Editing Ferdinand de Saussure (section)

====The bilateral sign====

One of Saussure's key contributions to semiotics lies in what he called ''semiology'', the concept of the bilateral (two-sided) sign which consists of 'the signifier' (a linguistic form, e.g. a word) and 'the signified' (the meaning of the form). Saussure supported the argument for the arbitrariness of the sign although he did not deny the fact that some words are [[Onomatopoeia|onomatopoeic]], or claim that picture-like symbols are fully arbitrary. Saussure also did not consider the linguistic sign as random, but as historically cemented.{{efn|1959 translation, p. 68–69}} All in all, he did not invent the philosophy of arbitrariness but made a very influential contribution to it.<ref name="Nöth_1990">{{cite book|last=Nöth|first=Winfried|url=https://salahlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/handbook-of-semiotics.pdf|title=Handbook of Semiotics|date=1990|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-20959-7|author-link=Winfried Nöth|access-date=24 September 2020|archive-date=8 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308052018/https://salahlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/handbook-of-semiotics.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The arbitrariness of words of different languages itself is a fundamental concept in Western thinking of language, dating back to Ancient Greek philosophers.<ref name="Hutton_1989">{{cite journal |last=Hutton|first=Christopher |date=1989 |title=The arbitrary nature of the sign |journal=Semiotica|volume=75 |issue=1–2 |pages=63–78 |doi=10.1515/semi.1989.75.1-2.63|s2cid=170807245 }}</ref> The question of whether words are natural or arbitrary (and artificially made by people) returned as a controversial topic during the [[Age of Enlightenment]] when the medieval [[Scholasticism|scholastic]] dogma, that languages were created by God, became opposed by the advocates of [[Humanism|humanistic]] philosophy. There were efforts to construct a 'universal language', based on the lost [[Adamic language]], with various attempts to uncover universal words or characters which would be readily understood by all people regardless of their nationality. [[John Locke]], on the other hand, was among those who believed that languages were a rational human innovation,<ref name="Jermołowicz_2003">{{cite journal |last=Jermołowicz|first=Renata |date=2003 |title=On the project of a universal language in the framework of the XVII century philosophy |url=http://logika.uwb.edu.pl/studies/download.php?volid=19&artid=rj&format=PDF |journal=Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric|volume=6 |issue=19 |pages=51–61 |isbn=83-89031-75-2|access-date=25 May 2020}}</ref> and argued for the arbitrariness of words.<ref name="Hutton_1989" />

Saussure took it for granted in his time that "No one disputes the principle of the arbitrary nature of the sign."{{efn|p. 68}} He however disagreed with the common notion that each word corresponds "to the thing that it names" or what is called the [[referent]] in modern semiotics. For example, in Saussure's notion, the word 'tree' does not refer to a tree as a physical object, but to the psychological ''concept'' of a tree. The linguistic sign thus arises from the psychological ''association'' between the signifier (a 'sound-image') and the signified (a 'concept'). There can therefore be no linguistic expression without meaning, but also no meaning without linguistic expression.{{efn|p. 65}} Saussure's structuralism, as it later became called, therefore includes an implication of [[linguistic relativity]]. However, Saussure's view has been described instead as a form of [[semantic holism]] that acknowledged that the interconnection between terms in a language was not fully arbitrary and only methodologically bracketed the relationship between linguistic terms and the physical world.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Josephson-Storm|first=Jason Ānanda|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1249473210|title=Metamodernism: the future of theory|date=2021|isbn=978-0-226-78679-7|location=Chicago|pages=153–5|oclc=1249473210}}</ref>

The naming of [[Spectral color|spectral colours]] exemplifies how meaning and expression arise simultaneously from their interlinkage. Different colour frequencies are per se meaningless, or mere ''substance'' or meaning potential. Likewise, [[Phoneme|phonemic]] combinations that are not associated with any content are only meaningless expression potential, and therefore not considered as ''signs''. It is only when a region of the spectrum is outlined and given an arbitrary name, for example, 'blue', that the sign emerges. The sign consists of the ''signifier'' ('blue') and the ''signified'' (the colour region), and of the associative link which connects them. Arising from an arbitrary demarcation of meaning potential, the signified is not a property of the physical world. In Saussure's concept, language is ultimately not a function of reality, but a self-contained system. Thus, Saussure's semiology entails a bilateral (two-sided) perspective of semiotics.

The same idea is applied to any concept. For example, natural law does not dictate which plants are 'trees' and which are 'shrubs' or a different type of [[woody plant]]; or whether these should be divided into further groups. Like blue, all signs gain semantic ''value'' in opposition to other signs of the system (e.g. red, colourless). If more signs emerge (e.g. 'marine blue'), the [[semantic field]] of the original word may narrow down. Conversely, words may become antiquated, whereby competition for the semantic field lessens. Or, the meaning of a word may change altogether.<ref name="Hjelmslev_1969">{{cite book|last=Hjelmslev|first=Louis|title=Prolegomena to a Theory of Language|date=1969|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|isbn=0299024709|author-link=Louis Hjelmslev|orig-year=First published 1943}}</ref>

After his death, [[Structural linguistics|structural]] and [[Functional linguistics|functional linguists]] applied Saussure's concept to the analysis of the linguistic form as motivated by meaning. The opposite direction of the linguistic expressions as giving rise to the conceptual system, on the other hand, became the foundation of the post-Second World War structuralists who adopted Saussure's concept of structural linguistics as the model for all human sciences as the study of how language shapes our concepts of the world. Thus, Saussure's model became important not only for linguistics but for [[humanities]] and [[social sciences]] as a whole.<ref name="Dosse_1997-1">{{cite book |last=Dosse|first=François |title=History of Structuralism, Vol.1: The Rising Sign, 1945-1966 Present; translated by Edborah Glassman |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |date=1997 |orig-year=First published 1991| url=https://monoskop.org/images/0/03/Dosse_Francois_History_of_Structuralism_1_The_Rising_Sign_1945-1966.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200708172837/https://monoskop.org/images/0/03/Dosse_Francois_History_of_Structuralism_1_The_Rising_Sign_1945-1966.pdf |archive-date=2020-07-08 |url-status=live |isbn= 978-0-8166-2241-2}}</ref>