Over time, language as we know it evolves. New words form and old words gain different connotations. In his “Course in General Linguistics”, Ferdinand de Saussure discusses his views on language and linguistics as a science. Saussure discusses his theory of the sign, signifier and signified. This theory states that a sign unites a signifier (sound) and signified (image). However, Saussure points out that the relationship between the signifier and signified is actually arbitrary. That is to say that there is no particular reason that one signifier should stand for a particular signified. However, language, according to Saussure is more than just a naming system for different objects and ideas.

Saussure emphasizes the social aspect of language. He believes that language cannot change intentionally, nor can it be changed by one single individual. The changes that occur must be acknowledged and accepted by all members of the community. This makes sense, since language is used as a tool to communicate with one another. Saussure believes that language “…exists only by virtue of a sort of contract signed by the members of a community”. In this way, there needs to be some sort of agreement between the speakers of any particular language. This made me think of the several instances in the movie “Mean Girls” when the character Gretchen tried to introduce a new slang word –“fetch”– into casual conversation and her friend Regina George rejects it, stating that its never going to happen. There was no agreement there and so, fetch never actually became a “thing”.

In addition, Saussure believes that, language is not just a naming system because every sign is only significant in relationship to another sign. These signs are interdependent; each word in a language helps give the next word meaning. He uses the example of trying to teach someone about the color brown by only showing them brown objects. Hey will not be able to distinguish the meaning of this word unless they know what is not brown. This is what Saussure means when he says that “in language, there are only differences”. He goes on to explain that “the value of a term may be modified without either its meaning or sound being affected, solely because a neighboring term has been modified” and he states that “all values are apparently governed by the same paradoxical principle. They are always composed…of similar things that can be compared with the thing of which the value is to be determined.” He gives the example of the French word “mouton” which has the same meaning as “sheep” but refers to the actual meat, which is what we refer to in English as “mutton”. One example of this I could think of is that in Arabic, the word “telj” (this is obviously a transliteration) has the same signification as the word “ice” in English. However, in conversation, this word in Arabic also describes a weather condition which in English we would call “snow”. In this way, I can see how “ice” and “snow” have different values when you put the two terms side by side.

Language is a system that can be thought of or used for various purposes. As it is expressed in Saussure’s essay, a common misconception of language is that it only serves as a system for naming things. However, in Saussure’s words, “This conception is open to criticism” (pg 852). Furthermore, when regarding language as the process of naming things, or giving names that correspond to the object or thing we are talking about a lot of problems ensue.This notion limits people’s understanding of language to something “superficial” or very much on the surface and therefore not permitting the full grasp, nor the more profound meaning or purpose of using language. In my opinion language can be used for various different practices. One of the most important practices of language is simply communication. Through language people have found a way to interact with each other. In addition humans have also found the way to not just name things through language as it is commonly described, but we have found a way to explain much deeper concepts and also to give meaning to our feelings. In his essay Saussure explains, that by studying language as a single entity; or simply linguistics one could find that language or the signs and names that people often attribute to language are a combination of what he calls a [concept+sound image]. What this simply means is that certain names such as the example he gives of the [tree] are only understood as a sign or form of language because the [concept] of it being a tree is psychologically attached to the word (pg. 853). Therefore the sound-image or the sign which is what is commonly known  as would not be recognized as a form of language if the psychological connotation of it being a [tree] would have not previously existed. This is why understanding that language is not just a way to give names to things is of much significance when trying to understand language and how it is created through meaning. Sound-image or the impression a word causes to the mind when it is heard by a person are only able to be filtered by the brain to create meaning because the psychological meaning of that particular sound is embedded or implanted through the concept that language is able to make a part of itself.

