Ferdinand de Saussure facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ferdinand de Saussure
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| Born | 26 November 1857 Geneva, Switzerland
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| Died | 22 February 1913 (aged 55) Vufflens-le-Château, Vaud, Switzerland
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| Alma mater | University of Geneva Leipzig University (PhD, 1880) University of Berlin |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Structuralism, linguistic turn, semiotics |
| Institutions | EPHE University of Geneva |
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Main interests
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Linguistics |
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Notable ideas
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Structural linguistics Semiology Langue and parole Signified and signifier Synchrony and diachrony Linguistic sign Semiotic arbitrariness Laryngeal theory |
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Influenced
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Ferdinand de Saussure (born November 26, 1857 – died February 22, 1913) was a smart Swiss linguist, semiotician, and philosopher. He is known as one of the main people who started 20th-century linguistics. He also helped create semiotics, which is the study of signs and symbols. Saussure called this field semiology.
Contents
Who Was Ferdinand de Saussure?
Saussure was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1857. His father, Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure, studied rocks, insects, and how to classify living things. From a young age, Ferdinand showed great talent and intelligence.
Saussure's Early Education
In 1870, he started attending the Institution Martine in Geneva. He was a top student there. Later, he went to the Collège de Genève. After studying Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit at the University of Geneva, he began his advanced studies.
University Life and Key Works
In 1876, Saussure started graduate work at the University of Leipzig. When he was just 21, he published an important book. It was called Dissertation on the Primitive Vowel System in Indo-European Languages. This book looked at old language sounds.
He then studied at the University of Berlin for a year. He learned about Celtic languages and continued his Sanskrit studies. In 1880, he earned his doctorate degree from Leipzig. Soon after, he moved to the University of Paris. There, he taught about Sanskrit, Gothic, and Old High German.
Teaching and Later Life
Saussure taught at the École pratique des hautes études for eleven years. He was even honored with the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor. In 1892, he became a professor in Geneva and returned to Switzerland. He taught about Sanskrit and Indo-European languages at the University of Geneva for the rest of his life.
From 1907 to 1911, Saussure taught a special course called "General Linguistics." He died in 1913 in Vufflens-le-Château, Switzerland. His brothers, René de Saussure and Léopold de Saussure, were also scholars. His son, Raymond de Saussure, became a psychoanalyst.
It's interesting that Saussure is one of the most quoted linguists. But he published very little during his lifetime. Most of his famous ideas came from notes taken by his students. These notes were put together and published after he died.
What Were Saussure's Main Ideas?
Saussure's work greatly changed how people thought about language in the early 1900s. His most important idea was that language has two main parts.
Understanding Language: Langue and Parole
Saussure explained language using two terms: langue and parole.
- Langue (pronounced "lahng") is like the hidden system or rules of a language. Think of it as the grammar, vocabulary, and sounds that everyone in a language community knows. You can't see or hear langue directly. It's the shared knowledge that makes communication possible.
- Parole (pronounced "pah-role") is the actual speech or writing we use every day. It's what we say, hear, read, and write. Parole is the real-life use of the langue.
Imagine a game of chess. The rules of chess are the langue. The actual moves you make in a game are the parole.
This idea was later used by other thinkers, like Claude Lévi-Strauss. He used this two-part model to study myths and stories.
The Famous Course in General Linguistics
Saussure's most famous work is Course in General Linguistics (Cours de linguistique générale). It was published in 1916, after he died. His former students, Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, put it together from their notes of his lectures. This book became super important in linguistics because of Saussure's new way of looking at language.
Saussure's Influence Beyond Language Studies
Saussure's ideas about how systems work, called structuralism, spread to many other fields. French thinkers like Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Claude Lévi-Strauss used his methods. They applied his ideas to things like literature, psychology, and anthropology.
How Did Saussure View Language?
Saussure saw language in two ways. First, it's a system of signs. He called this a "semiological system." Second, language is a social thing. It's a product of the community that speaks it.
When people talk, a "communication loop" forms between their minds. Saussure believed that language, as a social system, isn't just in our speech or just in our minds. It exists between people, in the shared understanding of a language group. Individuals learn these rules, but they can't control them alone.
The Speech Circuit Explained
The idea of langue and parole is key to Saussure's "speech circuit."
- Parole is when someone actually speaks or writes.
- Langue is the hidden system of rules that makes that speech possible.
- The third part of the circuit is the brain. This is where individuals process and understand language.
Linguists study language by looking at examples of speech. This often means analyzing written texts. This way of studying language has been common for a long time.
Saussure's Published Works
- (1878) Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes (Dissertation on the Primitive System of Vowels in Indo-European Languages). Leipzig: Teubner. (online version in Gallica Program, Bibliothèque nationale de France).
- (1881) De l'emploi du génitif absolu en Sanscrit: Thèse pour le doctorat présentée à la Faculté de Philosophie de l'Université de Leipzig (On the Use of the Genitive Absolute in Sanskrit: Doctoral thesis presented to the Philosophy Department of Leipzig University). Geneva: Jules-Guillamaume Fick. (online version on the Internet Archive).
- (1916) Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General Linguistics), edited by Charles Bally & Albert Sechehaye. Lausanne – Paris: Payot.
- (1922) Recueil des publications scientifiques de F. de Saussure (Collection of F. de Saussure's Scientific Publications). Edited by Charles Bally & Léopold Gautier. Lausanne – Geneva: Payot.
- (1993) Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures in General Linguistics (1910–1911) from the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
- (1995) Phonétique: Il manoscritto di Harvard Houghton Library bMS Fr 266 (8) (Phonetics: The Harvard Houghton Library Manuscript). Edited by Maria Pia Marchese. Padova: Unipress, 1995.
- (2002) Écrits de linguistique générale (Writings in General Linguistics). Edited by Simon Bouquet & Rudolf Engler. Paris: Gallimard. ISBN: 978-2-07-076116-6.
- (2013) Anagrammes homériques (Homeric Anagrams). Edited by Pierre-Yves Testenoire. Limoges: Lambert Lucas.
- (2014) Une vie en lettres 1866 – 1913 (A Life in Letters 1866 – 1913). Edited by Claudia Mejía Quijano. ed. Nouvelles Cécile Defaut.
See also
In Spanish: Ferdinand de Saussure para niños
