Midterm: Linguistic Value

The arbitrary nature of the sign explains in turn why the social fact alone can create a linguistic system. The community is necessary if values that owe their existence solely to usage and general acceptance are to be set up; by himself the individual is incapable of fixing a single value.

Hello, I’m Michael. Why? Because of you. Thanks.

From Saussure’s “Linguistic Value,” this passage reminds us that like the individual, a sign participates in a linguistic system that grows in both capacity and complexity, the birth of any new sign resulting from the existing system, the whole. Because of the arbitrariness of any sign’s nature, Saussure calls attention to the contingent relations among signs; a linguistic system does not exists because of an overarching rule of necessity, reason, or principle, but because of the “social fact alone.”

The impossibility of a sign to stand alone stems from the fact that it experiences varying degrees of reciprocity of meaning from every other sign within a linguistic system; the individual cannot stand alone because of the recognition by the individual of the absence of another. It reminds us of the inescapability of a system; we are helplessly in it, yet assist in creating it. Trapped in the system, the sign becomes subjected to varying degrees of modification as a means to enhance, differentiate, emphasize, and relate etc. other signs. Through these relations, signs can achieve varying extents of validity. The continual flux of social interactions among signs, among people, acts as ever present force of alteration.

By calling out the incapability of the individual of implanting any sort of value, Saussure once again emphasizes the fact that like language, an individual represents a form, not a substance. To describe the individual as a substance would imply an expression of solidity, an essential capable of assigning intrinsic values within a word, however the relentless flow of interactions prevents this “solidity” of the self. Values can only be derived from relations, not from within.

The apocalyptic implications in this passage can be seen in the break down of the emphasis often placed on the individualism of a person, of a sign, as a means to reach a more profound understanding of this living system. Only through the realization of the relativity of every sign can the misconception of taking a word for its intrinsic value be destroyed. By destroying the “intrinsic” value of a sign, people would be able to approach language in a more encompassing and efficient manner because we would view a word not for its relationship with itself but for its representation of the positive totality of the entire system. When this occurs, people will no longer approach a word with the same confidence that has typically been felt when defining, utilizing, and challenging etc. a word. Our faith in the word will be shook, for people will view a word, each other, as the culmination of both continually flowing and fleeting influences from those around: a horizon not a point.

Ace of Base said it best in the chorus of their '93 recorded smash hit "The Sign:" I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes.