Writing Between the Lines: Reconstructing Saussure’s Concept of Linguistic Value

A somewhat mysterious process. AI image

Introduction: The Problem of the Text

In the preface to the Course in General Linguistics, Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye openly acknowledge the difficulty of their task:

“Will critics be able to distinguish between Saussure and our interpretation of Saussure? We hope that any blame may be laid at our door, rather than reflect upon the reputation of someone whose memory we cherish.”

This remark is not merely editorial caution, it signals a structural feature of the text itself. What we read as Saussure is already mediated, condensed, and reconstructed.

This is especially evident in Part II, Chapter IV, §1 (“The language as thought organised in sound”), where a series of foundational concepts—difference, opposition, sign, value—are introduced in rapid succession, often without explicit transitions. The result is a text that is conceptually dense but logically elliptical.

The aim of this article is to reconstruct the implicit logic of this passage. More precisely, it seeks to make explicit the sequence of conceptual moves that the text presupposes but does not fully articulate. In doing so, we attempt, modestly, to “write between the lines.”

The Dissolution of Units: Thought and Sound as Undifferentiated Masses

Saussure begins by dismantling what might be called the “naïve ontology” of language—the notion that words correspond to pre-existing concepts. Against this, he proposes a radically different starting point:

“Psychologically, setting aside its expression in words, our thought is simply a vague, shapeless mass… In itself, thought is like a swirling cloud, where no shape is intrinsically determinate.”

Equally, the domain of sound offers no pre-given structure:

“The substance of sound is no more fixed or rigid than that of thought. It is a malleable material which can be fashioned into separate parts…”

At this initial level, there are no units—neither conceptual nor phonetic. Both domains are continuous, undifferentiated, and without intrinsic segmentation. Language, therefore, cannot be understood as a system built upon pre-existing elements. Instead, it must be approached as a process that produces its own units.

Difference Without Positive Terms

If there are no pre-existing units, what is the minimal condition for linguistic structure? Saussure’s answer is decisive: difference.

Later in the chapter, he formulates this principle explicitly:

“The language includes neither ideas nor sounds existing prior to the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonetic differences arising out of that system.”

At this level, however, difference must be understood carefully. It does not presuppose distinct entities that differ from one another. Rather, it designates a field of pure differentiability, where nothing is positively defined, but everything is potentially distinguishable.

We are thus dealing not with differences between things, but with a system in which relations precede relata. There are no positive terms—only differential conditions.

The Cut: Articulation Without a Subject

The central problem now emerges: how do units arise from these amorphous masses?

Saussure introduces the notion of articulation:

“The characteristic role of a language… is to act as intermediary between thought and sound, in such a way that the combination of both necessarily produces a mutually complementary delimitation of units.”

At first glance, this formulation seems to attribute agency to “the language.” But such a reading would be misleading. The language (langue) does not act as a subject, nor does the individual speaker invent the divisions.

Rather, articulation must be understood as an effect of a system—a process that occurs when a socially instituted structure of differences is actualized.

Saussure’s metaphor clarifies this point:

“One might think of it as being like air in contact with water… the surface of the water [is broken] into a series of divisions… i.e. waves.”

The wave is not produced by a single agent; it emerges from the interaction of forces. Similarly, the linguistic unit is not created by a subject, but arises from the interplay of thought and sound within a structured system.

The Emergence of the Sign: Unit, Entity

With articulation, we reach a new level: the emergence of the sign.

Saussure defines the linguistic entity as:

“The entity exists only through the association of the signified and the signifier… if only one of these elements is retained, it vanishes.”

At this stage, several terms converge:

• sign
• unit
• linguistic entity

These do not designate different objects, but different perspectives on the same phenomenon: a stabilized association of sound and concept.

Crucially, this unity is not the sum of two pre-existing elements. It is a co-emergent structure, comparable not to a mechanical assembly but to a chemical compound:

“It would be better to think of it as a chemical compound, such as water. Water is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen: but taken separately neither element has any of the properties of water.”

From Difference to Opposition

We can now clarify a distinction that remains implicit in Saussure’s text but is crucial for understanding its logic: the difference between difference and opposition.

At the pre-sign level:

• there are no units
• only differences
• purely negative, relational

At the level of the sign:

• units exist
• relations take the form of oppositions

Saussure himself marks this shift:

“The moment we compare one sign with another as positive combinations, the term difference should be dropped. It is no longer appropriate. It is a term which is suitable only for comparisons between sound patterns (e.g. père vs. mère), or between ideas (e.g. ‘father’ vs. ‘mother’). Two signs, each comprising a signified and a signifier, are not different from each other, but only distinct. They are simply in opposition to each other”.

Difference operates at the level of abstract conditions; opposition emerges when those conditions are realized in structured units. In other words:

Difference is the condition; opposition is the form it takes within the system of signs.

Value: The Sign in the System

With opposition, we arrive at the concept of value, which Saussure defines relationally:

“The value of any one element depends on the simultaneous coexistence of all the others.”

A sign does not possess value in isolation. Its identity is determined by its position within a network of oppositions. This is why Saussure insists:

“What characterises each most exactly is being whatever the others are not.”

Value, then, is not an additional property of the sign—it is the sign as relational. It expresses the fact that linguistic identity is fundamentally differential and systemic.

Synthesis: Language as Form, Not Substance

We are now in a position to understand one of Saussure’s most famous claims:

“The language itself is a form, not a substance.”

This statement follows directly from the preceding analysis:

• there are no pre-given units
• no positive contents
• no intrinsic identities

Only a system of differences that, through articulation, produces units, and through opposition, organizes them into values.

Language is not a collection of things, but a structure of relations.

 Conclusion: Writing Between the Lines

If the Course appears fragmentary, it is not due to conceptual weakness, but to compression. The transitions between difference, opposition, sign, and value are present, but not fully spelled out.

By reconstructing these transitions, we extend Saussure’s gesture. We make explicit what the text leaves implicit: a movement from undifferentiated continua to structured oppositions, from difference to value.

In this sense, to read Saussure today is not only to interpret him, but to continue the work that his editors, and perhaps the master himself, could only begin.

Bibliography

Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale. Edited by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, with Albert Riedlinger. Libraire Payot.

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