Translating Value: Saussure and Derrida on Meaning Across Languages

Thesis

Saussure's theory of value implies that meaning is generated through differential relations within a linguistic system. Translation therefore cannot consist in transferring a signified intact from one language to another. Instead, it involves reinscribing value within a new network of differences. Derrida's reflections on the Hegelian term Aufhebung, which he renders as relève, reveal both the necessity of this operation and its impossibility.

Introduction

Translation is often understood as the transfer of meaning from one language to another. Dictionaries encourage this assumption by presenting words as though they possessed stable equivalents waiting to be matched across linguistic boundaries. Yet this common view becomes difficult to sustain once language is approached through Ferdinand de Saussure's theory of value. If the meaning of a sign depends not on an intrinsic content but on its relations to other signs, then translation cannot consist in the simple transfer of a signified from one linguistic system into another.

This perspective opens a productive path toward Jacques Derrida's reflections on translation. In texts such as What Is a "Relevant" Translation? and Letter to a Japanese Friend, Derrida repeatedly emphasizes the resistance of idioms, concepts, and singular linguistic formations to direct equivalence across languages. Read through a Saussurean lens, these reflections suggest that translation involves the reinscription of value within a new system of differences. Derrida's contribution lies in showing that this operation is both necessary and inherently incomplete.

Meaning as Value

Saussure's most important contribution to modern linguistics was his rejection of the notion that words possess meaning independently of the linguistic system to which they belong. A sign acquires value through its relations and contrasts with other signs. As he famously writes, "in language there are only differences without positive terms" (Saussure, 1916/2011, p. 120).

Cross-linguistic examples discussed in Course in General Linguistics illustrate the point. French louer covers both "to rent" and "to lease," while German distinguishes mieten and vermieten. English separates "sheep" from "mutton," whereas French uses mouton for both animal and meat.

These differences demonstrate that semantic divisions are not universal structures waiting to be named. They emerge from the internal organization of particular linguistic systems. The fact that French uses mouton for both "sheep" and "mutton" reveals a different configuration of distinctions from that found in English. Each term occupies a position within a network of relations that gives it value. Consequently, no word can be understood in isolation from the structure that enables it to function.

Saussure was also aware of the difficulties this poses for translation itself. Discussing the distinction between la langue, la parole, and le langage, he noted that other languages do not necessarily provide terms covering exactly the same conceptual divisions. In Constantin's Notebook VII 70a we read: 

 "It is possible that in languages other than French we may not find words covering exactly what the French words cover." 

The Course elaborates this point by noting that German Sprache encompasses both langue and langage, while Rede only approximately corresponds to parole. Something similar happens in Latin:

Ainsi en allemand Sprache veut dire « langue » et « langage » ; Rede correspond à peu près à « parole », mais y ajoute le sens spécial de « discours ». En latin sermo signifie plutôt « langage » et « parole », tandis que lingua désigne la langue, et ainsi de suite. Aucun mot ne correspond exactement à l’une des notions précisées plus haut.

No term, Saussure concludes, corresponds exactly to the concepts he is attempting to distinguish.

The implication is significant. If linguistic values emerge from differential relations internal to a particular language, translation cannot be understood as the transfer of ready-made meanings. What must be addressed is the configuration of differences that allows a sign to function in the first place.

Translation as Reinscription

Once meaning is understood as value rather than essence, the problem of translation must be reformulated. The central question is no longer how a meaning is transferred between languages, but how a value constituted within one system can continue to function within another.

A useful way to describe translation is as a process of reinscribing value rather than transferring meaning. The translator begins with a sign situated within Language 1 (L1). Its significance derives from a particular set of differential relations. Upon entering Language 2 (L2), those relations no longer exist. The value generated within L1 therefore cannot simply be carried over intact.

The translator's task is to determine how the sign functions within L1 and then seek a linguistic form capable of occupying a comparable position within L2. The process may be summarized as follows:

L1 sign → comparison of differential networks → reinscription of value in L2

What emerges is not identity but functional correspondence. The value produced within L2 remains distinct from that generated within L1 because each arises from a different linguistic structure. Nevertheless, communication remains possible because translation reconstructs a functional position rather than reproducing an identical content.

