Return to Saussure

Abstract Shifters such as I , here , and now have often been regarded as a special challenge to structural linguistics because their interpretation depends upon the circumstances of utterance. Roman Jakobson and Émile Benveniste used these expressions to draw attention to dimensions of language that cannot be explained solely through the internal relations of the linguistic system. This article revisits the problem from a Saussurean perspective. Returning to Saussure’s reflections on identity, value, and difference, it argues that the fundamental question is not why certain signs shift, but how any linguistic sign remains identifiable across multiple acts of speech. From this perspective, shifters do not contradict the Saussurean conception of language. Rather, they reveal, in a particularly visible form, a condition that affects all linguistic signs: identity is not secured by material continuity or fixed reference but emerges from a system of relations. Shifters and Linguistic I...

More than half a century after its publication, Barthes's formula the death of the author continues to circulate far beyond the context in which it first appeared. It has become one of those rare theoretical expressions that seem to possess a life of their own. The phrase is quoted in classrooms, invoked in debates about interpretation, and cited whenever questions of authorship arise. Even those who have never read Barthes often recognize the title. Part of its success undoubtedly lies in its dramatic character. The phrase sounds radical. It evokes rupture, rebellion, and intellectual iconoclasm. It appears to announce the overthrow of one of the central figures of Western culture. The author, long regarded as the origin of meaning and the source of literary authority, is symbolically executed. The title possesses an almost theological resonance. One does not merely revise or qualify the author; one declares the author's death. It is therefore unsurprising that the phras...

Abstract: This article reexamines two of Ferdinand de Saussure's most contested decisions: the exclusion of writing from the internal study of la langue and the elevation of linguistics as the model for semiology. Both have frequently been interpreted as evidence of phonocentrism and of an unjustified privileging of language over other sign systems. Drawing on the Course in General Linguistics and related materials, the article argues that these readings overlook the methodological context in which Saussure was attempting to constitute linguistics as a scientific discipline. Writing occupies a position that is neither fully inside nor fully outside the linguistic object, while linguistics becomes exemplary because the arbitrariness of the sign appears there in its purest form. The result is a more nuanced account of Saussure's project and its intellectual legacy. Writing, Semiology and the Object of Study  Every attempt to understand something begins by delimiting it. We de...