What you will get from this article
- What “signifiant” and “signifié” actually refer to
- Where Saussure sets aside the common-sense idea that words are names for things
- How to tell the two terms apart using examples from Japanese and English
The answer first. For Saussure a linguistic sign does not join a thing to a name. It is a two-sided mental unit linking a concept to a sound-image, both inside the mind. The concept side is the signified (signifié), the sound-image side is the signifier (signifiant), and the whole is the sign (signe).
The passage comes near the start of Part 1 of the Course in General Linguistics. This article reads it closely. Arbitrariness (the lack of any necessary tie between sign and meaning) has its own article; here we only ask what a sign is made of.
Quotations are from the 1916 French original (Part 1, chapter 1, §1). English renderings are ToL’s.
The original text
Just before, Saussure considers the naive view that a language is a list of names and says why it falls short. He then defines the sign.
Le signe linguistique unit non une chose et un nom, mais un concept et une image acoustique. Cette dernière n’est pas le son matériel, chose purement physique, mais l’empreinte psychique de ce son, la représentation que nous en donne le témoignage de nos sens ; elle est sensorielle, et s’il nous arrive de l’appeler « matérielle », c’est seulement dans ce sens et par opposition à l’autre terme de l’association, le concept, généralement plus abstrait.
ToL translation The linguistic sign unites not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image (image acoustique). The latter is not the material sound, a purely physical thing, but the psychological imprint of that sound, the impression it makes on our senses. It is sensory, and if we sometimes call it “material,” it is only in that sense, and in contrast to the other term of the association, the concept, which is generally more abstract.
A little further on he settles the terminology.
L’ambiguïté disparaîtrait si l’on désignait les trois notions ici en présence par des noms qui s’appellent les uns les autres tout en s’opposant. Nous proposons de conserver le mot signe pour désigner le total, et de remplacer concept et image acoustique respectivement par signifié et signifiant ; ces derniers termes ont l’avantage de marquer l’opposition qui les sépare soit entre eux, soit du total dont ils font partie. Quant à signe, si nous nous en contentons, c’est que nous ne savons par quoi le remplacer, la langue usuelle n’en suggérant aucun autre.
ToL translation The ambiguity would vanish if we named the three notions at hand with terms that call on one another while standing in opposition. We propose to keep the word sign for the whole, and to replace concept and sound-image by signified and signifier respectively. These last terms have the advantage of marking the opposition that separates them from each other and from the whole of which they are parts. As for sign, if we are content with it, it is because we do not know what to put in its place, ordinary language suggesting no other.
Commentary 1: why “thing and name” will not do
Right before the definition Saussure examines the view that language is a list of names assigned to things, and says it can be criticized on several counts. In outline:
- It presumes ready-made ideas that exist before words.
- It does not say whether the name is vocal or psychological.
- It makes the link between name and thing look like a simple operation.
Yet he grants it one merit: it shows that the linguistic unit is double, made of two terms brought together. So he keeps the idea of two joined terms and swaps both for mental items: concept and sound-image instead of thing and name.
Commentary 2: the sound-image is not the sound you utter
Readers usually stumble on “sound-image.” As the quotation says, it is not the physical sound but the imprint the sound leaves in the mind.
Saussure points to something we can check ourselves: without moving lips or tongue we can talk to ourselves or recite a poem silently. So words are, for us, sound-images. Try it with the word “cherry”: say it silently and you “hear” the sound-pattern without moving your mouth. At the same time the concept of cherry comes to mind. The two bound together are the sign.
He draws a terminological lesson. Calling the components of a word “phonemes” suggests the act of speaking, so for words in the language he prefers “sounds” and “syllables”; “phoneme” suits only the spoken word, the realization in speech. (This is the sense in this passage only; later linguistics uses “phoneme” differently.)
Commentary 3: using the terms
| Term | Earlier name | Content | Example (“tree”) |
|---|---|---|---|
| signifiant (signifier) | sound-image | the signifying side; sensory | the sound-image of “tree” |
| signifié (signified) | concept | the signified side | the concept of a woody plant with trunk and branches |
| signe (sign) | their union | the whole | the word “tree” itself |
Why rename? Because in everyday usage “sign” tends to mean just the sound part. A word like Latin arbor is called a sign only because it carries the concept “tree”; naming the sensory part alone loses the whole. So the whole and the parts get separate names, and the names themselves show the parts are opposed. Both new terms derive from the verb signifier, “to signify”: one is the signifying, the other the signified.
Commentary 4: three traps
1. The signified is a concept, not a thing. The signified of “dog” is the concept dog, not a particular dog in front of you. A word like “unicorn” works as a sign even with nothing real to point at. (This example is ToL’s addition.)
2. The two can be counted separately but cannot be detached. Nearby, Saussure says the two elements are intimately united and call each other up. Neither sound alone nor meaning alone is a sign.
3. The signifier is a sound-image, not writing. At this stage the signifier is a sound-image. Writing is a separate system of signs, which he takes up in the Introduction (see the article on writing and speech).
Trying it: homophones and synonyms
The definition helps sort out two everyday situations.
- Homophones: “bank” (river bank / money bank). One signifier, two signifieds, hence two signs.
- Synonyms: “toilet,” “restroom,” “loo.” Roughly the same place, different signifiers and different registers, hence different signs.
Whether two words are “the same word” can be decomposed: is the signifier the same, is the signified the same, is the pairing the same?
Summary
- Sign = signifier (sound-image) + signified (concept). Things are not inside the sign.
- The “sound-image” is what you can say silently in your head, not the physical sound.
- The terms were remade to avoid the everyday habit of calling only the sound part a “sign.”
Next
- On the lack of a necessary link: Arbitrariness of the sign
- On the signifier lining up in a row: Why can words only be lined up in a row?
- A running read-through: Reading the Course plainly (Part 1)