Ferdinand De Saussure and Structuralist Theory: A Brief Illustration DOCX

Title	Ferdinand De Saussure and Structuralist Theory: A Brief Illustration
Author	Dhiman Basumatary
Pages	6
File Size	19.7 KB
File Type	DOCX
Total Downloads	544
Total Views	685

Summary

Description

1 Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist who laid the foundation on the ideas of structure in the study of language. His Book Course in General Linguistics that was published in 1916 has detailed all that he claimed to be his views. In his book Saussure shows us a clear reaction against many of the ideas raised and he emphasizes the importance of seeing language as a living phenomenon as against the historical view, of studying speech, of analysing the underlying system of a language in order to demonstrate an integral structure, and of placing language firmly in the social milieu. Saussure's theoretical ideas are a must read and his influence has been unparalleled in European Linguistics since and, it had a major formative role to play in the shaping of linguistic thoughts in Europe. Saussure's Object of Study theorised his structuralist view of language and shows how his essay forms the basis of structuralist theory. Saussure equipped his essay with a theory and a method of linguistic analysis from the structuralist point of view. Saussure envisaged langage to be composed of two aspects- the language system and the act of speaking. Langage is that faculty of human speech that is present in all human being due to heredity, and it requires the correct...