ÉMILE BENVENISTE "THE NATURE OF THE LINGUISTIC SIGN" (1939)

Benveniste, Emile. “The Nature of the Linguistic Sign.” Problems in General

Linguistics.
Trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek. Coral Gables: U of Miami P, 1971. 43-48.
Benveniste argues the “idea of the linguistic sign” (43) is derived from the work of
Saussure.
It was Saussure who argued that the “nature of the sign is arbitrary” (43), an assertion the
correctness of which has come to be “granted as obvious” (43) on a widespread basis.
Benveniste is alluding, of course, to Saussure’s view that signifiers/phonemes,
signifieds/concepts and, thus, signs are purely differential and not defined by their
positive
content (in short, the meaning of a sign is a matter of what the sign is not). For Saussure,
the idea of an ‘ox’ (the signified), for example, is not connected to the signifier thereof
(o-x)
by any necessary or motivated bond. This “characteristic ought then to explain the very
fact
by which it is verified: namely, that expressions of a given notion vary in time and space
and
in consequence have no necessary relationship with it” (43). In claiming that the proof
that
signifiers are only arbitrarily linked to particular signifieds lies in the existence of
different
languages which use different signs to refer to the same referent, Benveniste contends,
Saussure is conflating the proof with the cause.
Benveniste contends that even though Saussure
said that the idea of ‘sister’ is not connected to the signifier s-o-r, he was not
thinking any less of the reality of the notion. When he spoke of the difference
between b-o-f and o-k-s, he was referring in spite of himself to the fact that
these two terms applied to the same reality. Here, then, is the thing, expressly
excluded from the definition of the sign, now creeping back into it by a detour,
and permanently installing a contradiction there. For if one states in principle
– and with reason – that language is form, not substance, it is necessary to
admit – and Saussure asserted it plainly – that linguistics is exclusively a
science of forms. (44)
Even “more imperative is the necessity for leaving the ‘substance,’ sister or ox, outside
the
realm of the sign” (44): “it is only if one thinks of the animal ox in its concrete and
‘substantial’ particularity, that one is justified in considering ‘arbitrary’ the relationship
between böf (‘boeuf’) [the French word] on the one hand and oks (‘ox’) [the English
word] on
the other to the same reality” (725). The thing-in-itself, expressly excluded from
Saussure’s
model of the sign, creeps back into it by a detour, as it were. Benveniste may be said in
this
essay to be showing how Saussure’s argument deconstructs itself, that is, Benveniste is
stressing the aporia or contradictions latent in his argument. Saussure’s argument in this
regard collapses because the distinction which he is drawing between the signified and
the
referent and upon which his contention here is predicated begins to blur upon closer
inspection.
Benveniste attributes the reason for this “contradiction” (44) in Saussure's theory not
to a “relaxation of his critical attention” (44), but to the “historical and relativist thought
of
the end of the nineteenth century” (44) according to which “[d]ifferent people react
differently
to the same phenomenon. The infinite diversity of attitudes and judgments leads to the
consideration that apparently nothing is necessary. From the universal dissimilarity, a
universal contingency is inferred. The Saussurian concept is in some measure dependent
on
this system of thought” (44). The sign only appears arbitrary to someone “who limits
himself
to observing from the outside the bond established between an objective reality and
human
behaviour and condemns himself thus to seeing nothing but contingency” (44).
Benveniste
concedes that all this proves is that no “denomination in itself is absolute” (45).
