Ferdinand
de Saussure is responsible for one of the most dramatic intellectual shifts in
the 20th century. It was de Saussure who moved to world from an
essentialist perception of reality to a representational and structure
dependant one. In a sense, de Saussure's thought is another step away from our
ability to know anything about the world following Kant and Hegel's. de
Saussure left after him the conclusion that, since everything is structure
related, we can never have any stable and essential knowledge of anything. That
there is nothing which is absolutely "there", only something which is
represented in a system dependant manner.
Synchronic
linguistics, rather than diachronic one, detaches language from the historical
progression of the world, which leads to de Saussure detaching the lingual sign
from its referent. de Saussure's distinction between Langue and Parole sets
language is first and foremost a cultural-social mechanism which exists outside
single individuals. de Saussure's notion of the lingual sing as being composed
from the signifier and the signified "marginalizes" the actual
referential world in favor of its symbolic representations. This argument by de
Saussure led to serious question regarding the relation between the signifier
and the signified which haunt western intellectual tradition to this day. One of deSaussure's key notion were in regards to the nature of the linguistic sign. de
Saussure's ideas regarding the arbitrariness of the lingual sing gave rise to
the understanding that the relation between language and reality, between the
signifier and the signified, is socially constructs. Many a things have been
signed off since de Saussure as being socially constructed. Other important
concepts and considerations that were introduced by de Saussure are those of paradigmatic and syntagmatic.
de
Saussure view of the language as a system or differences is fundamental for the
subsequent structuralist movement which sought to map those system of
difference which constructed social reality. This is partly why de Saussure was
and still is such a huge influence and founding father of 20th and
21st century cultural studies and critical theory.
Don't just read the summary, get the book:
