Saussure's structural linguistics
Estructuralismo lingüístico de Saussure
- Date
- 1906-1916 · confidence medium
- Place
- University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Credited to
- Ferdinand de Saussure
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
In his general linguistics courses in Geneva (1906-1911), Saussure conceived language as a self-contained system of signs defined by their mutual relations rather than by individual history, distinguishing langue from parole, and synchrony from diachrony. His students published their notes posthumously as the 'Course in General Linguistics' (1916).
Saussure never published these ideas himself: the 'Course in General Linguistics' is a reconstruction by his students Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye from lecture notes, published in 1916, three years after his death.
What it led to
- The founding of 20th-century structural linguistics
- A basis for modern semiotics
- Structuralist schools in anthropology and literary criticism (Lévi-Strauss, Barthes)