Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > English
Why theory?
Gopa B. Caesar:
Linguistic turn
In a series of lectures given by Ferdinand de Saussure, the Swiss linguist proposed an abandonment of analytical perspectives in order to ‘use language as the norm of all other manifestation of speech’
Language is not simply a tool devised for the representation of a pre-existing reality
It is rather a constitutive part of reality, deeply implicated in the way the world is constructed as meaningful
--Langue and parole
Gopa B. Caesar:
Language, seen thus, is a word-heap gradually accumulated over time and its primary function is to refer to things in the world.
In other words, words are mere symbols that correspond to referents.
Before Saussure, the study of language (philology) was essentially historical, tracing change and development in phonology and semantics within and between languages or groups of languages.
Gopa B. Caesar:
Ferdinand de Saussure and structural linguistics Course on General Linguistics (1915).
He understood language as a differential system.
Meaning is a function of difference, not identity.
There is no "identity," no natural relation, between word and thing.
Gopa B. Caesar:
The meaning of a word is a function of its signifier’s difference from other signifiers:
Meaning is also a function of a word’s differential relationships between signifieds:
And finally, meaning is a function of difference in the sense that the same word can mean different things depending on the context in which it appears
"the old man"
"The old man the boat"
We determine the meaning of the word man (or any other word) retroactively, by using the clues provided by the words that follow it; thus, meaning arises relationally, or differentially. It is not immediately present in the word itself.
binary oppositions
the relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, conventional, not natural, socially constructed.
Gopa B. Caesar:
Structuralism as a method of classification
a. underlying or hidden principles
b. internalization of conceptual frameworks
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