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Ferdinand de Saussure's 1915 work, A Course in General Linguistics (English translation in 1959), proposed that language was a system in which various components existed in relation to each other. What Saussure was proposing was a radical rethinking of the nature of language. It is not enough to see how words acquire meaning over time (what is called a diachronic study). We need to see how words mean within a period and as part of a general system of language. This is the synchronic study where we look at words within the current state of the language and not at its history. This is now self-evident. When we listen to a sentence like ‘The film star looks glamorous’ we immediately understand what it means. We are not aware that any of those words had a different meaning before in history (‘glamour’ was in fact a term used to describe witches). We understand the meanings of the words as they are in use, as a part of the language system today. Saussure makes three significant moves in his analysis of language. First of all, he divides language into two main components. i. The set of rules by which we combine words into sentences, use certain words in certain ways, rules which are rarely altered and which all users of a language follow. This he termed langue. ii. Everyday speech where we use words in particular contexts. This he called parole. To use an example. Langue is like the mathematical tables. The tables are a system of rules and tools for use. The everyday calculations we do—from prices in shops to simple totaling—is an instance of parole where we employ the tables to get the calculations done. If langue is the system of rules and conventions that govern how we use words and meanings, parole is, then, language in context. In most cases we are not aware of the langue component; we use the system of conventions by habit, and are not always alert to the large structure of language in everyday use. Parole, therefore, is live language. Then, in his second move, Saussure proposes a relational theory of language where i. ‘words’ existed in relation to other words andii. ii. the meaning of each word was dependent upon the meaning of other words. Thus, meaning was the result of being able to recognize the difference between words—‘cat’ is ‘cat’ because it is not ‘bat’ or ‘hat’. It is different in terms of the sound produced and the way in which it is written. Meaning thus emerges in the difference or opposition between words. We work with binary or paired oppositions to make sense of words and sounds in speech. ‘Cat’, ‘bat’ and ‘hat’ are all words in the system of language: They are related to each other because they belong to the same system, and because they make sense only in being different from each other. We would not be able to recognize ‘cat’ as a unique word if we did not have other words from which it is different. What we, therefore, have is a principle. This principle is the structure of language itself: that of difference and opposition. Language imposes its structure (the recognized difference between ‘cat’ and ‘hat’) whatever be the individual contexts in which the sounds or words are being used. We are aware of this system that makes conversation and understanding possible. We learn to use the differences that generate meaning. Finally, Saussure's third move. Saussure suggests that words and their meanings are not ‘natural’ but created through repeated use and convention. The word ‘cat’ does not naturally refer to a four-legged furry animal of a particular kind with particular habits. The pronunciation or writing of the word does not invoke the animal. We have come to associate the name or word ‘cat’ to the animal through long use. There is no real relationship between the word and its meaning. Meaning is attributed through its use by a community of language-users. The animal cat does not declare its ‘catness’, we attribute the ‘catness’ to it by giving it a name. The cat might very well see itself as ‘man’ or ‘tiger’. But humans have given the name ‘cat’ to it, whatever the cat may think of itself. The word (or ‘signifier’) is connected to the meaning or concept (the ‘signified’) in a purely arbitrary relationship. Together the signifier and signified constitute a sign. For Saussure the sound was a material manifestation of the abstract concept. Words are signs that enable us to understand the concept or the object. Words are like a form of transport that takes you to the object or concept. They help us construct the concept in our mind. Saussure's move is apparently very simple, but its consequences are far reaching. He was undermining the very notion of language by proposing the relationship between words and meanings as arbitrary. The structure of language ensures that when we use words, however arbitrary their meaning might be, we register certain differences and make sense of them. Thus, even though the term ‘cat’ is only arbitrarily connected to the animal, we still make sense of it because it is different from other words that are equally arbitrary in their relationship with things. This means (and this is the consequence of Saussure's thinking on the nature of language) that words in a language do not refer to a ‘reality’ but to other words from which they are different. We are able to distinguish between ‘real’ things because the words for them are different. Language is, therefore, a system that constantly refers only to itself. We can now summarize the three principles regarding language that Saussure puts forward: i. Arbitrariness: Words have no real connection to their meanings or the things they describe. The connections are established by convention. ii. ii. Relationality: Words make sense to us, or have ‘value’ (Saussure's term) for us in their relationality: in their difference from other words. Words are therefore related to each other in the form of difference and have no absolute value of their own. As we have seen above, every word is opposed to, different from another word, and meaning emerges in this difference. iii. iii. Systematicity: The structure of language, or the system, ensures that we recognize difference. Later, Saussure's ideas about structures and rules were adopted by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss to analyse rituals, myths and kinships. This created the ‘discipline’ of structural anthropology. In terms of literary and cultural criticism, Saussure's structural theory of language provides particular insights and approaches as follows: - It suggests that content in a poem, a film or a play is dependent upon the form in which the themes are expressed. - The effect of a poem or a film is the result of an effective combination of elements that have been arranged in a particular way. - Following from the above two we can say that there is no content without form. Content is a function of form. - It is possible to uncover the basic principles of organization (or grammar) of a film or a poem. - The grammar is the structure of the poem, and follows specific rules that function like language, based on opposition, difference and rationality.- Culture itself has an underlying organization or structure where different elements are combined to generate meaning.Saussure proposed that the link between the word/sound (signifier) and concept (signified) is based on the difference between sounds and our ability to distinguish between them, the relationship between sounds (a relationship of difference) and is purely arbitrary (where the sound/word does not describe the object, but is assumed to do so by convention and repeated use). Saussure's ideas were also appropriated by the linguists and the literary critics in Europe and Russia.