ENG 303 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Post-Structuralism, Onomatopoeia, Jonathan Culler
Document Summary
English 303: introduction to literary theory (fall 2012) Ferdinand de saussure, course in general linguistics (1916) What the study of language reveals about mind is not a set of primitive conceptions or natural ideas but the general structuring and differentiating operations by which things are made to signify. - jonathan culler, ferdinand de saussure (1986) (norton, 849) Saussure"s general principles (outlined and defined on pp. Words are not the mere names for ready-made ideas. typically, theorists have presumed that the linking of a name and a thing is a very simple operation, but this assumption is anything but true (852). The linguistic unit is a double entity, one formed by the associating of two terms (852) The linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound- image (852) The two terms that comprise a sign are the signifier and the signified: Signifier: a sound-image, spoken or written word that refers to a signified.
