evidence for this. Other examples I can think of may include words used by very young children, which may be made of sounds that are easy to make (mama and papa for example), not to mention things like animal names.

 

Its interesting to note that these examples are all of words that would presumably have been the words that composed a primitive language - early homonids would have had some utility for describing animals and plants, basic shapes and characteristics like smooth and sharp, and family relationships. Perhaps early language was not arbitrary at all but based on associations of sounds either with similar sounds or eventually, associations of sounds that in some way encode a characteristic that equates with the the charactertics of a shape ("sharp" noises, for example). And perhaps while modern humans seem capable of creating associations between arbitrary sounds and concepts, the remnants of the proto-language remain with us today.

 

Maybe even some complex concepts can be encoded by sounds in a non-arbitrary way that is too subtle for us to readily identify the connections between the characteristic of the sound and that of the concept?