Linguistics, particularly the research carried out by Ferdinand de Saussure, centers on the structures of communication. Saussure defines the communicative process in language by identifying two elements within its minimal unit: the signified and the signifier (web / structuralism). Another principal characteristic of Saussure’s investigation is his demonstration that even the minimal unit of language can contain meaning (web / 3)1.
Meaning, according to Saussure, is not inherent in the sign itself but is attributed to each element through what he terms a “system of differences.” In this framework, meaning arises relationally. For example, the word CHAIR signifies what it does not because it resembles the object it represents, but because it differs from every other word within the communicational structure. Its identity and meaning emerge from its distinction from terms such as table, floor, or window, rather than from any intrinsic connection to the physical object.
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Hence the idea that “language speaks us,” rather than that we speak language. We don’t originate language; we inhabit a structure that enables us to speak; what we (mis)perceive as our originality is simply our recombination of some of the elements in the pre-existing system. Hence every text, and every sentence we speak or write, is made up of the “already written.”
> Language > Structuralism/Poststructuralism ↩︎
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