Re-reading Saussure: The Dynamics of Signs in Social Life

by Thibault,Paul J.

• ISBN13: 9780415104104
• ISBN10: 0415104106
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781135093150
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-12-06
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Through a detailed re-reading of Saussure's work in the light of contemporary developments in the human, life and physical sciences, Paul Thibault provides us with the means to redefine and refocus our theories of social meaning-making. Saussure's theory of language is generally considered to be a formal theory of abstract sign-types and sign-systems, separate from our individual and social practices of making meaning. In this challenging book, Thibault presents a different view of Saussure. Paying close attention to the original texts, including the Cours de Linguistic Generale, he demonstrates that Saussure was centrally concerned with trying to formulate a theory of how meanings are made. In addition to demonstrating the continuing viability of Saussure's thinking through a range of examples, Re-reading Saussure makes an important intervention in contemporary linguistic and semiotic debate.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	xii	(3)
List of tables	xv	(2)
Preface	xvii	(6)
Acknowledgements	xxiii
Part I Constructing a science of signs	3	(50)
1 Defining the object of study	3	(16)
1 Staking out a science of the linguistic sign	3	(1)
2 Two theoretical models for reading CLG	4	(1)
3 Internal versus external Linguistics	5	(4)
4 Saussure's objectification of grammer	9	(1)
5 Intrinsic versus extrinsic criteria: Saussure's critique of historical linguistic	10	(3)
6 The scope of linguistics and its relation to other disciplines	13	(1)
7 The object of study is constructed, not given	14	(5)
2 Saussure's social--semiological metatheory	19	(34)
1 The unitary charecter of social--semiological theory	19	(1)
2 The specificity of langue: avoiding the errors of reification and voluntarism	20	(4)
3 Parole and the individual	24	(1)
4 Re-linking langue and parole: towards a discursive social psychology	25	(1)
5 The speaking subject and the individual	26	(2)
6 The theoretical goals of social semiology	28	(1)
7 Social--semiological metatheory	29	(1)
8 Saussure's ontology of system and structure: an alternative to logical positivism	30	(3)
9 Linguistic praxis and the problem of self-reference	33	(8)
10 The open and incomplete character of the theory	41	(3)
11 Language, meaning and reality: language is not a nomenclature	44	(3)
12 The individual cannot constitute the basis of a theory of langue	47	(2)
13 Langue in relation to other social sign systems	49	(4)
Part II Langue as social--semiological system	53	(27)
3 Saussure's three conceptions of the language system	53	(27)
1 Langue is a system for making meanings	53	(1)
2 Formal and social--semiological theories of language form: a comparision	53	(2)
3 Terms, not signs, are the basic building blocks of the system	55	(5)
4 Saussure's first perspective on langue: the system of pure values	60	(4)
5 Saussure's second perspective on langue: the system of regular lexicogrammatical patterns	64	(5)
6 Saussure's third perspective on langue: the system of typical meaning--making practices	69	(4)
7 Illustration of the three perspectives on langue: a text analysis	73	(3)
8 Linking the individual to the language system	76	(4)
4 The time--dependent nature of langue: the dialectic of synchrony and diachrony	80	(33)
1 Synchronic and diachronic linguistics	80	(1)
2 The problem of language change: Saussure's account	80	(2)
3 Saussure and the historical and evolutionary linguistics of the Neogrammarians	82	(3)
4 Saussure's reformulation of synchrony and diachrony	85	(6)
5 The topological nature of langue and its temporal dynamics	91	(3)
6 Two perspectives on diachronic analysis	94	(2)
7 System dynamics and Saussure's chess analogy	96	(2)
8 Saussure's morphogenetic theory of language change	98	(4)
9 Langue and parole and the renewal of the language system: phonetic change and grammatical analogy	102	(4)
10 System dynamics and evolutionary change in langue	106	(3)
11 Conclusion	109	(4)
Part III Langue and parole: re-articulating the links	113	(50)
5 Parole and the individual	113	(18)
1 An alternative to the individual--centred interpretation of parole	113	(4)
2 Social and non-social dimensions of the individual	117	(2)
3 The theoretical scope of parole	119	(4)
4 Parole and the discourse: an important distinction	123	(2)
5 Parole is the 'seed' of change in the language system	125	(5)
6 Saussure's anti-reductionist thesis	130	(1)
