Page 60 - Decoding Culture

ENTER STRUCTURALISM 53

associati/s, for example, appropriately translated as 'associative rela­
tions', has mutated over the years into 'paradigmatic relations' as
part of a contrast pairing with 'syntagmatic'. However, such matters
of detail need not concern us here. I shall draw attention to them if
it becomes relevant, but compared to the task of adequately ren­
dering langue they are almost trivial.
Let us turn to the substance of Saussure's project. Like
Durkheim, his equally remarkable French contemporary in soci­
ology, Saussure was committed to science and to scientific method.
It is notable, therefore, that when he criticizes his comparative lin­
guistics predecessors it is because, in spite of their considerable
achievements, 'they did not manage to found a true science of lin­
guistics' (Saussure, 1983: 3, my emphasis). More specifically, they
failed to define precisely their topic of study. Many of the concepts
that Saussure introduces, and the key distinctions that he goes on
to make, relate first of all to distinguishing the proper subject
matter of scientific linguistics and, in due course, of the discipline
that he dubs 'semiology'. Nor is science for Saussure simply a
matter of systematic description� a characteristically nineteenth­
century form of inductive empiricism concerned to chart the
history and variety of languages in use. He has larger and more
abstract aims than that: 'to determine the forces operating perma­
nently and universally in all languages [toutes les langues], and to
formulate general laws which account for all particular linguistic
phenomena historically attested' (ibid: 6). To do so, he considers it
necessary to identify linguistics' proper object of study and it is
here that the first of Saussure's famous distinctions comes into
play - that between langue and parole.
The essence of this distinction lies in two aspects of the opera­
tion of language. Clearly, we speak. That is to say, as individuals we
articulate certain sequences of sounds over which, more or less,
we have control. This speech has a material existence in time and,

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