Structural linguistics

Structural linguistics is an approach to linguistics originating from the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and is part of the overall approach of structuralism. Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916, stressed examining language as a dynamic system of interconnected units. He is thus known as a father of modern linguistics for bringing about the shift from diachronic (historical) to synchronic (non-historical) analysis, although as a historical linguist he favoured both. He is also known for introducing several basic dimensions of semiotic analysis that are still important today. Two of these are his key methods of syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis,[1] which define units syntactically and lexically, respectively, according to their contrast with the other units in the system.

This article is about structuralism in humanistic linguistics. For structuralism in sociobiological linguistics, see evolutionary linguistics.
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History

Structural linguistics begins with the posthumous publication of Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics in 1916, which his students compiled from his lectures. The book proved to be highly influential, providing the foundation for both modern linguistics and semiotics. Structuralist linguistics is normally seen as giving rise to independent European and American traditions.

European structuralism

In Europe, Saussure influenced: (1) the Geneva School of Albert Sechehaye and Charles Bally, (2) the Prague School of Roman Jakobson and Nikolai Trubetzkoy, whose work would prove hugely influential, particularly concerning phonology, (3) the Copenhagen School of Louis Hjelmslev, and (4) the Paris School of Algirdas Julien Greimas.[2] Structural linguistics also had an influence on other disciplines of humanities bringing about the movement known as structuralism.

'American structuralism'

Some confusion[3][lower-alpha 1] is caused by the fact that an American school of linguistics of 1910s through 1950s, which was based on structural psychology, especially Wilhelm Wundt's Völkerpsychologie); and later on behavioural psychology,[4][lower-alpha 2] was nicknamed 'American structuralism'.[5] This framework was not structuralist in the sociological and Saussurean sense that it did not consider language as arising from the interaction of meaning and form. However, 'American structuralists' such as Leonard Bloomfield developed methods of formal synchronic analysis. The American linguist Charles Hockett also applied André Martinet's structural explanation to the emergence of grammatical complexity. Otherwise, there were unsolvable incompatibilities between the psychological and positivistic orientation of the Bloomfieldian school, and the semiotic orientation of the structuralists proper. In the generative or Chomskyan concept, a purported rejection of 'structuralism' usually refers to Noam Chomsky's opposition to the post-Bloomfieldian school, though he is also opposed to structuralism proper.[6][3]

Basic theories and methods

The foundation of structural linguistics is a sign, which in turn has two components: a "signified" is an idea or concept, while the "signifier" is a means of expressing the signified. The "sign" is thus the combined association of signifier and signified. Signs can be defined only by being placed in contrast with other signs, which forms the basis of what later became the paradigmatic dimension of semiotic organization (i.e., collections of terms/entities that stand in opposition). This idea contrasted drastically with the idea that signs can be examined in isolation from a language and stressed Saussure's point that linguistics must treat language synchronically.

Paradigmatic relations hold among sets of units that (in the early Saussurian renditions) exist in the mind, such as the set distinguished phonologically by variation in their initial sound cat, bat, hat, mat, fat, or the morphologically distinguished set ran, run, running. The units of a set must have something in common with one another, but they must contrast too, otherwise they could not be distinguished from each other and would collapse into a single unit, which could not constitute a set on its own, since a set always consists of more than one unit. Syntagmatic relations, in contrast, are concerned with how units, once selected from their paradigmatic sets of oppositions, are 'chained' together into structural wholes.

Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations provide the structural linguist with a tool for categorization for phonology, morphology and syntax. Take morphology, for example. The signs cat and cats are associated in the mind, producing an abstract paradigm of the word forms of cat. Comparing this with other paradigms of word forms, we can note that in the English language the plural often consists of little more than adding an S to the end of the word. Likewise, through paradigmatic and syntagmatic analysis, we can discover the syntax of sentences. For instance, contrasting the syntagma je dois ("I should") and dois je? ("Should I?") allows us to realize that in French we only have to invert the units to turn a statement into a question. We thus take syntagmatic evidence (difference in structural configurations) as indicators of paradigmatic relations (e.g., in the present case: questions vs. assertions). The most detailed account of the relationship between a paradigmatic organisation of language as a motivator and classifier for syntagmatic configurations is that set out in the systemic-network organization of systemic functional grammar, where paradigmatic relations and syntagmatic configurations each have their own separate formalisation, related by realization constraints.

