Ferdinand de Saussure, Structuralism
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- Опубліковано 21 жов 2024
- Along with Marx and Freud, the most significant influences on contemporary literary theory come from scholars who have shaped our contemporaries' views of what language does. We have already looked at Martin Heidegger, the philosopher responsible for what is called the 'linguistic turn.'
But within the field of linguistics itself, it is Ferdinand de Saussure's General Course in Linguistics that has proved exceptionally influential on later writers and theorists. It is de Saussure's Structuralism that will form the basis of various cultural theories, including influences within the social sciences, e.g. sociology or anthropology, and it is in the perceived inadequacies of structuralism that the post-structuralism of the 1960s arises.
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could someone help me how I can like this video more than one time?
Open another UA-cam account! Lol
I was going to rage comment "this sht is boring" and stop the video but then i saw your comment and thought of being patient. And it turned out to be a really good video albeit monotonous.
But the professor is kinda being a cultural propagandist while simultaneously accusing some lizard leftist academics of same, bit ironic.
create mulitple accounts and like the video until youtube bans you for life.
Professors uploading their lectures for the public to listen to for free are the salt of the earth, thank you so much.
Excellent. Thankfully students are still taught by lecturers like Dr Mason.
Apologies **Dr Masson**
Brilliant as usual Dr Masson. Thank you for posting these lectures. I had not understood why I was feeling so uncomfortable with what I was being taught at university and with what I was reading in academic literature. I am now beginning to understand through listening to your lectures and hope to be able to form cogent arguments when discussing these matters. Your work is essential.
I’d love to follow along with the course but I can’t tell what video I should watch next! You mention concepts you’ll discussion more in depth that I’m very interested in, such as ahumanism and the relationship to nature and how we get environmentalism
I am teaching the course right now. Follow along.
Greetings from Brazil! Bravo!! What a lecture! Your lucidity shines.
I like it when he said : Adam called her Eve (eve means the mother of all living ) because it's the reflection of who she is, so it's not just a naming process it's a signifying process..!! 🥰🥰 woooow , im in love 😍
So glad I found this lecture. They tried to teach me this material in school, and I just got frustrated, because I could tell they had so many things wrong with their beliefs, but I had no background with which to explain the problems, so I sort of gave up on learning any more about the subject. It’s occurred to me many times that these early texts in linguistics were responsible for countless incorrect ideas, and now I can see how one would criticize it accurately.
One minor detail I would correct is that “digital” systems and machines are technically base 10 systems and machines, meaning they work according to the digits, the fingers. However, “digital” came to be used as a synonym for “discrete”, as it was used in contrast to “analog” circuits, which operate on a continuum of voltage. At first, electronic computers were made of analog components which could mimic digital components, to produce a computer made of analog circuits. Digital circuits are most reliable when they are binary, because errors can be made lowest that way. But in truth, circuits do not have to be binary to be digital. Once Bell Labs came out with transistors, nobody messed with anything but binary any more. But “digital” is technically not the same thing as binary.
A helpful point. Thanks.
sounds to me like you had made up your mind from the beginning and weren't willing to engage with the material.
@@Bestmann3n Exactly. This professor got so many things wrong. I doubt he's even read A Course in General Linguistics. He's just pandering nonsense to Christian Fundamentalists.
I want to thank you. This video teached me what I haven't learned in years.
taught
Thank you professor for uploading these videos. I know how much hard work it takes to put these up. Even in our country (or mostly in countries like us), this fanaticism for post-structuralist movements is as crazy as it gets. Currently, (especially for us in the fields of Art Studies) they don't even bother to talk about Augustin or Plato/Aristotle in courses like Form and Meaning. They just start from Saussure and Semiotics and right away only to get to French Post-Structuralists such as Derrida among others. It's getting rather annoying. For students like me who do appreciate classic art and people like T.S.Elliot, these classes are an absolute pain especially when we cannot approach them critically. Thank you once again from Iran.
Beginning with Saussure and semiotics is absurd.
Amir goshtasbi Hi! Plz ,i need your help Can u give me your fb account or something...?!