T.S. Eliot starts off the essay talking about tradition in English writing that pertain to absence, science of archaeology, etc. He elaborates on science of archaeology talking about race and nation (his example uses the French people) about how they have their own way of thinking, criticism and how the French can be oblivious to someones genius thought other then their own. When I read this, I started thinking about this pertaining to society instead of just individual talent because people have different ways of thinking and when people do not agree on something, they will either think the other person is crazy because they have no idea what they are talking about, or be stubborn thinking that the other person is stupid. Besides the science of archaeology, T.S. Eliot talks about past right writing and about his own writing, which he refers to as “simultaneous order.”

This “simultaneous order” that he talks about in the essay helps the combine old and new thoughts into different people’s writing. Not only does the “simultaneous order” does that, it also causes awareness of innovativeness. So to me, the science of archaeology and “simultaneous order” is similar as in involving the past with present day but contrast when the order gives off another point to itself and the writing. “Simultaneous order” seems like what we as college student look into when studying English because professor want us to interpret authors, like Virginia Woolfe and Shakespeare, and their literary works.

Eliot actually mentions Shakespeare in his essay, “…a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind-is a mind which changes, and that this change is a development which abandons nothing en route, which does not superannuate either Shakespeare, or Homer… That this development, refinement perhaps, complication certainly, is not, from the point of view of the artist, any improvement.”

After Eliot talks about Shakespeare and Homer, he talks about criticism and appreciation. It is funny how that we are supposed to be reading English related things when so far I have read are a social science, actual science, artists and Greek writing in this essay. The article sounds more of human personality towards the beginning of the essay. Further reading, the essay becomes separated of emotions and thoughts of how someone may be speaking in first person. This thought arise since other subjects come at hand in the essay to focus the readers into a new direction. This comes to show that the English language is more difficult than expected.

First Saussure summarizes the characteristics of language stating it is “where an auditory image becomes associated with a concept… [that] we easily assimilate their linguistics organisms: dead languages, a union of meanings and sound-images and is concrete” (pg. 850).

According to Saussure, “language is a system of pure values consisting of two elements, ideas and sound” without language thought would be very vague (pg. 856). Language is a structural system of linguistic unit that organize the mass of confused thoughts that filled our minds. There are two parts, like Saussure states, “…an idea becomes fixed in a sound and a sound becomes the sign of an idea,” the concept (meaning) and sound-image (signified and signifier). Meaning you cannot separate the thought from the sound nor the sound from the thought.  I may or may not be correct but, the nature of linguistics sign is basically tied between the signifier and the signified. Based on what I’ve read, Saussure’s idea on the nature and value of the linguistics sign disapprove on the belief that things come first then words follow after, to replace actual referential reality with the signified. What the signifier points to is not only something that exists outside of language, but maybe to a meaning that is limited within our human minds. In other words Saussure main idea is that everything gains its meaning out of being entirely placed opposite to its relations.

By being arbitrary, the lingual sign shows that different languages have different signs for the same explicit meaning, but according to Saussure, language is not just a random naming scheme, the signs also have values. Language does not simply describe what you see as in reality, but is in fact something separate and independent from it. Saussure in a sense probably meant that anyone can make up words but signs are all conventions that are within society, or the linguistic sign is arbitrary but is not open for refills, its meaning is forced on us by the linguistic environment.

As Saussure wrote, it is as in any system of signs; the linguistic system is consisting of strings of differences in sounds put together with differences in ideas. The difference that distinguishes one sign from the others, “create the character and the value of the unit,” as a result composes the system. The overall value of the linguistics sign is based on its concept and sound within the language, the combination with other words in linguistic way and its differences and similarities to other language signs.

Another note that I was very interesting was the Syntagmatic and Associative Relations. The Synatagmatic Relations is based on the placement of the words; it links each word to each other like chains. It is a linguistic structure whereas the associate relations link words based on similar association.  For example the word purification and any other word that ends with ‘-tion’ or associated with it, like cleansing, sanitation, etc. is attached to it. If you pull purification out of a basket the other words associated with it will follow. The associate relations break the whole grammatical relations and open the door for a more symbolic/metaphoric expression.