SIGNS, SYSTEMS AND VALUES

In this chapter, which deals with such apparently modern concepts as signs, systems, and values, we shall inevitably refer frequently for contrast or comparison to the linguist who finally accomplished what Whitney and Bréal had attempted; to establish these concepts as fundamental for any linguistic analysis. This linguist was Ferdinand de Saussure.

Whitney’s notion of a language is torn between two poles, a tension that Saussure inherited from him like so many other characteristics of his linguistic theory. These two poles are: the definition of a language as a social institution of communication and as a purely abstract semiological sign system. In chapter 3 we focused on the sociological point of view. The object of the present chapter is Whitney’s treatment of language from

a more semiological perspective. But one has to keep in mind that this distinction is more latent than open. Quite often, Whitney mixes these two aspects of language in the same paragraph.

What about Bréal, who also influenced Saussure? Did he leave similar traces? Although Saussure never refers to him positively but, only once, quite critically, in his notes on ellipsis (cf. CLGN: 35), he was certainly influenced by Bréal, especially in his definition of language as collective, social product. But if, according to Saussure, a complete semiology has to explain ‘the role [vie] of signs as part of social life’ (CLGH: [33] 15) then one has to admit that neither Saussure nor Bréal achieved that goal. They seem to have tacitly agreed on some sort of division of labour—Saussure tackling the abstract nature of signs per se and their ‘life’ in the semiological system of la langue, Bréal concentrating on the life of signs in the social and historical context of their actual use.

Whitney is well known for his introduction of some new concepts into the science of language, such as the definition of a language as a sign system and of language as a social institution. Both these innovative definitions gained currency through Saussure’s adaptation and transformation of them. One can even read in an introduction to structural

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linguistics that ‘In D. Whitney’s work… appear the concepts of law, system, structure, which make him the creator of a static, descriptive linguistics, a stage in the Saussurian progress towards a synchronic linguistics’ (Chiss, Filliolet, and Maingueneau 1977:21). Koerner devoted a whole chapter of his book on Saussure to Whitney as a precursor of Saussurian thought (cf. Koerner 1973), and he attributed to him the first uses of such terms as ‘value’ and ‘zero sign’.

Similar claims have been made in relation to Bréal, although in this case one has to dig deeper than the surface terminology to find similarities between the former master and his celebrated student. Bréal, like Saussure, turned his back on comparative linguistics after having achieved some fame as a member of this linguistic movement. But although their starting point is identical, Saussure and Bréal used it to explore different fields of the science of language, or better to create new fields of study for this science. Bréal based his theory of semantic change explicitly on the psychology of the speaker, whereas Saussure (without ignoring the consciousness of the speaker), built his synchronic linguistics on the theorem that language is a social fact, a term he used specifically in order to explain its systematic nature. However, Bréal did not overlook the importance of the system either. One of his more eccentric characteristics as a nineteenth-century linguist was his obstinate refusal to refer to etymology as an explanation of the meaning of a sign, or better, its function in the language. He replaced the predominantly diachronic perspective of his century with a synchronic one. The meaning of a sign cannot be explained by looking at it in isolation and discovering its origin. One has rather to look at its insertion into the network of adjoining words in the system of a language and the contexts of its use. The meaning of a word is given by its paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations and more: by its relations with the world of reference—the things. It is here that Bréal differs strongly from Saussure. The meaning of operation, for example, is not exhaustively explained by pointing to the coupling of a signifier with a signified or even by defining its intra-systemic value. One has to observe the transformations it undergoes when being used by a surgeon, general, mathematician, etc., who all do different things with it. The word operation acquires different values in different contexts.

The notion of value, as used by Whitney, Bréal, and Saussure, has a very specific meaning in all of these systems of thought. For Bréal and Whitney it is linked to the notion of usage; for Saussure to that of system. The value of a sign, Bréal remarks, will remain the same as long as it is used, that is to say applied and recognized uas the same, by the speakers of a language. It changes if and only if the speakers change the use they put it to. All three, Whitney, Bréal, and Saussure, reject etymology to explain meaning (cf. CLG: 136), but unlike Bréal and Whitney, Saussure tried to exclude the speaker from his new definition of meaning which is an entirely negative one: the meaning of a sign in

a system is determined by its difference from all the others, it means what all the others do not mean.

Bréal

Bréal, aware of the constant influence of social and historical forces on the meaning of words, could not abandon as easily as Saussure did a more positive definition of meaning, even though it was tinged with nomenclaturism. He maintains that signs only have Bréal, aware of the constant influence of social and historical forces on the meaning of words, could not abandon as easily as Saussure did a more positive definition of meaning, even though it was tinged with nomenclaturism. He maintains that signs only have

meanings at all as a result of their being used meaningfully. The meaning of a sign is attached to the speaker’s use of it on the one hand, and to its referent on the other. These two ties are cut off by Saussure and change, especially semantic change, becomes a mystery to him, whereas in Bréal’s conception it is normal—it is in fact the object of his study.

