Saussure, Jakobson and Derrida: Structuralism and the Metaphysics of Presence

 Introduction

The aim of this article is to provide a structured analysis of Derrida’s critique of structuralism, with a particular focus on his reading of Saussure through the lens of Roman Jakobson’s linguistic theory. The discussion will unfold in three main sections.

In the first part, the content of the section The Signifier and Truth from Derrida’s Of Grammatology will be presented as objectively as possible. This section is crucial to understanding Derrida’s deconstruction of the metaphysical presuppositions underlying Western linguistic and philosophical traditions, particularly the logocentric privileging of speech over writing.

The second part will explore the role of Roman Jakobson in shaping Derrida’s assessment of structuralism. Jakobson, as one of the leading figures of structural linguistics, provided an interpretation of Saussure’s linguistic model that played a significant role in Derrida’s critique. By analyzing Jakobson’s influence, this section will highlight how Derrida appropriated Jakobson’s ideas in his argument against the traditional opposition between signifier and signified.

Finally, the third part will reassess Jakobson’s reading of Saussure, identifying key misinterpretations that may have inadvertently influenced Derrida’s critique. It will be argued that some of Jakobson’s distortions—such as his conflation of Saussure’s sémiologie with Peircean semiotics and his mischaracterization of the nature of the linguistic sign—may have contributed to Derrida’s portrayal of Saussure as a thinker still entrenched in metaphysical assumptions. Understanding these misreadings will set the stage for a more nuanced evaluation of Saussure’s actual position and its implications for both structuralist and post-structuralist thought, a topic that will be further elaborated in a subsequent article.

Derrida’s General Critique of Logocentrism in Of Grammatology

Derrida’s project in Of Grammatology, particularly in the section The Signifier and Truth, undertakes a deconstruction of the Western logocentric and phonocentric tradition by tracing its metaphysical commitments throughout the history of linguistic and philosophical thought:

"Within this logos, the original and essential link to the phone has never been broken."

Derrida examines figures such as Aristotle, the Stoics, medieval Scholastics, Hegel, Husserl, and Saussure, demonstrating that despite apparent theoretical shifts, a common conceptual framework persists. Central to his critique is the structuralist theory of the sign, which he argues does not escape metaphysical presuppositions but rather reformulates the classical distinction between signum and signatum through the signifier-signified binary. To substantiate this claim, he cites Roman Jakobson:

"Every linguistic unit is bipartite and involves both aspects -one sensible and the other intelligible, or in other words, both the signans 'signifier' (Saussure's signifiant) and the signatum 'signified' (signifié). These two constituents of a linguistic sign (and of sign in general) necessarily suppose and require each other."

This bipartite structure, according to Derrida, remains embedded in the metaphysical tradition that privileges presence and conceptual immediacy. He challenges this tradition through his concept of arche-writing, a primordial textuality that underlies both speech and conventional writing, rejecting the notion that writing is merely secondary or derivative:

"…there is no linguistic sign before writing."

To emphasize this, Derrida notes:

"The exteriority of the signifier is the exteriority of writing in general."

By asserting that writing is the very condition of possibility for linguistic and conceptual structures, Derrida dismantles the notion of the transcendental signified—the idea that meaning is anchored in a final, stable presence beyond the play of signs. This critique extends to the privileging of speech within Western thought, a tendency Derrida identifies as phonocentrism. He argues that phonocentrism has been inextricably linked to logocentrism—the belief that meaning is directly present in speech:

"The essence of the phone would be immediately proximate to that which within 'thought' as logos relates to 'meaning,' produces it, receives it, speaks it, 'composes' it."

Derrida traces this phonocentric tendency back to Aristotle, who posited that spoken language is closer to thought, relegating writing to a mere external representation:

"In every case, the voice is closest to the signified, whether it is determined strictly as sense (thought or lived) or more loosely as thing. All signifiers, and first and foremost the written signifier, are derivative with regard to what would wed the voice indissolubly to the mind or to the thought of the signified sense, indeed to the thing itself."

He follows this trajectory through Hegel, for whom voice remains the privileged medium of ideality:

"The ear, on the contrary, perceives [vernimmt] the result of that interior vibration of material substance without placing itself in a practical relation toward the objects, a result by means of which it is no longer the material form [Gestalt] in its repose, but the first, more ideal activity of the soul itself which is manifested."

Similarly, in Husserl’s phenomenology, the assumption persists that consciousness is directly self-present in speech:

"What is said of sound in general is a fortiori valid for the phone by which, by virtue of hearing (understanding)-oneself-speak-an indissociable system-the subject affects itself and is related to itself in the element of ideality."

Saussure, in Derrida’s opinion, preserves this hierarchy by treating the signified as conceptually prior to the signifier:

"To this epoch belongs the difference between signified and signifier, or at least the strange separation of their 'parallelism,' and the exteriority, however extenuated, of the one to the other."

Derrida situates this within a broader metaphysical lineage that has consistently sought to ground meaning in presence—from Plato’s eidos and Aristotle’s ousia to Descartes’ cogito and Husserl’s notion of intentionality:

"Phonocentrism merges with the historical determination of the meaning of being in general as presence […] presence of the thing to the sight as eidos, presence as substance/ essence/ existence (ousia), temporal presence as point (stigme) of the now or of the moment (nun), the self-presence of the cogito, consciousness, subjectivity, the co-presence of the other and of the self, intersubjectivity as the intentional phenomenon of the ego, and so forth."

Even Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology, Derrida argues, remains entangled in this metaphysical closure, unable to fully escape the logocentric framework:

"To the extent that such a logocentrism is not totally absent from Heidegger's thought."

