Ferdinand de Saussure, whose biography will be the subject of our article, is a Swiss linguist whose work holds a special place in the history of science. He is considered the founding father of structural linguistics. His writings also laid the foundation for such a discipline as semiotics. Without the ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure, modern linguistics would hardly have been possible. Such a philosophical movement as structuralism owes its birth to him.
Biography
Ferdinand de Saussure was born in 1857 in Geneva. His family belonged to the scientific environment. The grandfather of the future genius of linguistics, Nikola-Theodore, was a chemist and botanist, and another of his ancestors, Horace Benedict, was the second person to climb Mont Blanc. The scientist's father, Henri, was an entomologist. Ferdinand had two brothers - Leopold and Rene. The latter became a leader and promoter of the Esperanto language. Ferdinand had two children - Raymond and Jacques. howat least the first of them later became famous as a doctor and psychoanalyst. Ferdinand de Saussure himself showed amazing abilities even in his early years. At the age of 14 he learned Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. He was educated at the Universities of Geneva, Leipzig and Berlin. He received his doctorate in 1880. Lived and taught in Paris. The famous linguist died in 1913. Buried at Vuflans-le-Château, Switzerland.
Early activities
Ferdinand de Saussure became famous for the work he wrote as a young man. It is dedicated to the vowel system in Indo-European languages. Even then, this work caused an ambiguous reaction and controversy among scientists. This dissertation suggests that the modern languages of Indo-European origin have some progenitor. There were vowels that are now lost. Only traces of them have survived. The scientist even described these disappeared sounds in his study. Interestingly, Saussure's hypothesis was only confirmed many years after his death, when Hittite linguists discovered the vowel he had predicted.
Ferdinand de Saussure: "language" and "speech"
During his lifetime, the scientist did not publish a single book. All of them were published later. He wrote lecture courses, introducing students to all his discoveries. The main work of the researcher is the work "Course of General Linguistics". The lectures of the scientist were used there, as well as his conversations with future publishers. chiefthe thesis of this work is the separation of such terms as "language" and "speech". The linguist came to the conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish the rules of grammar from the use of words and phrases by people in specific situations. He called the first "language" and the second "speech". Theory and rules - this is the subject of study of linguistics. It gives an adequate description of the language, as well as the elements and structures of which it is composed. But speech, that is, how different people use words, can be very unexpected and creative, breaking all the rules. In the era when the scientist lived, this discovery was so revolutionary that it caused a whole scandal in science, although in our time such a distinction is taken for granted.
Semiotics
Ferdinand de Saussure is also the author of the theory of language as a system of signs that define social life. He called this new science semiology. However, this term did not catch on. Now this direction in linguistics is called semiotics. The scientist set out to find out what exactly distinguishes the language from other sign systems. Thus, one can find the place of linguistics among other sciences, as well as discover the connections between them. From Saussure's point of view, the sign of a language consists of a sound image and a concept. The first is the signifier. It carries the material basis of the language, its form, accessible to our perception. The second is the signified, that is, the essence of the sign symbol, the meaning. The unity between these elements is called the linguistic entity. They can be differentiated from each other. Each individual concept is a linguistic unit. Together they form a systemmeanings and values. This is how you can characterize the language as a whole. Saussure also proposed a methodology for linguistic research. He divided it into synchronic and diachronic. In the first case, we are dealing with comparative linguistics, and in the second, with the historical method of learning a language. Both aspects are very important. They help to clarify the structure and evolution of the language.
Legacy
If during the life of a scientist his ideas were rejected, now not only any linguist, but also a philosopher knows who Ferdinand de Saussure is. Photos of the linguist adorn textbooks for universities and special monographs dedicated to his work. And this is not surprising. After all, the ideas of Saussure made many thinkers think about what signs are, what is their role in society and in the formation of our consciousness. His theories inspired such famous philosophers as Charles Peirce and Edmund Husserl. And the scientist's approach to the problems of language served as the methodological basis of another humanitarian direction - structuralism. Its supporters considered that, following the example of linguistics, philosophy could use the concept of theoretical models that determine the form and system of the object being studied. These structures operate subconsciously and are more important than the behavior of their individual elements.
