Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure, Swiss linguist (1857 - 1913) born in Geneva.

He laid the foundation for many developments in Linguistics in the 20th century. He perceived linguistics as a branch of a general science of signs he proposed to call semiology.

"A sign is the basic unit of langue. Every langue is a complete system of signs. Parole (speech) is an external manifestation of langue."

His work Cours de linguistique générale was published posthumously in 1916 by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye based on lecture notes. This became the seminal work of linguistics (structuralism in the 20th century.

De Saussure emphasized that there is as well synchronic view of linguistics in contrast to the diachronic view of the 19th century.

See Structuralism.