Ferdinand De Saussure is considered a prominent linguist, whose ideas contributed to a number of significant developments in the 20th century. He is a linguist who contributed very much to strengthen the “Structuralism” when it was at its ground level. The origin of structuralism connects with the theories of Saussure on linguistics and the book, “Course in General Linguistics”, which was published by two of his students Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye by summarizing his lectures at the University of Geneva evidences it apparently. This book does not merely focus on the use of the language but focus on the structure of the language too and it generally generates the idea that the language can be analyzed as a system which is very formal. …show more content…
In trying to find an answer for that question, their concern was basically moved to the “formal aspects of literature, on its specific form, and on the sort of language that it employs” (49, Bertens). As an answer for the problem, they introduced the principle of “defamiliarization” as the reason which distinguishes literary texts from non-literary texts. In the late 1920s the Prague structuralists developed the concerns of formalists further and they laid the foundation for structuralism in Czech Republic. According to the structuralists’ point of view, everything in the world is interrelated with each other and eventually they take part in a large system. Generally the main tenets that they tried to establish were; language has a structure, language is a system of signs and the language operates at two levels as “langue” and “parole”. “Course in General Linguistics” reveals the way that Saussure supported to develop those conceptions. Since he reveals his idea about the systematic nature of language, the relational conception of the various elements of language and about the arbitrary nature of language through this book, it helped to strengthen the conception of structuralists, that is seeing the language as a system which has an abstract
As a reader it is difficult to separate ones analysis of such a commanding piece of work from ones own constructed systems of meaning. Because of this, actual meaning is tricky to assert with certainty as it is subject to change as easily as reality is subject to influence. This may be beside the point, however; for it seems as though what matters in structuralism is the recognition that everyone, and everything everyone creates or does, is in some part connected to a system of meaning which informs and influences varying interpretations of what is real and true of the world and its diverse inhabitants.
All languages could be successfully analyzed in terms of mathematical equations. In this sense, language is mathematics. This thesis enables us to explain why languages usually have different word orders, and why any language could be highly flexible.
Lacan’s theory is a form of structuralism because it expansively talks about the tenets of human culture. As advanced by the structuralism theory, human culture is understood from the idea that, there is a larger relationship between structures of human existence. Lacan posits that human culture stems from its relationship with overarching systems. Lacan’s theory argues that human phenomena do not have value without the relationship that ensues with other structures. In other words, Lacan is candid that culture is a product of the systems of structure that build up to a larger structure. According to Lacan, human existence derives its understanding from its ability to develop interrelations. Indeed, Lacan’s psychoanalysis theory has a form of structuralism embedded in it by looking deeply into his ideas about human interactions. According to him, “the unconscious is the discourse of the other”. This implies that human desires are structured in relation to the feelings of others. Psychoanalysis, according to Lacan, is the idea that human culture results from social interaction. In this respect, desire is a social phenomenon that links humans with other structures that form human culture. It is the structural interaction of human desire with other components of human culture, which makes Lacan’s theory a form of structuralism. Linking the space between people in a social-psychoanalysis approach is a form of structuralism. In reference to this idea, it is worth noting that the ability to connect people in a cultural dimension calls for a structural comprehension between different tenets like language and economics. As advanced by Lacan, for instance, capitalism and economics are significant components of human culture that influe...
Hill, Jane H., P. J. Mistry, and Lyle Campbell. The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright. Berlin [etc.: Mouton De Gruyter, 1998. Print.
It turns out that one of the most helpful areas for studying linguistic relativity is that of th...
Neoclassicism was a genre of writing based totally on the ideas of rationality, Classic literature, and the ideas of old. Romanticism on the other hand, was based on individual expression, and the nature of mankind. Romanticism emphasized the internal not the external, and focused it`s attention on the spontaneity of the human mind. Flat characters of past writing were now able to take form more so then in th...
Bataille suggests the use of cultural theory to attack and analyse language. Therefore, the characteristic theme
The production of any kind of knowledge entails, literary historiography is no different, either a complicity in the maintenance, perpetuation of the socio-political status quo or an active intervention against it. The project of literary historiography in the eighteenth century and for a good part of the nineteenth century, when the discipline naturalized itself, was a period when the nation was in the process of being imagined. The creation of literary canons as embodiments of the cultural values of a specific group, community or nation was critical to this enterprise of nation building. However, the fracture of the meta-narrative brought about by the revolutionary ideas of post-structuralism that have exposed the textuality of history has made us question the possibility of complete knowledge. The discipline of literary historiography too has had to redefine itself, its aims and its methodology in this
First, a brief background in the three dimensions of language discussed throughout this paper. The functional, semantic, or thematic dimensions of language as previously mentioned are often used in parallel with each other. Due, to this fact it is important to be able to identify them as they take place and differentiate between these dimensions i...
Smithson, Isaiah. “Structuralism as a Method of Literary Criticism.” College English. Vol. 37, No. 2. National Council of Teacher of English. 1975. 145-59. Web.
In addition, when comparing the theories of gradualism with punctuationism, it is important to evaluate the theory of saltati...
Text linguistics is a “discipline which analyses the linguistic regularities and constitutive features of texts” (Bussmann, 1996: 1190). According to this definition, text linguistics is mainly concerned with studying the features that every piece of writing should have in order to be considered as a text. It is also defined by Noth (1977 in Al-Massri, 2013:33) as “the branch of linguistics in which the methods of linguistic analysis are extended to the level of text.” This means that text linguistics aims at producing rules and methods that can be used to analyze the whole text. This approach has been put forward by the two scholars Robert-Alain de Beaugrande and Wolfgang U. Dressler in their seminal book “Introduction to Text Linguistics”, in 1981. The study of texts in linguistic studies starts in
Semiotics, known as the science of signification, was first originated by Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce. This paper will implement the semiotics analysis and introduce the theory of semiotics and review the history generally. Semiotics is the interpretation of meaning, based on the Saussure’s approach of semiology; he was mainly focused on the structure on linguistics, while Peirce was more concentrate on the logical dimensions of the science. In general, semiotic is a study of signs.
Next, we shall evaluate the key features of language which are; communicative, arbitrary, structured, generative, and dynamic. Communicative, language can allow one to interact with another. According to Willingham (2007), the bond found with the elements in language and what they mean is arbitrary. The way language is set up shows how the symbols are not arbitrary. The set up language shows precisely how intricate it can be. Generative, one is able to build countless number of meanings from words. Dynamic, language never stays the same, therefore it can be known as sporadic. According to Willingham (2007), changes are being made all the time as new words get added and as the ways of grammar change. These elements can be quite critical when it comes to language.
Speech says Saussure, “has both an individual and social side … always implies both establish system and evolution” (Course in General Linguistics p. 8). All changes in language occur in parole, in the actual speech act. But only some of these changes become institutionalised in langue. Saussure states that langue, should not be confused with human speech, it is a system or structure of speech codes. He argued that linguistic elements are relational, that it is viewpoint that creates the object of linguistic study. Because so much depends on viewpoint, the nature of the linguistic sign is necessarily arbitrary.