Ferdinand de Saussure Quotes
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist and semiotician whose posthumously assembled Course in General Linguistics (1916) became the foundational text of structural linguistics and, through it, of twentieth-century structuralism in anthropology, literary theory, and philosophy. After early work on Indo-European phonology that made his reputation as a young man, he taught for decades at Geneva, where his lectures on general linguistics were written down by students and edited after his death. The quotes below are attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure, organized by topic.
Browse Ferdinand de Saussure by topic
Ferdinand de Saussure on Justice
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“The causes of continuity are a priori within the scope of the observer, but the causes of change in time are not. It is better not to attempt giving an exact account at this point, but to restrict discussion to the shifting of relationships in general. Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law.”
p. 77
Ferdinand de Saussure on Knowledge
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“Ferdinand de Saussure (1910), Saussure's Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910-1911) , Pergamon Press, 1993.”
As long as the activity of linguists was limited to comparing one language with another, this general utility cannot have been apparent to most of the general public, and indeed the study was so specialised that there was no real reason to suppose it of possible interest to a wider audience . It is only since linguistics has become more aware of its object of study, i.e. perceives the whole extent -
“Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.”
p. 9 -
“Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, etc. But it is the most important of all these systems.”
p. 16 ; Partly cited in; Geza Revesz , The Origins and Prehistory of Language , London 1956. p. 126 -
“Writing obscures language ; it is not a guise for language but a disguise.”
p. 31 -
“Thus we may found the science for the study of the life of signs against the background of social life; it would form part of social psychology, and consequently of general psychology; we shall call it semiology (from Greek sēmeion — 'sign'). That science would explain to us in what signs consist of and by what laws they are governed. Since it is a science which does not yet exist, we do not know ”
p. 33; as cited in: Adam Schaff (1962). Introduction to semantics , p. 9 -
“La langue est un systéme dont toutes les parties peuvent et doivent être considérés dans leur solidarité synchronique.”
Language is a system whose parts can and must all be considered in their synchronic solidarity. p. 87 (1916, p. 124; Part 1, Ch. 3, sec. 3.)
Ferdinand de Saussure on Mind
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“Language is a system of signs that express ideas.”
p. 16 ; Partly cited in; Geza Revesz , The Origins and Prehistory of Language , London 1956. p. 126 -
Attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure:
“The linguistic sign unites a concept and a sound-image.”
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“A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas; but the pairing of a certain number of acoustical signs with as many cuts made from the mass of thought engenders a system of values.”
Cours de linguistique générale(1916) | p. 120
Ferdinand de Saussure on Nature
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“The subject matter of linguistics comprises all manifestations of human speech, whether that of savages or civilized nations, or of archaic, classical or decadent periods. In each period the linguist must consider not only correct speech and flowery language, but all other forms of expression as well. And that is not all: since he is often unable to observe speech directly, he must consider written texts, for only through them can he reach idioms that are remote in time or space.”
p. 6
Ferdinand de Saussure on Politics
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“The aim of general synchronic linguistics is to set up the fundamental principles of any idiosynchronic system, the constituents of any language-state. Many of the items already explained in Part One belong rather to synchrony; for instance, the general properties of the sign are an integral part of synchrony although they were used to prove the necessity of separating the two linguistics.”
p. 101
Ferdinand de Saussure on Truth
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Attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure:
“In language there are only differences, without positive terms.”
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Attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure:
“The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.”
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Attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure:
“Language is form, not substance.”