Currently in Uni right now as an English major. We’re being heavily washed in Structuralism at the moment. You’re videos have been hitting the nail on the head for me. Thank you so much! Always wonderful to hear a voice of reason in the field of Literature. Question: I have a plan to use my degree to teach. Do you find it difficult to hold the views you do and teach the subject you do in today’s academic climate?
It’s a narrowing window of opportunity. Only private institutions allow for diversity of thought.
One wonders how long before the public system collapses though because it renders people incapable of rational thought.
enlightening as always 💌
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:25 🌐 *Structuralism, the foundation for post-structuralism, is explored in the context of Ferdinand de Saussure's influence on literary theory post-1960s.*
01:57 📚 *Saussure's influence on literary theory, despite being less known than Marx or Freud, is specifically tied to the system of language, distinguishing him as a literary thinker.*
03:30 🤝 *Saussure shares common ground with key 20th-century thinkers, emphasizing the importance of language structure in explaining phenomena, similar to Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and others.*
05:23 💬 *Saussure's theory asserts that signs in language are arbitrary, meaning there's no inherent connection between the signifier (word) and the signified (concept), emphasizing the role of human will in language.*
08:23 🏛️ *Saussure's theoretical impact extends beyond linguistics, influencing diverse disciplines such as literature, biblical studies, education, psychology, and history, highlighting its practical influence in shaping contemporary literary theory.*
28:58 🗣️ *Language, according to Saussure, doesn't name pre-existing entities but functions as a system of differences, emphasizing convention over independent meaning.*
31:06 🌐 *Different languages use unique signifiers and approach the phenomenal world differently, leading to concepts that may be untranslatable between languages.*
39:15 🌈 *Saussure's view of language involves a continuum of signifiers, like colors on a spectrum, suggesting that language conventions are arbitrary and not rooted in a natural order.*
43:09 ⚖️ *The binary nature of language, with concepts like male/female, day/night, leads to a power dynamic where the dominant is considered essential, and the opposite is seen as a negation without inherent value.*
51:26 📚 *Saussure's linguistic theory challenges the idea that language can convey true things about reality, suggesting that language is a play of signifiers without a transcendental signified, influencing modern philosophies and issues like political correctness.*
56:45 📚 *The word of the year is "they," reflecting the use of the plural form for a singular subject, a trend present since the 1980s in politically correct speech.*
57:51 📈 *The selection of the word of the year by lexicographers is based on popularity and usage trends rather than scientific accuracy or truthfulness.*
58:58 🔄 *Ferdinand de Saussure's focus on synchronic language use, emphasizing the present context over diachronic historical perspectives, is discussed.*
01:00:13 🔤 *The binary model, crucial in postmodern literary theory, involves syntagmatic (linear relationships within a sentence) and paradigmatic (interchangeable elements) views, impacting language and thought.*
01:08:46 💻 *Claude Levi-Strauss's structural anthropology, rooted in semiology, introduces the binary of human vs. nonhuman, influencing environmental movements' views on nature and culture.*
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Very enlightening and refreshing lecture. I’m not sure I understand the difference between synecdoche and metonymy. Is the former a specific part (like “hands” for a ship’s crew) and the latter a descriptor of something else?(like depths for the sea or wild blue yonder for sky)
They are very similar.
Synecdoche refers to a figure of speech in which the word for a part of something is used to refer to the thing itself (as “hired hand” for “worker”).
In metonymy, a word that is associated with something is used to refer to that thing (as when “crown” is used to mean "king" or "queen"), or “hired guns” for mercenaries.
@@LitProf Thank you, I get that now. One other comment I wanted to make was on Sasseur et al and the idea that words only refer to other words, not reality itself (I may be paraphrasing badly, but that's how I distilled it).
However if we go back to the beginnings of speech in humans (roughly 20000 years ago I believe), when we moved beyond gestures to clicking sounds and then to sounds using vowels and consonants and the formation of the first real words, whatever they were, it seems clear enough that words developed in order to communicate to each other about things in the environment. If the first word was 'tuk', let's say, referring to a tiger, then it's clear that humans intended 'signifiers' to represent 'the signified' in their immediate and very real world. Beyond naming things, they needed to identify constants in their world, to warn each other, to organize hunts, and various other reasons for communication. Words would not begin to refer to other words or any abstract concepts for many millennia.