6 The Speech circuit: cross--coupling the individual with the system	131	(32)
1 The Speech circuit and the code model of communication	131	(2)
2 Re-thinking the speech circuit: an alternative to the code model	133	(3)
3 Act psychology and the speech circuit	136	(5)
4 The psychic basis of the circuit: meaning, not matter	141	(5)
5 The neuro--anatomical substrate: nineteenth--century research	146	(1)
6 The ecosocial basis of the speech circuit	147	(6)
7 Semiological values as non-holonomic constraints	153	(4)
8 Embodying the system	157	(1)
9 The ontological stratification of the sign: linking the circuit to the system	158	(5)
Part IV Linguistic value	163	(48)
7 Linguistic value and how language construes the world	163	(24)
1 The Non-naturalistic basis of linguistic value	163	(1)
2 Value: the contextualizing principle underlying lnguistic signs	164	(1)
3 Arbitrariness and the categorical basis of language form	165	(1)
4 The linguistic constral of thought and sound as thought substance	166	(5)
5 Language doesnot represent pre-established ideas	171	(2)
6 Schematicity, instantiation and the relativity of values	173	(7)
7 Language form recursively operates on the real	180	(5)
8 Linguistic value and quantum mechanics	185	(2)
8 Linguistic and economic value: a homology	187	(24)
1 Linguistic value and the marginalist school of political economy: a misleading analogy	187	(3)
2 The homology between linguistic and monetary exchange	190	(3)
3 Linguistic use--value and exchange--value	193	(3)
4 The ontological priority of value	196	(1)
5 Value and signification	197	(1)
6 Value and the social work of making signs	198	(13)
Part V Sign and signification	211	(46)
9 The linguistic sign	211	(22)
1 Basic principles	211	(5)
2 Arbitrariness and higher--order contextualization	216	(2)
3 Illustration of basic principles: the traffic light system	218	(3)
4 The functional basis of the internal relation between signifier and signified	221	(1)
5 The sign and the stratified nature of semiosis	221	(3)
6 Terminological questions: towards a re-construction of the sign	224	(9)
10 The symbolic character of the sign	233	(24)
1 The positive character of the sign as a whole	233	(1)
2 Value and signification are not synonymous	236	(3)
3 Interstratal symbolic construal: explaining the relation between signifier and signified	239	(10)
4 Linearity of the signifer and symbolic motivation	249	(2)
5 Is a Saussurean theory of signs in social life possible?: Volosinov's critique	251	(6)
Part VI Sign, discourse and social meaning--making	257	(87)
11 Dimensions of contextualization: the mechanism of langue	257	(20)
1 Syntagmatic and associative relations	257	(2)
2 Syntagmatic solidarities	259	(6)
3 Associative solidarities	265	(2)
4 Effective and virtual dimensions of contextualization	267	(2)
5 Syntagmatic and associative relations: a text analysis	269	(4)
6 The dialectically dual character of syntagmatic and associative relations in discourse	273	(4)
12 Arbitrariness and motivation in the sign	277	(26)
1 Absolute arbitrariness and relative arbitrariness	277	(4)
2 Relative arbitrariness and lexicogrammatical form	281	(4)
3 Motivation in langue and parole	285	(3)
4 Syntagmatic and associative interdependencies: towards a theory of contextualization	288	(2)
5 Ideas, not values	290	(1)
6 Limiting arbitrariness	290	(2)
7 Re-defining motivation: semiological criteria	292	(2)
8 Motivating the sign: three textual analyses	294	(6)
9 Motivating sounds: systemic and contextual factors	300	(3)
13 Making and motivating signs in discourse	303	(41)
1 Form and function in grammar	303	(1)
2 Grammatical forms are meaning--making	304	(1)
3 Langue and three fundamental dimensions of meaning--making	305	(1)
4 Synchronic identity and Schematicity	306	(1)
5 Synchronic identity: the analysis of a conventional unit	307	(1)
6 Synchronic identity: the analysis of a non-conventional unit	308	(1)
7 Associative relations, grammar and schematicity	308	(2)
8 Defining prototypicality: a re-analysis of Saussure's example defaire	310	(2)
9 Associative relations and intertextuality: a textual analysis	312	(3)
10 Schematicity and visual semiosis	315	(7)
11 Stratification, self-reference and metasemiosis	322	(3)
12 Stratification and the making of meaning in dialogue: the praxis of the language user	325	(3)
13 Stratification and the praxis of the linguist	328	(1)
14 the stratified nature of linguistic and visual semiosis	329	(6)
15 The contextual grounding of signs	335	(2)
16 The grounding of dicourse in embodied space--time: a textual analysis	337	(3)
17 Towards a theory of signs in social life	340	(4)
Postscript	344	(1)
Appendix	345	(2)
References	347	(7)
Name index	354	(2)
Subject index	356