Saussure: un langage sans voix?

Abstract

For the general public, as well as for many linguists, language is bound indissolubly to the human voice. Saussure rejects this connexion, and takes instead a 'semiological' approach, based on William Dwigt Whitney's Life and Growth of Language (1875). In the Course in general linguistics (1916 in french, english translation by Roy Harris, 1985) and in Writings in general linguistics (2002 in french, english translation by Carol Sanders and Matthew Pires, 2006), he recognizes that speech is indeed generally used for linguistic purposes, but considers that it is not  'essential'. Saussure counts gesture as a manifestation of language, and also includes writing. Spoken language, however, occupies no privileged position in linguistic description and analysis, and the physiological aspects of phonation are explicitly considered as external to the language.

This restriction has immediate repercussions on Saussure's treatment of two important problems: linguistic change (the problem of the « diachronie ») and the origin of language.