This model helps explain why translation often succeeds despite the absence of perfect equivalence. It also clarifies why certain expressions resist translation more strongly than others. The more dependent a sign is upon a unique constellation of linguistic relations, the more difficult its reinscription becomes.

Although Saussure never explicitly formulated a theory of translation in these terms, his conception of linguistic value strongly suggests such a model. Translation becomes neither the transport of meanings nor the substitution of labels, but the reconstruction of value within a new system of differences.

Derrida and the Limits of Equivalence

Derrida's reflections on translation can be read as developing, while also transforming, the Saussurean insight that meaning emerges through differential relations. In What Is a "Relevant" Translation?, he revisits his well-known translation of Hegel's Aufhebung as relève.

The German term occupies a central place in Hegelian dialectics and simultaneously conveys cancellation, preservation, and elevation. As Hegel himself notes, Aufhebung means at once to suppress and to conserve. No single French word reproduces this semantic configuration.

Derrida's interest in the term is not simply that it lacks an equivalent in French. Rather, Aufhebung exposes a limit internal to the classical concept of translation itself. If meanings are inseparable from the differential systems that sustain them, then translation cannot consist in transporting a ready-made semantic content from one language into another. The translator must instead produce a new configuration capable of carrying forward certain effects of the original.

Derrida's proposed rendering, relève, seeks to preserve within a single French term both the movement of elevation and the logic of replacement. The example he gives is the changing of the guard: one guard is relieved by another, the first disappears from active duty, yet the function continues. Something is cancelled, preserved, and carried forward simultaneously. In this respect, relève does not simply reproduce Aufhebung; it recreates within French a semantic possibility capable of sustaining part of its dialectical force.

For this reason, Derrida repeatedly questions whether his operation should even be called a translation in the traditional sense. He describes it instead as a transaction, a transformation, a work, even a discovery. The point is not that a perfect equivalent has been found, but that a new configuration has been produced.

Translation itself thus acquires the structure of Aufhebung. The original signifier is neither simply preserved nor discarded. It survives through a process that simultaneously negates, retains, and transforms it within another linguistic system. Something is lost, yet something also continues.

In this respect, Derrida's position remains close to Saussure's insofar as meaning depends upon relations rather than intrinsic contents. Yet he also questions whether those relations ever form a stable and self-contained system. Translation does not introduce instability into language; it reveals an instability already at work within language itself. The original sign never possessed complete self-identity. Its meaning was always dependent upon a shifting network of differences.

For this reason, translation becomes both necessary and impossible. Necessary because communication across languages continually occurs. Impossible not because translations fail to happen, but because no translation can achieve complete equivalence with what it translates. Every translation simultaneously preserves and transforms.

Derrida's account of survival deepens this insight further. Drawing on Walter Benjamin's distinction between Fortleben and Überleben, he argues that translation grants an afterlife to the original. The original survives, not because its linguistic body remains intact, but because its capacity to generate meaning continues under altered conditions. Translation therefore becomes a mode of survival through transformation.

Conclusion

Saussure's theory of value provides a powerful framework for rethinking translation. Because meaning arises through differential relations, linguistic signs cannot be carried intact from one language into another. Translation requires the reinscription of value within a new network of differences.

Derrida's reflections on Aufhebung and relève deepen this insight. They show that the translator's task is never the recovery of an original meaning existing independently of the language system, but the production of a new configuration capable of sustaining meaning under altered conditions. Translation succeeds not by reproducing the original but by allowing it to continue functioning within another structure of relations.

In this sense, translation is neither a copy nor a substitute. It is a reinscription of value and a form of survival. What lives on in translation is not an identical meaning transported across linguistic boundaries, but a transformed value capable of generating new meanings within a different system. A relevant translation is therefore one that preserves by transforming, allowing the original to survive precisely through its reinvention.

References

Derrida, J. (1985). Letter to a Japanese friend. In D. Wood & R. Bernasconi (Eds.), Derrida and différance (pp. 1–5). Northwestern University Press.

Derrida, J. (2001). What is a “relevant” translation? (L. Venuti, Trans.). Critical Inquiry, 27(2), 174–200.

Saussure, F. de. (2011). Course in general linguistics (W. Baskin, Trans.). Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1916)

Saussure, F. de. (1993). Third course of lectures on general linguistics (1910–1911): From the notebooks of Emile Constantin (R. Harris, Trans.). Pergamon Press.