Langue and Parole are terms coined by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. de Saussure's ultimate goal is to propose a coherent theory of language, which will be able to grasp its object with the greatest possible rigor and clarity, distinguishing the linguistic phenomenon from any related phenomenon. This leads Saussure to distinguish Langauge, Langue and Parole.
By Language, Saussure means the general faculty of being able to express oneself by means of signs. This faculty is not specific to natural languages but it characterizes all forms of human communication. By Langue , Saussure on the other hand means a set of signs used by a community to communicate: French, English or German, to name just a few examples.
Parole (Speech) is, for Saussure, the concrete use of linguistic signs in a specific context. Through this concept of Parole, Saussure attempts to distinguish the concrete use of language from language itself, understood as a set of signs.
