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...

  Introduction In his article “Saussure after Half a Century,” Émile Benveniste explores Ferdinand de Saussure’s foundational concepts, such as language structure ( la langue ) and the nature of the linguistic sign ( signe ). He quotes from Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 12 , highlighting Saussure's view on the law of language: “The absolutely final law of language is, we dare say, that there is nothing which can ever reside in one term.” At this juncture, Benveniste introduces the term “semiotics” into the discussion, a concept associated with Peirce rather than Saussure: “But what we wish to emphasize here is the scope of the principle of the sign when set up as a unit of language. From that it results that language becomes a semiotic system : "The task of the linguist," said Saussure, "is to find out what makes language a special system within the mass of semiological data .... But to me the language problem is mainly semiological . " We see that this...