Structural explanation
See also: Functional explanation

Structural explanation is derived from sociologist Émile Durkheim's humanistic modification of Herbert Spencer's organic analogy. Durkheim compared society to an organism which has structures (organs) that carry out different functions. In his structural explanation, growth of complexity necessitates systemic diversification.[7]

Although Saussure likewise made use of the organic analogy, it was diminished in later structural linguistics. A more Saussurean approach to structural explanation in linguistics, similarly to social science, relates verbal actions to a system of norms: the rules of a language which are collectively represented in the speech community. These norms are internatlised by the individual in the process of socialisation and become part of his or her unconscious knowledge.[8]

Compositional and combinatorial language
See also: Double articulation

According to André Martinet's concept of double articulation, language is a double-levelled or doubly articulated system. In this context, 'articulation' means 'joining'. The first level of articulation involves minimally meaningful units (monemes: words or morphemes), while the second level consists of minimally distinct non-signifying units (phonemes). Because of double articulation, it is possible to make all necessary words of a language with a couple dozen phonic units. Meaning emerges from combinations of the non-meaningful units.[9] The organisation of language into hierarchical inventories makes highly complex and therefore highly useful language possible:

"We might imagine a system of communication in which a special cry would correspond to each given situations and these facts of experience, it will be clear that if such a system were to serve the same purpose as our languages, it would have to comprise so large a number of distinct signs that the memory of man would be incapable of storing it. A few thousand of such units as tête, mal, ai, la, freely combinable, enable us to communicate more things than could be done by millions of unarticulated cries."[10]

Louis Hjelmslev's conception includes even more levels: phoneme, morpheme, lexeme, phrase, sentence and discourse. Building on the smallest meaningful and non-meaningful elements, glossemes, it is possible to generate an infinite number of productions:

"When we compare the inventories yielded at the various stages of the deduction, their size will usually turn out to decrease as the procedure goes on. If the text is unrestricted, i.e., capable of being prolonged through constant addition of further parts … it will be possible to register an unrestricted number of sentences."[11]

These notions are a continuation in a humanistic tradition which considers language as a human invention. A similar idea is found in Port-Royal Grammar:

"It remains for us to examine the spiritual element of speech ... this marvelous invention of composing from twenty-five or thirty sounds an infinite variety of words, which, although not having any resemblance in themselves to that which passes through our minds, nevertheless do not fail to reveal to others all of the secrets of the mind, and to make intelligible to others who cannot penetrate into the mind all that we conceive and all of the diverse movements of our souls."[12]

Interaction of meaning and form
See also: Binary opposition and Markedness

Another way to approach structural explanation is from Saussure's concept of semiology (semiotics). Language is considered as arising from the interaction of form and meaning. Saussure's concept of the bilateral sign (signifier – signified) entails that the conceptual system is distinct from from physical reality. For example, the spoken sign 'cat' is an association between the combination of the sounds [k], [æ] and [t] and the concept of a cat, rather than with its referent (an actual cat). Language is thus considered a fully abstract system where each item in the conceptual inventory is associated with an expression; and these two levels define, organise and restrict each other.[13]

Key concepts of the organisation of the phonemic versus the semantic system are those of opposition and distinctiveness. Each phoneme is distinct from other phonemes of the phonological system of a given language. The concepts of distinctiveness and markedness were successfully used by the Prague Linguistic Circle to explain the phonemic organisation of languages, laying a ground for modern phonology as the study of the sound systems of languages.[14]

Likewise, each concept is distinct from all others in the conceptual system, and is defined in opposition with other concepts. Louis Hjelmslev laid the foundation of structural semantics with his idea that the content-level of language has a structure analogous to the level of expression.[15] Structural explanation in the sense of how language shapes our understanding of the world has been widely used by the post-structuralists.[16]

