UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGGICA EXPERIMENTAL LIBERTADOR

INSTITUTO PEDAGGICO CARACAS

VICERRECTORADO DE INVESTIGACIN Y POSTGRADO
COORDINACIN NACIONAL DE POSTGRADO
Maestra en Enseanza del Ingls como Lengua Extranjera

Structuralism

(De Saussure, F . / Bloomfield, L. et

alii).

Prof. Hctor Escalona

Structuralism
European
1920s

North American
1930s 1960s

Dead
languag
es

Linguists tried to reconstruct

dead languages on the basis
of the similarities that were
found to exist between
languages thought to be
related historically to those
dead languages.

In short, during the 19th century

scholars in linguistics worked from a
historical, diachronic, perspective.

European Structuralism

Ferdinand de Saussure
1857 - 1913

De Saussure was not satisfied

with the historical comparison
of language. He stated that
such comparison only
answered where a language
comes from, but not what
language is.

European Structuralism
Main tenets
1) Language has a structure
2) Language is a system of sings
3) Language operates at two levels:
langue and parole

European Structuralism
Main tenets
1) Language has a structure
Language is a structure in
which each elements interact.

European Structuralism
Main tenets
2) Language is a system of signs
Noise is language only when
it expresses or communicates
ideas.

European Structuralism
Signified

Signifier
/ka:r/
Physical dimension of language

Sign
Car

European Structuralism
Main tenets
Langue

Parole

The abstract system

Actual speech

North American Structuralism

Beginning: a group of
anthropologists describing
fast-disappearing AmericanIndian tribes.

They found that there was no

methodology for them to
follow in order to describe
these languages.

North American Structuralism

A new step in the American
Structuralism

NA Structuralism centers in
what people actually say

Leonard Bloomfield
1887-1949

North American Structuralism

Main tenets
1) Linguistics is a descriptive science.
2) The primary form of language is the spoken one.
3) Every language is a system on its own right.
4) Language is a system in which smaller units arrange systematically
to form larger ones.
5) Meaning should not be part of linguistic analysis.
6) The procedures to determine the units in language should be
objective and rigorous.
7) Language is observable speech, not knowledge.

North American Structuralism

Main tenets
1) Linguistics is a descriptive science.
Describe what people say, not
what people should say.

North American Structuralism

Main tenets
2) The primary form of language is the spoken one.
Reasons:
1) Not every language has a
written form.
2) Everybody learns an oral
language.
3) The spoken form comes
first than the written one.

North American Structuralism

Main tenets
3) Every language is a system on its own right.
Language should not be
described in terms of another
language, but rather, it
should be described on its
own terms.

North American Structuralism

Main tenets
4) Language is a system in which smaller units
arrange systematically to form larger ones.
These linguists proposed a
procedure in which they
began analyzing the smallest
units and classifying them,
and describing the patterns
into which they combined to
form larger units.

/l/
[lang-gw I]

Language is a system

North American Structuralism

Main tenets
5) Meaning should not be part of linguistic analysis.
Bloomfield and many other
structuralism followers
consider meaning as abstract
and unobservable, therefore,
unscientific.

Prato?

North American Structuralism

Main tenets
6) The procedures to determine the units in
language should be objective and rigorous.
NA Structuralism rejected
traditional definitions of, for
example, a noun as the word
that refers to persons, animals
or things (definition based
on meaning).

North American Structuralism

Main tenets
6) The procedures to determine the units in
language should be objective and rigorous.

In this respect, they provide

two observable criteria for
defying the items of
language: Form and
Distribution.

North American Structuralism

Main tenets
7) Language is observable speech, not knowledge.
Langue and parole were rejected as
unscientific abstractions. The main
objective would be to make a taxonomy
of language based on observable samples
of speech (corpus/corpora)
Phonemes-morphemes-sentences patterns.

REPBLICA BOLIVARIANA DE VENEZUELA

UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGGICA EXPERIMENTAL LIBERTADOR
INSTITUTO PEDAGGICO CARACAS
VICERRECTORADO DE INVESTIGACIN Y POSTGRADO
COORDINACIN NACIONAL DE POSTGRADO
Maestra en Enseanza del Ingls como Lengua Extranjera

Thanks

Prof. Hctor Escalona

References

Aitchison, J. (1978). Linguistics. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Chomsky, N. (1959). Review of B.F. Skinner, Verbal behavior. Language. 35: 26-57.
--------------- (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
--------------- (1966-1973) Linguistic theory. In Oller J. and J. Richard (eds.) Focus on the
Learner. Rowley, Mass.:Newbury House.
Culler, J. (1976). Ferdinand de Saussure. London : Penguin Books.
Department of Linguistics. The Ohio State University (1972). Language Files.
Reinoldsburg, Ohio: Advocate Publishing Group.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1973). Explorations in the functions of language. London: Edward Arnold.
Hymes, D. (1971/1979). On communicative competence. In Brumfit, C. and K. Johnson
(eds.) The communicative approach to language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Lyons, J. (1968). Introduction to theoretical linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Mackey, W. (1966/1973). Language didactics and applied linguistics. In J. Oller and J.
Richard (eds). Focus on the learner. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
OGrady, W., M. Dobrovolsky and M. Aronoff. (1989). Contemporary linguistics: an
introduction. New York: St. Martins Press.
De Saussure, F.

Structuralism
Let us discus these questions
together:
1) How Structuralism, Functionalism and
Generativism have contribute to our present
understanding of language?
2) Why havent the questions what is language
and how does language work havent been
completely answered?
3) In which aspects European and North
American Structuralism meet and differ?