Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand Mongin de Saussurewas a Swiss linguist and semiotician. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments both in linguistics and semiology in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the founders of 20th-century linguistics and one of two major foundersof semiotics/semiology...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth26 November 1857
CountrySwitzerland
speech sides individual
Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.
views language obscure
Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.
connections arbitrary
The connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.
law reason-why language
Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law
cold-hearted serious paradox
I’m almost never serious, and I’m always too serious. Too deep, too shallow. Too sensitive, too cold hearted. I’m like a collection of paradoxes.