Page 67 - Decoding Culture

60 DECODING CULTURE
charting the 'logical and psychological connexions between co­
existing items constituting a system, as perceived by the same
]
collective consciousness [conscience collective ' (ibid: 98). In syn­
chronic linguistics we seek to understand the fundamental
workings of langue. In diachronic linguistics, by contrast, it is not
the character of langue itself which is the topic, but the events
which change it over time. Such change comes about through
speech, or, rather, as a consequence of the freedom which speech
has to improvise and imitate in ways that can change usage. By its
very nature, for Saussure, this does not constitute a system in the
same way that the systematicity of language can be synchronically
understood. It is an application of individual agency rather than col­
lective structure, and although Part Three of the Cours is devoted
to diachronic linguistics, the main emphasis in Saussure's work is
on the task of synchronic understanding. Thus, although he does
have observations to make on the evolution of language, and on
questions of etymology and geographical variation, the primary
focus of his theory - as it will be the structuralism that he
inspires - is on systematic and scientific comprehension of the
state of langue at a given moment in whatever semiological system
forms the focus. That is Saussure's central goal.

Structuralism and cultural studies

So far, we have isolated the major elements in Saussure's thinking
which formed a framework for the development of structuralism
and, in turn, deeply influenced cultural studies. The key distinc­
tions between langue and parole, signifier and signified,
paradigmatic and syntagmatic, and synchronic and diachronic,
along with his stress on the arbitrary character of the sign and the
relational concept of language, come together to form the

Copyrighted Material