Structural linguist Lucien Tesnière, who invented dependency grammar, considered the relationship between meaning and form as conflicting due to a mathematical difference in how syntactic and semantic structure is organised. He used his concept of antinomy between syntax and semantics to elucidate the concept of a language as a solution to the communication problem. From his perspective, the two-dimensional semantic dependency structure is necessarily forced into one-dimensional (linear) form. This causes the meaningful semantic arrangement to break into a largely arbitrary word ordering.[17]

Recent perceptions of structuralism

Those working in the generativist tradition often regard Structuralist approaches as outdated and superseded. For example, Mitchell Marcus writes that structural linguistics was "fundamentally inadequate to process the full range of natural language".[18] Holland[19] writes that Chomsky had "decisively refuted Saussure". Similar views have been expressed by Jan Koster,[20] Mark Turner,[21] and other advocates of sociobiology.[22][23]

Others however stress the continuing importance of Saussure's thought and Structuralist approaches. In 2012, Gilbert Lazard dismissed the Chomskyan approach as passé while applauding a return to Saussurrean structuralism as the only course by which linguistics can become more scientific.[24] Matthews (2001) notes the existence of many "linguists who are structuralists by many of the definitions that have been proposed, but who would themselves vigorously deny that they are anything of the kind", suggesting a persistence of the structuralist paradigm.[25]

Effect of structuralist linguistics upon other disciplines

In the 1950s Saussure's ideas were appropriated by several prominent figures in Continental philosophy, anthropology, and from there were borrowed in literary theory, where they are used to interpret novels and other texts. However, several critics have charged that Saussure's ideas have been misunderstood or deliberately distorted by continental philosophers and literary theorists and are certainly not directly applicable to the textual level, which Saussure himself would have firmly placed within parole and so not amenable to his theoretical constructs.[26][27]

Modern guidebooks of structural (formal and functional) analysis
  • Roland Schäfer, 2016. Einführung in die grammatische Beschreibung des Deutschen (2nd ed.). Berlin: Language Science Press. ISBN 978-1-537504-95-7
  • Emma Pavey, 2010. The Structure of Language: An Introduction to Grammatical Analysis. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511777929
  • Kees Hengeveld & Lachlan MacKenzie, 2008. Functional Discourse Grammar: A Typologically-Based Theory of Language Structure. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199278107
  • M.A.K. Halliday, 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 3rd edition, revised by Christian Matthiessen. London: Hodder Arnold.ISBN 978 0 340 76167 0

Notes
  1. p. 6: "There was a second misunderstanding. Chomsky's criticism did not address European structuralism. It focused on American structuralism, represented by Leonard Bloomfield and his "distributionist" or Yale School, the dominant form of linguistics in the United States in the fifties. Bloomfield drew his inspiration from behavioral psychology, and considered that it was enough to describe the mechanism of language, to underscore its regularities."
  2. Seuren 2006: "The prime mover, in this respect, was Leonard Bloomfield (1887–1949), who drew his inspiration mainly from the German philosopher-psychologist Wilhelm Wundt ... Wundt proposed that both psychological and linguistic structures should be analyzed according to the principle of ... tree structure or immediate constituent analysis. ... In the early 1920s Bloomfield turned away from Wundtian psychology and embraced the then brand new ideology of behaviorism. Yet the Wundtian notion of constituent structure remained and even became more and more central to Bloomfield’s thinking about language. It is the central notion in the theory of grammar presented in the chapters 10 to 16 of his (1933)."

