Course in General Linguistics

Langue and Parole

Referring to two aspects of language examined by Ferdinand de Saussure at the beginning of the twentieth century, langue denotes a system of internalized, shared rules governing a national language’s vocabulary, grammar, and sound system; parole designates actual oral and…Read More ›

Structural Linguistics

Structural linguistics was developed by Ferdinand de Saussure between 1913 and 1915, although his work wasn’t translated into English and popularized until the late 1950s. Before Saussure, language was studied in terms of the history of changes in individual words…Read More ›

Linguistic Sign

Announcing a revolutionary change in the study of language, which had been hitherto philological, Saussure with his Course in General Linguistics (1916), introduced Structural Linguistics, which considers language as a system of signs constructed by cultural conventions. Constituting of a…Read More ›

Saussurean Structuralism

Saussure introduced Structuralism in Linguistics, marking a revolutionary break in the study of language, which had till then been historical and philological. In his Course in General Linguistics (1916), Saussure saw language as a system of signs constructed by convention….Read More ›

Structuralism

The advent of critical theory in the post-war period, which comprised various complex disciplines like linguistics, literary criticism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Structuralism, Postcolonialism etc., proved hostile to the liberal consensus which reigned the realm of criticism between the 1930s and `50s. Among…Read More ›