Ferdinand
de Saussure 1857-1913 - SwitzerlandPeople
Ferdinand
de Saussure 1857-1913 - Switzerland
Encyclopedia Entries
Saussure, Ferdinand de. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001
...Saussure, Ferdinand de, (ferdenaNī d sosurī) (KEY) , 1857-1913, Swiss linguist. One of the founders of modern linguistics, he established the structural study of...
2) semiotics. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001
...discipline deriving from the American logician C. S. Peirce and the French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. It has come to mean generally the study of any cultural...
3) structuralism. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001
...in a variety of fields, especially linguistics, particularly as formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure. Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss used structuralism to study...
"A sign is the basic unit of langue (a given language at a given time). Every langue is a complete system of signs. Parole (the speech of an individual) is an external manifestation of langue."
Another important distinction is that between syntactic relations, which take place in a given text, and paradigmatic relations.
De Saussure made an important discovery in Indo-European philology which is now known as the laryngeal theory.
Roland Barthes, in his book Mythologies, demonstrated how de Saussure's system of sign analysis could be extended to a second level, that of myth.
See Structuralism. from Wikipedia
Course in General Linguistics (1916)
Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics
http://www.brysons.net/academic/saussure.html
http://www.sou.edu/English/IDTC/People/saussure.HTM
http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/saussure.html