What you will get from this article
- Why language can be changed neither by individuals nor by society, and yet changes over time
- The four reasons Saussure gives for why it resists change
- How to look at “language decay” and “new words” with this framework
The answer first. In every period, a language is given to us as an inheritance from the previous generation, so nobody can alter it at will (immutability). But precisely because it is handed down through time, it drifts a little (mutability). Saussure says the two are “solidary”: change is the flip side of continuity.
Quotations are from the 1916 French original (Part 1, chapter 2, §1 and §2). English renderings are ToL’s.
The original text
As earlier articles showed, nothing necessitates the tie between sign and signified (arbitrariness). So can language be freely remade? Saussure answers the opposite.
Si par rapport à l’idée qu’il représente, le signifiant apparaît comme librement choisi, en revanche, par rapport à la communauté linguistique qui l’emploie, il n’est pas libre, il est imposé. La masse sociale n’est point consultée, et le signifiant choisi par la langue, ne pourrait pas être remplacé par un autre. Ce fait, qui semble envelopper une contradiction, pourrait être appelé familièrement « la carte forcée ». On dit à la langue : « Choisissez ! » mais on ajoute : « Ce sera ce signe et non un autre. » Non seulement un individu serait incapable, s’il le voulait, de modifier en quoi que ce soit le choix qui a été fait, mais la masse elle-même ne peut exercer sa souveraineté sur un seul mot ; elle est liée à la langue telle qu’elle est.
ToL translation In relation to the idea it represents, the signifier appears freely chosen; in relation to the linguistic community that uses it, however, it is not free but imposed. The social mass is not consulted, and the signifier chosen by language could not be replaced by another. This fact, which seems to involve a contradiction, might be called colloquially “the forced card.” We say to language, “Choose!” but add, “It will be this sign and no other.” Not only would an individual be unable, if they wished, to change anything in the choice that has been made, but the mass itself cannot exercise its sovereignty over a single word; it is bound to language as it is.
In the second half of the same chapter the argument turns.
Le temps, qui assure la continuité de la langue, a un autre effet, en apparence contradictoire au premier : celui d’altérer plus ou moins rapidement les signes linguistiques et, en un certain sens, on peut parler à la fois de l’immutabilité et de la mutabilité du signe.
ToL translation Time, which ensures the continuity of language, has another effect, apparently contradictory to the first: that of altering linguistic signs more or less rapidly; and, in a certain sense, one can speak at once of the immutability and the mutability of the sign.
En dernière analyse, les deux faits sont solidaires : le signe est dans le cas de s’altérer parce qu’il se continue. Ce qui domine dans toute altération, c’est la persistance de la matière ancienne ; l’infidélité au passé n’est que relative. Voilà pourquoi le principe d’altération se fonde sur le principe de continuité.
ToL translation In the last analysis the two facts are solidary: the sign is liable to alter because it continues. What dominates in every alteration is the persistence of the old material; infidelity to the past is only relative. That is why the principle of alteration rests on the principle of continuity.
Commentary 1: what is “the forced card”?
“Carte forcée” is a conjuror’s term: asking a spectator to “pick any card” while steering them to one particular card. Saussure’s image: language pretends to offer a choice and in fact hands over one.
The choice looks different from two sides.
- Toward the idea: free. Nothing requires that the concept dog go with the sound “dog.” Other languages have Hund or inu.
- Toward the community: not free. For English speakers the sign for dog is “dog,” and no other.
Try declaring that from today dogs will be called “cats.” An individual deciding that will not be understood. Saussure says even society as a whole (the “mass”) has no sovereignty over a single word.
Commentary 2: why it cannot be changed, four reasons
Saussure goes on to give reasons language resists change (the text continues; ToL’s summary).
| # | Reason | In practice |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Signs are arbitrary, so there is no ground for argument | One can argue whether monogamy beats polygamy; but “why dog and not cat?” has no rational anchor, so reform has nothing to argue from |
| 2 | Too many signs | A script of twenty to forty letters can be replaced; words are innumerable |
| 3 | The system is too complex | Even daily users do not grasp it; interventions by specialists have not succeeded |
| 4 | Collective inertia | Unlike a law code or a ritual, language is used by everyone all day, so everyone’s habit holds change back |
On the fourth he says “this consideration outweighs all the others”: of all social institutions, language is the one that offers least purchase to individual initiative.
Commentary 3: and yet it changes: change as drift
Why, then, does it change? The quotation’s answer: because the sign continues. Each handing-down introduces a slight drift, and over long stretches the drifts accumulate.
Saussure cautions against thinking of “change” as only sound change or only meaning change. Whatever the factor, the result is always a shift in the relation between signified and signifier. His example is Latin necāre “kill,” which became French noyer “drown.” Both sound and sense changed, but there is no need to separate the two; the tie loosened and shifted.
English offers examples of such drift.
- “Awful”: it once meant “inspiring awe,” and in everyday talk now means “very bad.” The sound-shape stayed; the meaning attached to it moved. (ToL’s example.)
- “Sick”: in some speech it now also means “excellent.” The older sense has not vanished; both coexist.
Old forms and senses do not disappear wholesale. What lies at the centre of change is the persistence of old material, which Saussure calls “infidelity to the past is only relative.”
Commentary 4: how to see “language decay”
The framework sorts out some everyday arguments.
- “Does someone decide on a new word and then it spreads?” An individual can coin a word, but unless the community adopts it, it dies. When it is adopted, it has already become part of what is “inherited.”
- The unease at “corrupt” usage: hearing a form that has drifted from the one you inherited (the usage you acquired as a child) feels wrong. That is the sensation of mutability seen from the side of immutability.
- Can “correct language” be decided? Saussure’s argument goes only as far as saying language is hard to change by expert decision. The role of dictionaries or norms is not discussed here.
Commentary 5: the origin of language is not the question
In this chapter Saussure sets out a policy. No society knows language other than as something inherited from earlier generations and to be taken as it is. So the question of the origin of language is not as important as it is usually made out, and is not even one to be asked; the only real object of linguistics is the normal, regular life of an idiom already constituted.
This is also his way of keeping a distance from contemporary debates on the origin of language. (Compare the articles on origin theories, such as Mori Ōgai’s note on “The Origin of Language”.)
Summary
- Immutability: language is inherited, and neither individuals nor society can swap it out at will.
- Mutability: in the same flow of time, signs drift a little.
- The two are solidary. Change is the flip side of continuity.