this is a short introduction to cisu

structural linguistics and it's central

concepts Ferdinand de Saussure was a

Swiss linguist credited with founding

the field of structural linguistics a

radical new theory of language is a

structured system he is often referred

to as the father of modern linguistics

an honor divided between him and Noam

Chomsky depending on who you ask

his most influential work course in

general linguistics was published

posthumously in 1916 but what is

structural linguistics it's the idea

that language is a system of contrast

and equivalence in structural

linguistics language consists of strings

of linguistic objects be they words

phonemes or morphemes and these objects

are defined only through the fact that

they contrast with other objects in the

language system this was an entirely new

way of thinking about languages and

presented a radical change from previous

approaches in order to begin to

understand structural linguistics we

first need to understand the key ideas

first there's the sign so suicide

consists of the signifier and the

signified the signifier is the sounds or

the letters used to denote what we're

talking about signified is the actual

concept of the thing that is the idea in

our minds when you hear or read the

signifier the actual real thing in the

world is called the referent note the

difference between the thought of a cat

and an actual real cat the sign is a two

sided psychological entity as one can't

exist without the other it just couldn't

be a sign

imagine a coin of just one side you

can't write secondly Susu highlights

that there is an arbitrary and

conventional relationship between a

signifier and its signified arbitrary

because there's no natural reason why we

call a cat a cat and that's why

different languages have different words

for the same thing the convention of

language refers to the idea that a

speech community needs to adhere to the

same connections between a signifier and

its signified for example English

speakers all share a very similar

concept of cat when they hear that word

I can't just start calling a cat a dog

and expect anyone to know what I'm

talking about
thirdly socio distinguishes between the

use of language profile and the system

of language long

long being the system of language such

as syntax or phonology is an abstract

system poor whole on the other hand is

the use of that language and this is an

individual matter have you noticed that

people have their own language quirks

well this is the individual side the

actual use of language fourthly socio

distinguishes between synchrony and

diachrony synchrony refers to a complete

language system at just one point in

time think of it as a snapshot of

language diachrony on the other hand is

how that language develops over time

this is also known as historical

linguistics you may have noticed changes

in language over your lifetime with

different words appearing or

disappearing or slight pronunciation

changes that's diachrony the fifth and

final thing we'll go over is the

paradigm in this integral they represent

two axes used to describe languages

thus in Tagum is the linear pattern or

sequence of linguistic objects for

example the words in a sentence the cat

sat on the mat it can also be the sounds

in a word for example clay this axis is

essentially one of contrasts

you can't swap words around in the

sentence without scrambling the meaning

and likewise you can't swap the letters

in clay around without destroying the

arbitrary connection between the

signifier and the signified the paradigm

refers to a group of linguistic objects

which have similarities and that can

replace one another in us in Tagum take

the earlier scene Tagum the cat sat on

the map you can replace cat with dog or

baby but in this particular scene Tatum

you can't use a word like fish fish just

concept but in a difference in taken

they could be used to replace cat for

example in the centum I like all animals

especially fish so just because some

objects have a paradigmatic relationship

in one specific symptom doesn't mean

that it holds in all contexts let's look

at another example using sounds in the

word clay in this scene Tagum the sea

can be replaced by P to produce play but

we can't replace the sea with a team

English doesn't allow the tlf sequence

another symptom still here it can

replace the T with a P to produce this

integral spill the tea and the P

long to the same paradigm in this

example the axis of the sin Tagum the

paradigm a key to understanding what

Sosua means when he talks about meaning

depending on the systems of the language

so why is any of this interesting well

until Sosua started forming his ideas

about language the study of language is

laden with belief so sewer stress that

language of structural thereby freeing

it from associations with a social

cultural political historical

practically this approach to language

means that is studied based on

structural relations alone and

linguistic objects meaning is understood

through its contrast with other

linguistic objects in the system

language is therefore a static system of

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these interconnected linguistic objects