1. Saussure sought to establish linguistics as an exact science by isolating language as its object of study and distinguishing it from speech. 2. He theorized that language exists socially and should be studied as a system of signs independent of individuals, with each sign consisting of a signifier and signified. 3. Saussure laid the groundwork for semiology, the science of signs in society, by demonstrating language can be modeled as a symbolic system comparable to writing.

8. Molecule: Molecular Chemistry

9. Atom: Particle or Atomic Physics

11. Basic Difficulties of Language Study*range of linguistic phenomena is enormous**object of Language Study is not given in advance***”linguistic phenomenon always has two related sides:” [p. 8]1. acoustic—vocal2. acoustic-vocal unit + idea [‘complex physiological-psychological unit’]3. individual & social side of speech4. implies an ‘established system’ & an ‘evolution’ [Kristeva: synchrony/diachrony]

12. Langue/LangageLanguage “not to be confused with human speech, of which it is only a definite part, though certainly an essential one” *both “a product of the faculty of speech” & “a collection of necessary conventions….adopted by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that faculty.”Speech [by contrast] is “many-sided, and heterogeneous….we cannot discover its unity.” [p. 9]

14. ‘A principle of classification’ [given ‘first place among the facts of speech,’ it can ‘introduce a natural order into a mass that lends itself to no other classificaion’]

15. But if ‘speech is based on a natural faculty & language something acquired or conventional,’ shouldn’t speech take precedence? [pp. 9-10]

17. “language is a convention and the nature of the sign that is agreed upon does not matter” [p. 10]

19. Further Divisions of the Circuit*outer-inner*psychological & non-psychological*active-receptive

20. Associative & Coordinating Faculty*”this faculty plays the dominant role in the organization of language as a system” [p. 12]*”to understand this….leave the individual act….approach the social fact”AVERAGE: COMMON BOND

21. The Social Crystallization of Language*nonpsychological part OUTpyschological part OUT:execution is individual (executive side to be called speaking [parole])SO:toward “the social bond that constitutes language”

22. “Language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only within a collectivity.”[p. 14]*to separate language FROM speaking: social from individual; essential from what is accessory or accidental!

23. ‘Language is not a function of the speaker.’ [On the contrary, the speaker is a function in/of Language’] p. 14*implications or consequences of an axiom like this?

25. L, unlike speaking, can be studied separately

26. L is homogeneous: “It is a system of signs in which the only ESSENTIAL thing is the union of meanings and sound-images and in which both parts of the sign are psychological” [p. 15]

28. FORESEEING SEMIOLOGY“A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable….I shall call it semiology (from the Greek s*em*ion ‘sign’). Semiology would show what would constitute signs [no longer exclusively ‘linguistic’], what laws govern them….” p. 16; also pp. 16-17 remarks

29. Nature of the Linguistic Sign

30. Language not a naming process or system“The linguistic unit is a double entity: one formed by the associating of two terms” [pp. 65-66]

31. TERMINOLOGY (p. 67)‏ ‘Our definition of the linguistic sign poses an important question of terminology’ [problem of ambiguity; demand for precision’ “The thing that constitutes language….is unrelated to the phonic character of the linguistic sign.”

32. Sign [signe]=Signified [Signifie] + Signifier [Signifiant] Sd to replace concept; Sfr to replace sound-image