The code model of communication: a powerful - SIL International

3. The Code Model Decoded 39
Joseph elaborates on Saussure’s notion of the sign:
For Saussure, the network of linguistic signs which constitute langue is made up of the
conjunction of a signifiant (‘signifier’), understood as a sound pattern deposited in the mind,
and a signifié (‘signified’), a concept that is also deposited in the mind. … It is important to
note that the signifier is wholly distinct from the actual uttered word, as is the signified from
the actual physical thing conceived of (if one exists). Although the distinction between
concept and object has existed since antiquity, that between sound pattern and actual sound is
Saussure’s own contribution …. (Joseph 1994:3666–3667)
Saussure employs a powerful analogy in describing this relationship between
signifier and signified, one which helps to emphasize its importance within the system he
envisioned:
Linguistic structure might be described as the domain of articulation …. Every linguistic
sign is a part or member, an articulus, where an idea is fixed in a sound, and a sound becomes
the sign of an idea.
Just as it is impossible to take a pair of scissors and cut one side of paper without at the same
time cutting the other, so it is impossible in a language to isolate sound from thought, or
thought from sound. To separate the two for theoretical purposes takes us into either pure
psychology or pure phonetics, not linguistics.
Linguistics, then, operates along this margin, where sound and thought meet. The contact
between them gives rise to a form, not a substance. (Saussure 1983:[156–157]; italics in
original)
In isolating the sign from the actual articulation of the sound as well as from the
external object, Saussure dichotomized language as it had previously been conceived.
Developing two senses of the term language (langage) into individual concepts by
extending senses of the terms langue and parole, Saussure argued that the focus of
linguistics should be langue, the shared system of signs which made communication
possible. This system was to be distinguished from actual production, which he termed
parole. Previous generations of linguists had focused their efforts on studying elements
of production, such as written texts, spoken dialects, and phonetics, all of which were
accessible and open to scrutiny within the positivistic tradition. In contrast, Saussure
argued for the study of the system underlying production, even though that system was
not directly observable (Joseph 1994:3665).
The relationships between signs in mental space were to be a crucial component in
Saussure’s concept of langue. He categorized this network of relationships as being of
two kinds: (a) “syntagmatic (i.e., items are arranged in a consecutive, linear order),” and
(b) “associative, later termed ‘paradigmatic’ (i.e., the organization of units in a deeper
fashion dealing with grammatical and semantic relations)” (Koerner 1994:3663).
Insightfully, he regarded sounds and meanings to be organized in a similar manner:
Before Saussure, the syntagmatic relations of morphemes within a given utterance were
certainly recognized as a matter of linguistic concern, though relatively neglected. But there
was little or no precedent for the idea suggested by the Cours (implicitly if not explicitly) that
there exists a syntax not only of words, but of sounds, meanings, and the relations uniting
them; or that every time a sound, word, or meaning is chosen, a vast network of related
elements is summoned up in absentia. The latter concept in particular set the study of language