Langue and parole

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Langueandparole is a theoretical linguistic dichotomy distinguished by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics . [1]

Contents

The French term langue ('[an individual] language') [2] encompasses the abstract, systematic rules and conventions of a signifying system; it is independent of, and pre-exists, the individual user. It involves the principles of language, without which no meaningful utterance, or parole, would be possible.

In contrast, parole ('speech') refers to the concrete instances of the use of langue, including texts which provide the ordinary research material for linguistics. [1]

Background and significance

Structural linguistics, as proposed by Saussure, assumes a non-biological standpoint of culture within the nature–nurture divide. Langue and parole make up two thirds of Saussure's speech circuit (French: circuit de la parole); the third part being the brain, where the individual's knowledge of language is located. The speech circuit is a feedback loop between the individual speakers of a given language. It is an interactive phenomenon: knowledge of language arises from language usage, and language usage arises from knowledge of language. Saussure, however, argues that the true locus of language is neither in the verbal behaviour (parole) nor in the mind of the speakers, but is situated in the loop between speech and the individual, existing as such nowhere else but only as a social phenomenon within the speech community. [1]

Consequently, Saussure rejects other contemporary views of language and argues for the autonomy of linguistics. According to Saussure, general linguistics is not: [1]

Linguistics, then, in Saussure's conception, is properly regarded as the study of semiology, or languages as semiotic (sign) systems.

Meaning of the terms

Langue

French has two words corresponding to the English word language: [6]

  1. langue, which is primarily used to refer to individual languages such as French and English; and
  2. langage, which primarily refers to language as a general phenomenon, or to the human ability to have language.

Langue therefore corresponds to the common meaning of language, and the pair langue versus parole is properly expressed in English as 'language versus speech', [1] so long as language is not to be taken in evolutionary terms, but as a description of an (ultimately lifeless) immaterial sign system. The Saussurean term is not, for example, compatible with the concepts of language organ, Universal Grammar, or linguistic competence from the Chomskyan frame of reference. Instead, it is the concept of any language as a semiological system, a social fact, and a system of linguistic norms.

Parole

Parole, in typical translation, means 'speech'. Saussure, on the other hand, intended for it to mean both the written and spoken language as experienced in everyday life; it is the precise utterances and use of langue. Therefore, parole, unlike langue, is as diverse and varied as the number of people who share a language and the number of utterances and attempts to use that language.

Relation to formal linguistics

From a formal linguistics perspective, Saussure's concept of language and speech can be thought of as corresponding, respectively, to a formal language and the sentences it generates. De Saussure argued before Course in General Linguistics that linguistic expressions might be algebraic. [7]

Building on his insights, Louis Hjelmslev proposed in his 1943 Prolegomena to a Theory of Language a model of linguistic description and analysis based on work of mathematicians David Hilbert and Rudolf Carnap in formal language theory. [8] The structuralist endeavor is, however, more comprehensive, ranging from the mathematical organisation of the semantic system to phonology, morphology, syntax, and the whole discourse or textual arrangement. The algebraic device was considered by Hjelmslev as independent of psychology, sociology and biology. [9] It is consolidated in consequent models of structural–functional linguistics including Systemic Functional Linguistics. [10]

Despite this success, American advocates of the natural paradigm managed to fend off European structuralism by making its own modifications of the model. In 1946, Zellig Harris introduced transformational generative grammar which excluded semantics and placed the direct object into the verb phrase, following Wundt's psychological concept, as advocated in American linguistics by Leonard Bloomfield. [8] Harris's student Noam Chomsky argued for the cognitive essence of linguistic structures, [11] eventually giving the explanation that they were caused by a random genetic mutation in humans. [12]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferdinand de Saussure</span> Swiss linguist (1857–1913)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Generative grammar</span> Theory in linguistics

Generative grammar, or generativism, is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguistics, deriving from logical syntax and glossematics. Generative grammar considers grammar as a system of rules that generates exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language. It is a system of explicit rules that may apply repeatedly to generate an indefinite number of sentences which can be as long as one wants them to be. The difference from structural and functional models is that the object is base-generated within the verb phrase in generative grammar. This purportedly cognitive structure is thought of as being a part of a universal grammar, a syntactic structure which is caused by a genetic mutation in humans.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Formalism (linguistics)</span> Concept in linguistics

In linguistics, the term formalism is used in a variety of meanings which relate to formal linguistics in different ways. In common usage, it is merely synonymous with a grammatical model or a syntactic model: a method for analyzing sentence structures. Such formalisms include different methodologies of generative grammar which are especially designed to produce grammatically correct strings of words; or the likes of Functional Discourse Grammar which builds on predicate logic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cline of instantiation</span>

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Distributionalism was a general theory of language and a discovery procedure for establishing elements and structures of language based on observed usage. The purpose of distributionalism was to provide a scientific basis for syntax as independent of meaning. Zellig Harris defined 'distribution' as follows.

“The DISTRIBUTION of an element is the total of all environments in which it occurs, i.e. the sum of all the (different) positions of an element relative to the occurrence of other elements[.]”

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 de Saussure, Ferdinand (1959) [1916]. Course in general linguistics (PDF). New York: Philosophy Library. ISBN   9780231157278.
  2. ↑ "Langue". Larousse Dictionnaire français. Larousse. Retrieved 2020-05-20. Système de signes vocaux, éventuellement graphiques, propre à une communauté d'individus, qui l'utilisent pour s'exprimer et communiquer entre eux : La langue française, anglaise.
  3. ↑ Darwin, Charles (1981) [1871]. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (PDF). Princeton University Press. pp. 59–61. ISBN   0-691-08278-2 . Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  4. ↑ Aronoff, Mark (2017). "Darwinism tested by the science of language". In Bowern; Horn; Zanuttini (eds.). On Looking into Words (and Beyond): Structures, Relations, Analyses. SUNY Press. pp. 443–456. ISBN   978-3-946234-92-0 . Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  5. ↑ Bybee, Joan L.; Beckner, Clay (2015). "Usage-Based theory". In Heine, Bernd; Narrog, Heiko (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. Oxford University Press. pp. 953–980. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199544004.013.0032.
  6. ↑ "Langue". Larousse Dictionnaire français. Larousse. Retrieved 2020-05-20. Système de signes vocaux, éventuellement graphiques, propre à une communauté d'individus, qui l'utilisent pour s'exprimer et communiquer entre eux : La langue française, anglaise.
  7. ↑ Staal, Frits (2003). "The science of language". In Flood, Gavin (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. Wiley. pp. 348–359. ISBN   9780470998694.
  8. 1 2 Seuren, Pieter A. M. (1998). Western linguistics: An historical introduction. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 160–167. ISBN   0-631-20891-7.
  9. ↑ Hjelmslev, Louis (1969) [First published 1943]. Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN   0299024709.
  10. ↑ Butler, Christopher S. (2003). Structure and Function: A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories, part 1 (PDF). John Benjamins. pp. 121–124. ISBN   9781588113580 . Retrieved 2020-01-19.
  11. ↑ Lightfoot, David W. (2002). "Introduction to the second edition of Syntactic Structures by Noam Chomsky". In Lightfoot, David W. (ed.). Syntactic Structures (second ed.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. v–xviii. ISBN   3110172798 . Retrieved 2020-02-26.
  12. ↑ Berwick, Robert C.; Chomsky, Noam (2015). Why Only Us: Language and Evolution. MIT Press. ISBN   9780262034241.
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