References
  1. de Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Open Court House.
  2. Chapman, Siobhan; Routledge, Christopher, eds. (2005). "Algirdas Greimas". Key Thinkers in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language. Oxford University Press. p. 107.
  3. Dosse, François (1997) [First published 1992]. History of Structuralism, Vol.2: The Sign Sets, 1967- Present; translated by Edborah Glassman (PDF). University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-2239-6.
  4. Seuren, Pieter (2008). "Early formalization tendencies in 20th-century American linguistics". In Auroux, Sylvain (ed.). History of the Language Sciences: An International Handbook on the Evolution of the Study of Language from the Beginnings to the Present. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 2026–2034. ISBN 9783110199826. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  5. Blevins, James P. (2013). "American descriptivism ('structuralism')". In Allan, Keith (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585847.013.0019.
  6. Bricmont, Jean; Franck, Julie (2010). Bricmont, Jean; Franck, Julie (eds.). Chomsky Notebook. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231144759.
  7. Hejl, P. M. (2013). "The importance of the concepts of "organism" and "evolution" in Emile Durkheim's division of social labor and the influence of Herbert Spencer". In Maasen, Sabine; Mendelsohn, E.; Weingart, P. (eds.). Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors. Springer. pp. 155–191. ISBN 9789401106733.
  8. Culler, Jonathan D. (1980). The pursuit of signs: Semiotics, literature, deconstruction. Routledge. ISBN 978-0801487934.
  9. Buckland, Warren (2014). "Semiotics of film". In Branigan, Edward; Buckland, Warren (eds.). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory. Routledge. pp. 425–429. ISBN 9781138849150.
  10. Martinet, André (1964). Elements of General Linguistics. Translated by Palmer, Elisabeth. Faber and Faber. ISBN 9780571090792.
  11. Hjelmslev, Louis (1971) [1943]. Prolégomènes à une théorie du langage. Paris: Les éditions de minuit. p. 27. ISBN 2707301345. Nous exigeons par exemple de la théorie du langage qu’elle permettre de décrire non contradictoirement et exhaustivement non seulement tel texte français donné, mais aussi tous les textes français existant, et non seulement ceux-ci mais encore tous les textes français possibles et concevables
  12. Arnauld, Antoine; Lancelot, Claude (1975) [1660]. The Port-Royal Grammar. Translated by Rieux, Jacques; Rollin, Bernard E. Mouton. ISBN 902793004X.
  13. de Saussure, Ferdinand (1959) [First published 1916]. Course in general linguistics (PDF). New York: Philosophy Library. ISBN 9780231157278.
  14. Dosse, François (1997) [First published 1992]. History of Structuralism, Vol.2: The Sign Sets, 1967- Present; translated by Edborah Glassman (PDF). University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-2239-6.
  15. Coșeriu, Eugenio; Geckeler, Horst (1981). Trends in Structural Semantics. Narr Verlag. ISBN 9783878081586.
  16. Williams, James (2005). Understanding Poststructuralism. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781844650330.
  17. Tesnière, Lucien (1959). Éléments de syntaxe structurale. Klincksieck.
  18. Marcus, Mitchell (1984). "Some Inadequate Theories of Human Language Processing". In Bever, Thomas G.; Carroll, John M.; Miller, Lance A. (eds.). Talking Minds: The Study of Language in Cognitive Science. Cambridge MA: MIT P. pp. 253–277.
  19. Holland, Norman N. (1992). The Critical I. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-07650-9.
  20. "Saussure, considered the most important linguist of the century in Europe until the 1950s, hardly plays a role in current theoretical thinking about language," Koster, Jan. (1996) "Saussure meets the brain", in R. Jonkers, E. Kaan, J. K. Wiegel, eds., Language and Cognition 5. Yearbook 1992 of the Research Group for Linguistic Theory and Knowledge Representation of the University of Groningen, Groningen, pp. 115–120.
  21. Turner, Mark (1987). Death is the Mother of Beauty: Mind, Metaphor, Criticism. University of Chicago Press. p. 6.
  22. Fabb, Nigel (1988). "Saussure and literary theory: from the perspective of linguistics". Critical Quarterly. 30 (2): 58–72. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8705.1988.tb00303.x.
  23. Evans, Dylan (2005). "From Lacan to Darwin". In Gottschall, Jonathan; Wilson, David Sloan (eds.). The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. pp. 38–55.
  24. Lazard, Gilbert (2012). "The case for pure linguistics". Studies in Language. 36 (2): 241–259. doi:10.1075/sl.36.2.02laz.
  25. Matthews, Peter (2001). A Short History of Structural Linguistics. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  26. Tallis, Raymond (1995) [First published 1988]. Not Saussure: A Critique of Post-Saussurean Literary Theory (2nd ed.). Macmillan Press.
  27. Tallis, Raymond (1998). Theorrhoea and After. Macmillan.
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