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THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND SUBJECTIVITY 187

The arbitrary nature of the sign in Saussure’s theory
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In the Course in General Linguistics Saussure’s principle of the arbitrary nature
of the sign has two important implications. First, the ‘identity’ of the sign is
relatively independent of its material conditions. The ‘Geneva to Paris express’,
for example, does not refer to one fixed locomotive and one set of carriages but
to any train located within, and defined by, certain conditions which make it the
‘Geneva to Paris’ express. The sign ‘does not constitute a purely material entity,
it is based on certain conditions that are distinct from the materials that fit the
conditions…. Still, the entities are not abstract since we cannot conceive of…a
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train outside its material realization’. The linguistic sign does not refer to the
material entity as such but to the ‘concept’ of that entity. The second implication
of the principle of arbitrariness refers to the internal structure of the sign itself.
There is no natural, a priori connection between the concept (signified) and the
sound image associated with it (signifier). Saussure sometimes refers to this as
the ‘unmotivated’ character of the signifier: ‘I mean that it is unmotivated, i.e.
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arbitrary, in that it actually has no natural connection with the signified’. Thus
the linguistic sign does not simply ‘reflect’ (or ‘refract’) reality. According to the
principle of arbitrariness, it formulates a ‘concept’—a ‘signified’—which is
itself complexly articulated with a particular sound image (signifier).
However, there are several theoretical difficulties implicit in making the
principle of the arbitrary nature of the sign the starting-point for a general theory
of language. First, it is not clear how ‘meanings’ are established within language.
Saussure himself recognizes this problem, which he defines as the ‘limiting of
arbitrariness’— for, as he puts it, ‘the irrational principle of the arbitrariness of
the sign…would lead to the worst sort of complication if applied without
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restriction’. It is to avoid the confusion of purely arbitrary associations that
Saussure attempts to introduce some regularity to his system. In his attempt to
resolve the problem of arbitrariness Saussure concentrates his attention entirely
on the internal composition of the sign, ignoring the question of the relation of
language to its material conditions of existence. He suggests that the arbitrariness
of the sign is qualified by the language system through the links which are made
between differential chains of concepts and sounds. These links, which Saussure
visualizes as a series of vertical cuts in a ‘signifying chain’, produce
‘combinations’ between signifiers and signifieds, which take on ‘values’ as
positive terms. Thus:

when we consider the sign in its totality…we have something that is
positive in its own class. A linguistic system is a series of differences of
sound combined with differences of ideas, but the pairing of a certain
number of acoustical signs with as many cuts made from the mass of
thought engenders a system of values, and this system serves as the
effective link between the phonic and the psychological elements within
each sign. Although both the signified and the signifier are purely