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Thursday, July 23, 2009

mapping the essay

Mapping the Essay:
• Implied order – Parole/Langue
• Diachronic – chorological period of time
Synchronic – specific time.

Contribution of Saussure
• Implied order
• Linguistics signs

Impact of Saussure’ Idea on other fields and scholars:
a) Roman Jakobson – Formalist
b) Claude Levi-Strauss – began to see culture like language/ marriage as a form of communication.
c) Vladimir Propp – narrative in search of missing centres/ implied orders in myths.
d) Ronald Barthes – applies to the semiological dimension of literature and culture.
e) Tzvetan Todorov – study in narrative.
f) Michel Foucault – developed the idea of discourse, of discourse formation and language formation on assumption.

Ferdinand de Saussure was an early twentieth century Swiss linguist. Throughout his lifetime, Saussure did not write much he died in 1913. In 1916 his students published his class notes “Course in General Linguistics” thereby giving rise to linguistics. Saussure with his work changed the course of twentieth century social sciences, influencing almost all the thinkers of that time directly or indirectly. Earlier English was studied historically it was Saussure who came up with the notion of descriptive linguistics who looked at the use of language in the present context rather than in the past. He epitomised the arbitrary nature of language wherein the insider outsider outlook comprised language to be an implied order. Implied order in the form of language existed in the unconscious which manifested itself through utterance. Thereby what we speak is only parole and langue is the abstract manifestation of language. Noam Chomsky also spoke in similar ways. He gave a divide between competence and performance. Competence he said comes culturally and without any knowledge. This is the basic biological component and is inherent. What we learn is only performance. The last aspect that was touched upon in class today was the idea of linguistic signs- semiotics. According to Saussure language was a sign system, to him signified was the image and signifier was the sound image.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

dear sir,
plz put up notes or links on from contemplations,the indian studentand the red wwheelbarrow,to a poor old woman... plz sir ,our mid sem life is in ur hands... save us!! 2nd jp

Anonymous said...

sir sir...plz..sir..v want notes sir..v wantt too study..mid sem exam is coming...

Anonymous said...

pls help them sir...poor children
crying for notes

Anil Pinto said...

The requests are of last year. Time did not permit then! Apologies!