According to an interpretation by Roy Harris (lecture notes), Bréal’s theory makes it clear that we can, in fact, identify changes of meaning much more easily than identify meanings, and that semantic change can therefore be a legitimate object of linguistic study. In a way there is no static semantic object that could be described. According to Roy Harris, Bréal distinguishes between sense and value (a distinction that is sometimes difficult to verify in the texts, as we shall see, but it captures well Bréal’s thought). As signs linguistic forms have or acquire a value—in context. As designations linguistic forms have senses (conditioned to some extent by their etymology). The sense of a linguistic form emerges from its insertion into a system of related morphological forms, its value is established in the context of use. Take for example the word fluvius. Etymologically speaking it offers itself to an application to everything that flows. Its sense conditions the designations. But in the sense of ‘river’ it has a value as a sign actually used. These two perspectives merge in the case of abstract nouns. It is important to notice that designations (senses) tend to become signs (values), they lose their etymological meaning, a loss that actually constitutes a gain in Bréal’s eyes. To use an expression that we shall find in Wegener: the form becomes adequate to its function. In a sense it is the function that determines the value of a form, something Bréal had already pointed out in 1866. These distinctions between sense and value, designation and sign, allow Bréal to explain semantic change.

This account of Bréal’s semantics is ingenious, but can it be verified by the texts? This seems to be rather difficult. To give just a few examples, first from the Essai: on p. 3 Bréal distinguishes between the form (forme) and the meaning (sens) of a word. This seems to be uncontroversial. However, in IL he had written: ‘The meaning [signification] of words can survive an alteration of their form and even profit from that alteration’ (1868:9). And in FF: (68) ‘Our language proves to us at any moment that the function of the words survives the mutilation and even suppression of syllables which seem to be the most necessary to its meaning [sens]’

On pp. 119107 of the Essai he speaks of the ‘general signification’ of a word which can be restricted. Thus many words with a general signification have assumed a special meaning (sens). But the evolution of language can also lead to a ‘unique’ value (122110). In HM he writes even more confusingly; ‘he who invents the new meaning (sens) instantly forgets all the old meanings (sens), except for one, so that the associations of ideas are always two by two. The people don’t care to go back to the past; they only know the signification (signification) of the day’ (HM: 198).

Not only are the concepts of ‘sens’ and ‘signification’ difficult to capture, the same is true, albeit to a lesser extent, of ‘value’. Usually, it means the ‘value of use’:

The new meaning (sens) of a word, whatever it may be, does not make an end of the old. They exist alongside of one another. The same term can be employed alternately in the strict or in the metaphorical sense (sens), in the abstract or in the concrete sense. In proportion as a new signification is

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given to a word, it appears to multiply and produce fresh examples, similar in form, but differing in value.

(ES: 154139)

This is his definition of polysemy. A little later he writes that one is able to understand a polysemous term because, in the context of discourse, we ‘are not even troubled to suppress the other meanings (significations collatérals)’ that sleep in our mind: ‘It will be asked, how it is that these meanings do not thwart each other; but we must remember that each time the words are placed in surroundings which predetermine their import (valeur)’ (ED: 156141).

But value is also used in the more abstract Saussurian sense of the term, especially when Bréal compares words to pure values in a monetary system (cf. SL: 1009f). This ascendence of words to pure values is regarded as progress. The less the word reminds you of its origin, the better and the more easily you can use it in your mental operations. This impartial, if not positive, view of things vanishes when we come to concrete examples. Here the linguist is replaced by the purist:

In our more than civilized societies, advertisements have the most pernicious influence upon words. A term is created by the philosophers, then borrowed by artists, after that industry grasps it. One can read today in the adverts of milliners the words intuition, inspiration, well understood outfit, types of hats. That is to say, words easily lose their value; language has to produce new ones continuously in order to replace them, unless one decides to come back to the mot propre, which is often a better thing to do, and to say simply, for example, instead of a type of dress, a pattern (patron) of dress.

(SL: 1010)

But what makes a word ‘proper’ if not the purity of its etymological genealogy?

Whitney

Bréal’s conception of meaning was centred on the speaker. This is hardly surprising given his basic psychologism. Whitney, on the contrary, was suspicious of the value of psychology for linguistics. His theory of language and language-change is therefore far more oriented towards a sociological perspective and his theory of meaning emphasizes the hearer. Wegener will combine these two strands of thought in his dialogical theory of the construction of meaning.

