Structural linguistics

Structural linguistics, or structuralism, in linguistics, denotes schools or theories in which language is conceived as a self-contained, self-regulating semiotic system whose elements are defined by their relationship to other elements within the system. It is derived from the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and is part of the overall approach of structuralism. Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (French: Cours de linguistique générale, CLG), published posthumously in 1916, stressed examining language as a dynamic system of interconnected units. Saussure is also known for introducing several basic dimensions of semiotic analysis that are still important today. Two of these are his key methods of syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis (paradigmatic is a later term, Saussure used a wider notion associative), which define units syntactically and lexically, respectively, according to their contrast with the other units in the system.

Structuralism as a term, however, was not used by Saussure, who called the approach semiology. The term structuralism is derived from sociologistÉmile Durkheim's anti-Darwinian modification of Herbert Spencer's organic analogy which draws a parallel between social structures and the organs of an organism which have different functions or purposes. Similar analogies and metaphors were used in the historical-comparative linguistics that Saussure was part of. Saussure himself made a modification of August Schleicher's language–species analogy, based on William Dwight Whitney's critical writings, to turn focus to the internal elements of the language organism, or system. Nonetheless, structural linguistics became mainly associated with Saussure's notion of language as a dual interactive system of symbols and concepts. The term structuralism was adopted to linguistics after Saussure's death by the Prague school linguists Nikolai Trubetzkoy and Roman Jakobson, with the first usage of the terms like "structural principle of the phonological system" going back to the Prague Circle's theses presented at the first International Congress of Linguists in Hague, 1928 and the first International Congress of Slavists in Prague, 1929.