Language or Semiotics?

This week in class we discussed the relationship between values, language, and how the two were connected. Before class, understanding the reading on semiotics seemed to leave us all spread out on how we interpreted de Saussure and his view on the relationship between meaning and the language that converts them to understanding.  Some people in our class argued for de Saussure and how the language we use has developed the way we interpret different values. Others argued that some sounds, while not all, have at least some connection to language.  After class and our discussion I will argue though that both sides are right.

            At first, charting de Saussure’s translation of the ‘nebula’ he calls thought into the signs we call language was mind-boggling but after our class discussion and rereading the text, what de Saussure is saying makes a lot more sense. For example, when he compares languages and their difference to the premise that sound and thought relations in language are arbitrary, nobody can deny that. We are all the same species capable of the same emotions and producing the same sounds yet we have thousands of different languages. Okay, that makes sense. So what was confusing was this: how do we communicate the consciousness of this inseparable, yet different and at random connection of thought and sound when we can’t escape it, without sounding as confusing as de Saussure? That’s when I looked up semiotics and language in the dictionary. Sure enough this helped out a lot.

Semiotics, as it was put is the “study of signs and signification,” while language is just the tool that humans use to communicate them. I looked up ‘linguistics’ too and my takeaway is this: semiotics is to thought as linguistics is to sound. This analogy might not be 100%, but for me it helps to wrap my mind around de Saussure and the very idea of this ‘thought nebula.’