Ferdinand de Saussure
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Revision as of 16:15, 9 October 2011
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist. He was born in 1857 in Geneva, and died in 1913. Much of De Saussure's thinking connects to the constructionist approach. He has made very imporant contributions to the linguistic studies, therefore he is called ´father of the modern linguistics´ (Hall, 1997, p. 30). He rejected the view of traditional linguistics because he disagreed with their opinion that 'words are symbols standing for objects in the world'. Instead he saw language as a system of signs. Thereby De Saussure introduced a new way of looking at representation and signs. He said that words are a kind of sign, created by the relation between the signifier (visual image, a fysical sign) and the signified (concept behind the image). His formulation and view was quite pioneering, because his ideas were that the meaning of something is created in a complex social structure of relation and difference (Gibson-Graham, 2000, p. 96).
In different cultures and at different historical moments, the relation between the signifier and the signified is different. The relation signifier-signified is founded by interaction between different people. This shows that the signifier-signified relation is not a natural or inevitable link. Words and objects mean different things to different people, this shows that the relation signifier-signified changes. It is not a permanently fixed relation (Hall, 1997, p.32).
Due to his work, semiotics in the 19th centery emerged as a method of examining phenomena in different fields. Barthes was inspired by De Saussure. Barthes looked at the meaning of texts. He didn't try to look at the meaning of texts by a scientific analyses (language's rules and laws) (Hall, 1997, p.42).
References:
- Hall, S. (1997). Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. London: Sage Publications.
- Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2000). Poststructuralist interventions. In, E. Sheppard & T. Barnes (eds.) A companion to Economic Geography. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 95-110.
Created by Boudewijn Idema, 10 september 2011
Edited by Jobke Heij, 10 september 2011 Enhanced by --AafkeBrus 10:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
