Page 66 - Decoding Culture

E N TER STRUCTURALISM 59

linear fashion: words in a sentence, say, or sounds constituting a
signifier. Associative relations, on the other hand, exist not
between units linked in linear sequences in the here-and-now but
between units which are connected by 'mental association' and
which are, thereby, made available for use in particular syntag­
mas. Saussure uses a building metaphor to enlarge upon his
distinction. 'A column is related in a certain way to the architrave
it supports. This disposition, involving two units co-present in
space, is comparable to a syntagmatic relation. On the other hand,
if the column is Doric, it will evoke mental comparison with the
other architectural orders (Ionic, Corinthian, etc.) which are not in
this instance spatially co-present. This relation is associative' (ibid:
122) . It is this latter which is now more commonly referred to as a
paradigmatic relation.
It is tempting to map the syntagmatic/paradigmatic distinction
on to that between langue and parole, seeing syntagmatic relations
as typically those of speech and paradigmatic relations as those of
the structuring system of langue. However, as Saussure points out,
although a sentence is definitively a syntagma, syntagmatic rela­
tions do not as such belong to the domain of speech. The
conventions which are operative in both syntagmatic and paradig­
matic relations are elements of langue serving to define the nature
of permissible sequencing and the array of elements available to
the language user. The analytic boundary between langue and
parole, therefore, does not coincide with that between paradig­
matic and syntagmatic. Like all Saussure's binary distinctions, that
between paradigmatic and syntagmatic is an analytic abstraction
designed to simplify and thus comprehend a more complex reality .
There remains one further key distinction in the Saussurian
lexicon. Looming over Saussure's entire project is his differentia­
tion between synchronic and diachronic linguistics. It is the former
which takes precedence in his work, concerned, as it is, with

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