Derrida extends his critique further by linking the metaphysical distinction between signifier and signified to theological assumptions:

"The difference between signified and signifier belongs in a profound and implicit way to the totality of the great epoch covered by the history of metaphysics."

Derrida’s Engagement with Jakobson in The Signifier and Truth

A key element of Derrida’s analysis in The Signifier and Truth is his engagement with Roman Jakobson, whom he quotes at length:

"As modern structural thought has clearly realized, language is a system of signs and linguistics is part and parcel of the science of signs, or semiotics (Saussure's sémiologie). The mediaeval definition of sign-'aliquid stat pro aliquo' has been resurrected and put forward as still valid and productive. Thus the constitutive mark of any sign in general and of any linguistic sign in particular is its twofold character: every linguistic unit is bipartite and involves both aspects—one sensible and the other intelligible, or in other words, both the signans 'signifier' (Saussure's signifiant) and the signatum 'signified' (signifié). These two constituents of a linguistic sign (and of sign in general) necessarily suppose and require each other" (Jakobson, 1963, cited in Of Grammatology).

By citing Jakobson, Derrida underscores how structuralist thought, despite its methodological innovations, remains tied to the metaphysical assumptions of the Western tradition regarding the nature of the sign. Jakobson’s assertion that "linguistics is part and parcel of the science of signs, or semiotics (Saussure’s sémiologie)" highlights the continuity of a general theory of signs. Derrida seizes upon this to argue that structuralist linguistics, far from marking a radical departure, continues the same logic of presence and intelligibility that has structured Western metaphysics.

Jakobson’s claim that "The mediaeval definition of sign-'aliquid stat pro aliquo' has been resurrected and put forward as still valid and productive" serves as further evidence that Saussurean linguistics reformulates rather than rejects longstanding metaphysical commitments. The assumption that a sign must always stand for something else sustains the classical idea of a stable referent, reinforcing the logocentric hierarchy that Derrida seeks to deconstruct.

By adopting Jakobson’s analysis, Derrida believed he had exposed structuralism’s continuity with the metaphysical tradition, showing that even Saussurean linguistic theory remained entangled in the search for presence and stable meaning. This, he argued, ultimately challenged the very foundations of Western logocentrism—though his interpretation is not necessarily correct.

Reassessing Derrida’s Use of Jakobson: Possible Misreadings

Derrida’s reliance on Jakobson in his reading of Saussure is problematic, as Jakobson misrepresents key aspects of Saussure’s linguistic theory. A critical examination of Jakobson’s claims reveals several theoretical distortions that likely influenced Derrida’s portrayal of Saussure’s continuity within the Western metaphysical tradition.

First, Jakobson conflates Saussurean sémiologie with general semiotics, treating them as synonymous. This obscures a crucial distinction: Saussure’s sémiologie is an internalist system where linguistic signs exist solely in differential relations, whereas Peirce’s semiotics incorporates external referential dimensions. By collapsing these frameworks, Jakobson imposes an externalist reading onto Saussure’s theory, distorting its anti-referentialist stance and its focus on the autonomy of the linguistic system.

Second, Jakobson misinterprets Saussure’s concept of the linguistic sign. He presents the signifier and signified as materially distinct, whereas Saussure explicitly defines both as psychological entities. The signifier is not a physical sound but a mental imprint of sound, just as the signified is a conceptual rather than referential entity. Jakobson’s framing reintroduces a nomenclaturist perspective that Saussure sought to dismantle, reducing signification to a fixed correspondence rather than a relational system of differences.

Additionally, Jakobson overgeneralizes the principle that the signifier and signified “necessarily suppose and require each other,” extending it to all sign systems. While this holds for linguistic signs in Saussure’s model, it does not apply universally—Peircean indices and icons, for instance, do not operate under the same structural necessity. Jakobson’s universalization erases distinctions between linguistic and non-linguistic signs, further conflating Saussurean and Peircean frameworks.

A potential source of these misreadings lies in Jakobson’s phonological commitments. Unlike Saussure’s “substance-free” phonology, which defines phonemes relationally, Jakobson’s theory of distinctive features ascribes inherent material properties to phonemes. This inclination toward materiality may have shaped his referentialist reading of the linguistic sign, further distancing him from Saussure’s differential approach.

Jakobson’s conflation of sémiologie and semiotics, his materialist reinterpretation of the sign, and his overextension of linguistic principles collectively obscure the fundamental distinctions of Saussure’s theory. These distortions, in turn, shaped Derrida’s reading of Saussure, reinforcing the notion that Saussure remained bound to the metaphysical tradition rather than offering an original departure from it. In our next article, we will examine how Jakobson’s misreading informed Derrida’s critique and why both may have misunderstood Saussure’s true theoretical project.

Related Post

Jakobson’s Misreading of Saussure: Semiotics, Sémiologie, and Phonology

https://derridaforlinguists.blogspot.com/2025/03/blog-post_11.html

A Conversation with Saussure

https://derridaforlinguists.blogspot.com/2023/10/blog-post_12.html

Bibliography

Jakobson, Roman. Essais de linguistique générale. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1963.

Jakobson, Roman. On Language. Edited by Linda R. Waugh and Monique Monville-Burston. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. "Course in General Linguistics." Translated and annotated by Roy Harris. With a new introduction by Roy Harris. Bloomsbury, 2013.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. Cours de linguistique générale. Edited by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, with the collaboration of Albert Riedlinger. Arbre d’Or, Genève, 2005.