This is my understanding of it, anyway. Did Sasseur et al ever address this? And do you have an opinion on this?
Prof. Masson, I observed that you made the discussion of the concept of "arbitrary" complicated. Arbitrary can simply be defined as social convention, agreed upon by a community, man-made. Simple, you see.
The Latin word arbitrio refers to the will. My point is that the reality that Saussurean linguistics refers to is one that is willed rather than known. Words relate to words, not things.
@@LitProf just the same. But do you consider the signified another word instead of a concept? Anyway, that's the claim of Derrida and Barthes.
I know very well what they claim. They have what is akin to a nominalist view of language.
@@LitProf I don't believe in that. Libel is real, hehehe 😄
Brilliant. I really enjoyed the presentation Dr. Masson.
Regarding the definition of signifier and signified, the latter I understand (ie the concept, not an actual thing; thus, the concept of a 'tree' and not any particular type of tree), but I am still having trouble with the signifier. Does it mean the sound we hear, the letters we read, which point our mind to particular concepts (signified eg tree, chair, dog etc)?
Yes, anything that points to a mental concept
@@samuelkumar6254 so it means literally anything.
😆 🤣
Thank you professor for uploading such a beautiful content with complete detail.....amazing representation
Love you Sir, it is so enlightening
Thank you so much, Dr. Masson. Great class!
Early English the intimate "thou" was singular of "you." Language changes.
Interesting lecture. It gives me some context to the modern ideological phenomenon of assuming that the word "woman" has no relation to the biological reality of human females, and is instead referring to some nebulous notion of socially constructed gender identity, even though the etymology of woman and female don't really allow for that. Thank you for all of your lectures, Dr. Scott.
"Part of the perfection of existence is the existence of imperfection within it,since,were their no imperfection,the perfection of existence would be imperfect."
Ibn al Arabi (r,a)
Isn't that clever!
Focus on Saussure. Why do you need to mention Schopenhauer's Will when discussing the meaning of the arbitrariness of language? Language, as defined by Saussure, and the Will as explicated by Schopenhauer, are entirely different. Remember that Schopenhauer is a Kantian thinker who claimed to expound the noumenon of Kant. Kant asserted that the categories of thought are innate while Saussure stated that language in its general sense is a SOCIAL construction.
For the curious I think the Danish word Dr Masson referred to is Hygge
Yes, thank you. I couldn't recall the word during the lecture, but that's it.
In a similar way there is 'gezellig' in Dutch
Nice professor
Adam is signifier for all man and the name of different people is signified because when you specify the person by name you get it about signified...what i assume
Such wonderful content!
How does this line of thinking not collapse on itself? If language cannot say true things (51 min mark), then is that true? Is it just that the person holding the view doesn't think it through? Earlier this year, Hannah Nicole Jones responded to an article by the man who opposed her tenure by saying his words amounted to nothing more than a power grab. Yet her own articles were not?
I don’t know about the specifics of that case (though recall reading something about it) but I think people are consistently inconsistent.
They assert that others’ use of language is just a will to power, but their own is not.
What we lack is a common language and a common noumenal realm of reference.
@@LitProf the point of pomo degenerates is to NOT have a common point of reference and to continually move the goalposts.
The signified can be arbitrary since different people may imagine different types of trees.
That’s not what Saussure means by arbitrary, but essentially you are right. Post-structuralists will argue everything is arbitrary.
1:10:26 The reason philosophers don’t think about thinking is because all the philosophers who thought about thinking stopped being philosophers thereafter because when you think about thinking, thinking stops. Hence, all the philosophers that we know about are the ones who never stopped thinking. Had they thought about thinking, that would have been the end of their thinking
This is an odd comment.
Why is it that when you think about thinking, you suddenly stop thinking?
Can some one help me plz🥺
In the light of what you have already studied ( structuralism (euro/american), post Bloomfieldialism, try to criticize these theories. Also, try to put a suitable theory for language analysis.
