Saussure and Chomsky: Foundations of Modern Linguistics

Ferdinand de Saussure: Language as a System

For Saussure, language is defined by two essential features that form the institution: it is shaped by rules that are a) general (beyond individual control) and b) coercive (limiting possibilities in interactive behavior). From a social perspective, language is an institution; from a formal approach, it is a system.

Saussure utilized the notion of a system in the sense of a mathematical structure: a set of elements whose defining features are relational, meaning their existence and significance are determined by their relations with other elements within the set.

Synchronic vs. Diachronic Linguistics

Language must be differentiated by its current state versus the states that preceded it; we must distinguish between synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Before Saussure, priority was given to diachronic linguistics, which formed part of the historicist paradigm in social science. Saussure questioned this paradigm, asserting the primacy of synchronic linguistics.

Principles of the Linguistic Sign

The linguistic sign is characterized by two principles:

• Arbitrariness: There is no internal connection between the signifier and the signified. Note that arbitrariness does not imply a lack of causes.
• Linearity: The signifier is a sequence of sounds or inscriptions that represent an extension, measurable in one dimension.

The linguistic sign unites a concept and an acoustic image. The latter is not the material sound, but the mental representation of that sound.

Noam Chomsky: Generative Grammar and Human Cognition

Chomsky seeks an understanding of human beings by criticizing scientific methods that limit the study to sensory abstraction. He argues that the organization of language is inherent in humans; the central nervous system and cerebral cortex are biologically prepared for speech.

Key Concepts in Chomskyan Linguistics

• Universal Grammar: The innate pattern of human beings.
• Generative Grammar: A finite set of rules that generate an infinite set of statements.
• Language Diversity: The deep organization of universal rules.
• Syntax: The center of his linguistic studies, involving combinatory and interpretative rules.
• Language Proficiency: The internal mechanism that prevents a speaker from generating ungrammatical phrases.
• Internal vs. External Language: The distinction between speech becoming thought and thought converted into speech.