Thought, language origin, and the Saussurean concept of linguistic sign

Abstract

This thesis is an investigation of the relation between language and thought in terms of the Saussurean concept of linguistic sign. However, it is not an empirical study of the relation between language and thought and, therefore, not a study of the Whorfian problem of linguistic relativity, but rather a study of how we understand the nature of language and thought such that we think they are related in a certain way. This thesis is an investigation of the “metaphysical” picture that underlies our understanding of the relation between language and thought.

In this study, we believe that how we understand the nature of language and thought is implicitly related to how we understand their relation. Therefore, we cannot really deduce the relation between language and thought from our understanding of language and thought independently of how the relation is initially understood. The whole matter is indeed about what is the larger picture within which we understand the nature of language and thought. And, we think the Saussurean concept of linguistic sign, which deals with the problem of the duality of forms and ideas, provides us with such a picture. This is primarily the reason that motivates the present study.

In investigating the relation between language and thought from the Saussurean semiological perspective, we will also take into account the problem of the origin of language, which we think, represents another picture of language in that it represents an attempt to study the nature of language from a naturalistic perspective. Therefore, we want to contrast the Saussurean picture of language with this naturalistic picture of language; we want to see how the problem of the origin of language is understood from a semiological perspective. This would allow us to see how language is understood from a synchronic perspective in the Saussurean picture of language.

Finally, it is hoped the present study would contribute to our understanding of how language and thought is in fact always inseparable in our conception from a Saussurean perspective, that is, in terms of our existence as speakers.