Before delving into the interpretation of Whitney’s texts it is worth pointing out that Saussure shared Whitney’s hearer orientation, too. In the CLG he writes: ‘It [the language] is the whole set of linguistic habits which enables the speakers to understand and to make themselves understood’ (CLGH: [112] 77). In the Engler edition of the Cours we find a statement that echoes Whitney even more closely:

This [the social fact] would be a certain average…. What could give rise to this social capitalization, crystallization? This is not [any particular] This [the social fact] would be a certain average…. What could give rise to this social capitalization, crystallization? This is not [any particular]

part of [speech] circuit. Firstly not a physical part: when we are in a foreign country, we are not in the social fact of the language. And not [all the] physical part either: in the part of execution 1° the individual is the master, 2° execution will never be made by the mass; remains individual: speech. The receptive and coordinative part, this is what forms a deposit in the different individuals, and which happens to be more or less uniform in all the individuals.

(CLGE: 39–40)

To return to Whitney: At the beginning of LSL Whitney asks: What is the English language? He points out that it is the sum, the average, of all the different languages of the members of the speech community.

It is a mighty region of speech, of somewhat fluctuating and uncertain boundaries, whereof each speaker occupies a portion, and a certain central tract is included in the portion of all; there they meet on common ground; off it, they are strangers to one another.

(LSL: 22)

How, then, do we communicate?

Almost any two persons who speak it [English] may talk so as to be unintelligible to each other. The one fact which gives it unity is, that all who speak it may, to a considerable extent, and on subjects of the most general and pressing interest, talk so as to understand one another.

(ibid.)

We are not only able to communicate because we speak one and the same language, but because we want to communicate and because we wish to understand each other. Though somewhat similar, Saussure’s conception of understanding is much more passive than Whitney’s.

On another level of analysis the unity of a language is determined by its systematic nature. Whitney uses the term ‘system’ far more often than Bréal or Wegener, giving it a prominent place in his terminology. Like Saussure he uses the term ‘system’ to describe a language as a whole, a sign system (cf. LGL: 24, 43, 106, 115, 157, 182), as well as a language in its spoken and written form, pointing out, for example, the particular features of the phonetic system (cf. LSL: 91, 265; LGL: 62, 67). For Whitney, as for Saussure, language is the semiotic system par excellence, to which other semiotic systems, such as gesture and grimace, pictorial and written signs, become subordinated (cf. LGL: 1f.).

But the most fascinating aspect of Whitney’s conception of language is surely his insistence on the link between sign system and language understanding, especially in the context of semantic change, a field of study that Saussure did not touch. Whitney points out that through semantic (‘significant’) changes we create synonyms, thus enriching the resources of expression. He gives the following example: ‘The feeling of shrinking anticipation of imminent danger, in its most general manifestation, is called fear’ (LSL: 110). Specific shades of meaning can be rendered by synonyms such as fright, terror, But the most fascinating aspect of Whitney’s conception of language is surely his insistence on the link between sign system and language understanding, especially in the context of semantic change, a field of study that Saussure did not touch. Whitney points out that through semantic (‘significant’) changes we create synonyms, thus enriching the resources of expression. He gives the following example: ‘The feeling of shrinking anticipation of imminent danger, in its most general manifestation, is called fear’ (LSL: 110). Specific shades of meaning can be rendered by synonyms such as fright, terror,

The notion of value is associated with that of convention and change. It can thus account for the mutability of signs.

From the moment when it became an accepted sign for a certain thing, its whole career was cut loose from its primitive root; it became, what it has ever since continued to be, a conventional sign, and hence an alterable sign, for a certain conception, but a variable and developing conception.

(LGL: 48)

Language is a system of conventional signs, because it is used in communication. But it is more: it is an ever-changing system of conventional and arbitrary signs (LSL: 410) because it is learned and used. The radical arbitrariness of signs and the conventionality of their usage are the conditions of possibility for the continuous and uninterrupted existence of language. If signs were not arbitrary and conventional, language would be neither learnable, understandable, nor changeable. When we are born we learn to associate certain signs with certain ideas, in fact we learn any sign we hear used, any sign whatsoever which is used in the community we are born into (cf. LGL: 14–19). ‘Thus every vocable was to us an arbitrary and conventional sign’ (LGL: 14; cf. also 24, 32, 71). There is no inner connection between idea and word, or as he says later: there is only an extraneous and inessential tie that connects the meaning of a word with its form (cf. LGL: 77). This also means that there is no internal force that could maintain the sign’s identity (cf. LGL: 71). The identity of a sign is established, preserved, and altered solely through its use. If signs were natural and understanding instinctive, they would neither be learned nor altered (cf. LSL: 438). As they are arbitrary and conventional they change all the time in the process of learning and understanding.

Conventional usage, the mutual understanding of speakers and hearers [my emphasis], allots to each vocable its significance, and the same

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language, its nature and its origin 59

authority which makes is [sic] able to change, and to change as it will, in whatever way, and to whatever extent.

(LGL: 102)

The only limit of change is mutual intelligibility. This precondition for the continued existence of language is also, as we shall see, the condition of its coming to exist: its origin.

SIGNS, SYSTEMS AND VALUES