FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE: was born in Swiss linguist (1857-1913), he is widely

considered as the ‘FATHER OF LANGUAGE’

In the 20th century .He died without having written any major work on general linguistic, but
his students collected together his lecture notes and published item, under the title “cours de
linguistique générale” translated as “course of general linguistics” in 1916, which exerted a
major influence of the course of linguistics, particularly in Europe.

1/LANGUE AND PAROLE: De Saussure was the first who draw a distinction between the
language system and the use of a language.

A/ LANGUE: is the language system (grammar, vocabulary, punctuation etc) of a community.

It is something that the individual speaker can make use, but cannot affect by himself; it is
social phenomenal “SOCIAL FACT”.

B/ PAROLE: the product and the equalization of a language by individual well putting it into a
practice. This system in the proper of linguistic study , it can be regarded as an object which is
relatively stable, free from idiosyncrasy and that exist outside the individual who can neither
create it for himself, nor modify it arbitrary parole means “INDIVIDUAL SPEECH IN SOCIETY”
the individual way of applying the rules in social speech.

2/SYNCHRONY & DIACHRONY:

Diachrony is a study of language through history while synchronic linguistics means the study
of language as it is used at a given point by it’s speaker in the same time.

3/ SYNTAGMATIC & PARADIGMATIC:

De Saussure declared that language is a two dimensional system:

A/horizontal: representing the syntagmatic relations.

B/Vertical: representing paradigmatic relations.

Syntagmatic relations are essentially relation of combination and inclusion and it means the
relation between an item and a particular position in a sentence and other items that occur in
other positions in the same sentence (how items combine together to make well-formed
sentences).

We can say that paradigmatic relations are essentially relations of selection substitution and
exclusion; it means the relation between an item in a particular syntagmatic position and
other items that might have been chosen but are not.
When we look at the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relation, we can notice that words
belonging to the same classes, can combine with one another to build a large constructions
and words belonging to the same class substitute for one another in the same state.

Rules controlling the combination and substitution of items are found in langue.

If one element is affected, the whole system will be affected.

Thus, all words have a relation with those words which are present in the same item and a
relation with those words which are not present, but are part of a language.

The arbitrary nature of a sign:

De Saussure defines a language as being a symbolic system (it is a system of signs and
symbols) based on pure arbitrary to changing needs and conditions of the speakers.

For him, the linguistic sign is the basic unit of communication, a unit within the Lange of the
community, langue in this sense can be seen as a system of a signs. It units a concept with a
sound- image. The concept is referred to as “the signified” and the sound-image as “the
signifier”.

The signifier: is a word given arbitrary to the object or idea, it defines (as perceived by car) ,
whereas, the signified: is the thing , object or an idea being referred to the signified changes
the same eg: the book –le livre- ‫كتاب‬.

Arbitrariness:
The forms of linguistic, signs bear of natural resemblance to their meaning.

The link between them is a matter of convention and conventions differ radically across.

Thus,the English word “DOG”’ happens to denote a particular fair-facted domesticated

creature , the same creature which is denoted in French by the completely different form
“CHIEN” .although , the link between form and meaning is “arbitrary” in this respect, that is
not to say , that there is no relationship between them at all.

Words are arbitrary in form , but they are not random in their use. On contrary, , it is precisely
because linguistic forms do not resemble what they signify, that they can be used to encode
what it is significant by convention in different communities.