cultural studies

1. Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857-1913)
 Father of Modern Linguistics
Structuralism

2.  1. Life history (F. De Saussure)
 2. Language: langue/parole
 3. Sign: signifier/signified
 4. Relations: syntagmatic/paradigmatic
Content

3. Born 1857 (Geneva )
 Studied Latin, Greek, chemistry, theology
and law at University of Geneva
 1880 awarded doctorate at University
Leipzig (Germany)
 Taught ancient Sanskrit for 21 years!
Life History

4.  1907 – 1911 taught a course in General
Linguistics
 died in 1913
 Course in General Linguistics (1916)

5.  the object of Linguistics - language – a system
 body of words
Language

6. Synchronic and Diachronic
Synchronic: confined to one point of view in order
to show the whole language system (Static
linguistics)
o Diachronic: traces evolution of language, looking
not at the whole system but at individual elements
of it at different times (Evolutionary linguistics)
1900

7. 
 Abstract vs. Concrete sense
Language

8. Langue vs Parole
Langue - the shared system of language in a society
 the formal structure of language
Linguistic competence

9. Parole - “living language” or individual speech act
 the way language is employed in actual speech

10. Linguistic Sign= Signifier + Signified
Signifier: a sound image
Signified: the concept
Language is a system of Signs
“The linguistic sign unites, not a thing
and a name, but a concept and a
sound-image” (De Saussure 66)

12. no natural resemblance
convention
Arbor, drvo, Baum = tree
ARBITRARINESS

13.  syntagmatic (concerning positioning): in prasentia
S + V + O
 paradigmatic (concerning substitution):in absentia
Relations

15. synchronic

16. Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General
Linguistics. Ed. Charles Bally and Albert
Reidlinger. Trans. Wade Baskin. New York:
Philosophical Library, 1959.
JELENA
LEŽ
References