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9:00 beginning
Thank u so much sir, can u please explain transformational grammar
If language has been observed to possess diachronic qualities, then why would the word 'they' changing in meaning be outside the realm of possibility or distress you so? You say you are outraged, but surely this is a natural thing for words to do. I understand that a word changing from representing something plural to something discrete being unusual, but language is meant to change? Because society changes, and there must be words which describe reality as it becomes and is and so because there are enough visible non-binary, trans, etc people occupying a space in the collective consciousness language has adapted to reflect this fact and they word 'they' has grown another meaning in this context. I am not saying it is a perfect solution, I am just confused as to why you would be outraged language doing what language does- following the strongest will of the people, speaking their reality into existence.
Words clearly do change. But language is the property of all mankind, reflects its uses, and also reflects certain unchanging metaphysical realities.
Also, if words only signify what we mean, how is truth possible? It isn't. But since I am quite certain that it is, this theory of language won't do.
Guys, we can all rest assured that truth exists because Dr Scott Masson is pretty certain truth exists.
Solid rhetoric there doc. Nothing arbitrary about that position, nope, no way.
Your argument is literally 'but much society changes muh.'
That's it. That's all. It's always the same.
@@addammadd human beings need water and oxygen to survive.
Truth? Yes or No.
After this he taught Adam the names of all things. Then He set these before the angels and asked, "Tell Me the names of these things, if you are right (in thinking that the appointment of a vicegerent will cause disorder)".
Quran 2:31
Nomenclature is the means by which human mind grasps the knowledge of things. Hence, the whole information of man, in fact, consists of assigning names. for things. Thus, teaching Adam the names of all things was meant to impart their knowledge to him."
Where i can read more about what you point as the (bad)core of the binary structure of the language, as Culture x Nature, for instance ? That book Ideas Have Consequences goes further on that?
No, Ideas Have Consequences makes a very broad case about Western culture since the Middle Ages. It is a clash between realism and nominalism.
I have suggested that the new form of lingustics entails a sort of nominalism based on Saussure's idea of the way in which language works through binaries. But there is a significant difference between Saussure and even the Nominalists of the Middle Ages.
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I have been following your lectures for a long time, and not one single time did you cease to amaze me. I laughed out loud when you said the pronoun "they" offended you 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. I am too frustrated with the political correctness/innocuous movement. I am an arduous follower of Jordan Peterson, Harold Bloom, and C.S. Lewis. I wish I could pursue Ph.D. under your invaluable guidance at Tyndale. Does Tyndale take foreign postgrad from India?
I was hoping to learn about Saussure, but instead this is a bunch of ideological polemics and critique (conveniently framed as "consequences") which muddy actually understanding the material. Maybe the second half of this talk presents Saussure's actual ideas from his own perspective, but I wouldn't really trust it's objectivity at this point. I get the sense this guy doesn't actually want to teach this material and so has to qualify anything Saussure thought in order to protect the fragile students from possibly being effected by it.
The lectures are not standalone.
There is a connection made between lectures already given, and those which will come. Your criticism seems valid if the intent were only to explicate Saussure. But in truth, Saussure is most important (to my mind) for his influence on later theories, and in discussing how his theory of language departs from historical views.
Your comment is actually an ideological polemic. an amateur one, but still . . .
How I got here, I asked. How do we know words mean what they say they mean
Thnk you sir for great lecture
♥
12:08 Kant and Locke
15:20 words can't grab the essence of the reality
17:47 sign = arbitrary
22:05 Saussure suggest that words are connected to other signs
28:21 Cannot thought outside of words
30:32 Phenomenal world appears different in each language
02:24 Los estructruralistas
09:45 Sign
1:00:00
just what i needed. ;)
Funny how John introduced Jesus in association with Language. "In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God...... And the word became flesh"
As if whole of existence depends on a medium (language) and that source was god itself and that became flesh. What a way to give an introduction oh man.
(Language is the house of beings) ( Lacan's psychoanalysis, subjectivity is only made possible by entering into the language after the "mirror stage")
As if John knew that whole of existence was contained in him(jesus)
Just a funny thought I had I'm sorry this has nothing to do with the lecture.
.it is the concept of maya in hinduism.
levi strauss
heidiger
intellectual digestion of hindu concepts.
Fascinating
prog circle
Ferdinand de Saussure studied in depth the Panini grammar in Sanskrit and came up with all these theories of structuralism...which were published by his students post his death.....no credit just intellectual digestion 😆👎🏽
Yes, the book is based on his students' notes.