Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist considered the father of linguistics. He taught courses on Sanskrit, Gothic, Old High German, and Indo-European languages at the University of Geneva. Saussure developed the concepts of langue and parole, the system of a language and its usage, and emphasized the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign. He viewed language as a system of relations and differences that is studied through both synchrony, the present state, and diachrony, its historical development.

1. Ferdiand
de
Saussure
Father of Linguistics
Silvia Lee

2. Born:
Geneva, Switzerland 1857

3. Father:
Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure
Mineralogist
Entomologist
Taxonomist

4. University
of Geneva
1875

5. Graduate Work:
University of Leipzig 1876

6. l’Ecole pratique des hautes études
Taught (11 years): Knight
• Sanskrit of the
• Gothic Legion
• Old High German of Honor

7. University of Geneva 1891
Professor
• Sanskrit
• Indo-Eurpoean
langauges
• Course of
General
Linguistics
(1907-1911)

8. Doctorate in
1880:
Dissertation on
the Primitive
Vowel System in
Indo-European
Languages

9. What is language?

10. Sign

11. Sign = abritary
Symbol = motivation

12. Sign
Signified Signifier

13. Value of the Sign

14. Emile Durkheim
•Father of
sociology
•Social
integration

15. Langue Parole
(system) (put into practice)
Language in social, cultural context

17. gay

18. Signs
•Polysemous
•Unstable
•Endlessly shifting
•Create new meanings, new social contexts

19. The Arbitrary Nature of the Sign
system of relations

21. Objection 1: Onomoatopeoia

23. Objection 2: Interjections

24. complete system
at a given time
Synchrony & Diachrony
historical
development

25. Synchrony:
present and future

26. Paradigm (pattern)
&
Syntagm (syntax)

27. Criticisms
• Langue: complete system?
• Distinction: syntagm & paradigm
• Finite-state grammar

28. Claude Levi-Strauss
•Structuralism
•Family
relations

29. Linguistics

30. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
•Linguistic
relativity
•Language
determines
thought