The more important question, however, “consists in discerning the inner structure of2
Richard L. W. Clarke LITS3304 Notes 02A
the phenomenon of which only the outward appearance is perceived" (45). Benveniste
argues
that the connection between the signifier (the sound image) and the signified (the concept
attached thereto) is in fact “necessary” (45), the signified being "perforce identical in my
consciousness with the sound sequence . . . Together the two are imprinted on my mind,
together they evoke each other under any circumstance" (45). In the speaker's mind, there
is a "close symbiosis" (45) between sound and idea to the point where the latter is “like
the
soul” (45) of the former. This is because the “mind does not contain empty forms” (45)
nor
“concepts without names” (45). The
mind accepts only a sound form that incorporates a representation identifiable
for it; if it does not, it rejects it as unknown or foreign. The signifier and the
signified, the mental representation and the sound image, are thus in reality
the two aspects of a single notion and together make up the ensemble as the
embodier and the embodiment. The signifier is the phonic translation of a
concept; the signified is the mental counterpart of the signifier. This
consubstantiality of the signifier and the signified assures the structural unity
of the linguistic sign. (45)
“What is arbitrary is that one certain sign and no other is applied to a certain element of
reality, and not to any other” (46). This is the “metaphysical problem of the agreement
between the mind and the world transposed into linguistic terms” (46). For the speaker,
“there is complete equivalence between language and reality. The sign overlies and
commands reality; even better it is that reality (nomen/omen, speech taboos, the magic
power of the word, etc.)” (46). The “assertion of the linguist as to the arbitrariness of
designations does not refute the contrary feeling of the speaker” (46). But all this, which
addresses the (arbitrary) relationship of sign to referent, has nothing to do with the
relationship which exists between signifier and signified which, Benveniste contends, is
anything but arbitrary. Even in cases such as onomatopoeia, the “arbitrary” (46) only
exists
“with respect to the phenomenon or the material object, and does not interfere with actual
composition of the sign” (46).
Benveniste turns his attention at this point to the claim by Saussure that the sign is
both mutable and immutable: “mutability, because since it is arbitrary it is always open to
change, and immutability, because being arbitrary cannot be challenged in the name of a
rational norm” (46-47). Again, Benveniste is of the view that this is true not of the
relationship between signifier and signified, but of that which exists between sign and
referent: what Saussure “demonstrated remains true, but true of the signification, not the
sign” (47).
Benveniste then turns his attention to the question of the sign’s “value” (47),
something determined, according to Saussure, by its relationship to the other signs which
comprise the sign system of which it is part. The “choice that invokes a certain sound
slice
for a certain idea is not at all arbitrary; this sound slice would not exist without the
corresponding idea and vice versa” (47). In reality, in Benveniste’s view, Saussure was
“always thinking of the representation of the real object (although he spoke of the ‘idea’)
and
of the evidently unnecessary and unmotivated character of the bond which united the sign
tothe thing signified” (47). It is quite true, Benveniste argues, that
values remain entirely ‘relative’ but the question is how and with respect to
what. Let us state this at once: value is an element of the sign; if the sign
taken in itself is not arbitrary, . . . it follows that the ‘relative’ character of the
value cannot depend on the ‘arbitrary’ nature of the sign. Since it is necessary
to leave out of account the conformity of the sign to reality, all the more should
one consider the value as an attribute only of the form, not of the substance.
From then on, to say that the values are ‘relative’ means that they are relative3
Richard L. W. Clarke LITS3304 Notes 02A
to each other. Now, is that not precisely the proof of their necessity? We deal
no longer here with the isolated sign but with language as a system of signs,
as a] systematic economy. Whoever says system says arrangement or] . . .
conformity of parts in a structure which transcends and explains its elements.
Everything is so necessary in it that modifications of the whole and of details
reciprocally condition one another. The relativity of values is best proof that
they depend closely upon one another in the synchrony of a system which is
always being threatened, always being restored. The point is that all values are
values are values of opposition and are defined only by their difference.
Opposed to each other, they maintain themselves in a mutual relationship of
necessity. An opposition is, owing to the force of circumstances, subtended by
necessity, as it is necessity which gives shape to the opposition. If language
is something other than a fortuitous conglomeration of erratic notions and
sounds uttered at random, it is because necessity is inherent in its structure as
in all structure. (48)
Benveniste concludes that the “role of contingency in language affects denomination
insofar
as denomination is a phonic symbol of reality and affects it in its relationship with
reality”
(48). However, the sign “ includes a signifier and a signified whose bond has to be
recognised
as necessary, these two components being consubstantially the same” (48). The “absolute
character of the linguistic sign thus understood commands in turn the dialectical necessity
of
values of constant opposition, and forms the structural principle of language” (48).
Benveniste ends by contending that the proof that a doctrine is truly fruitful is that “it
can engender a contradiction which promotes it. In restoring the true nature of the sign in
the internal conditioning of the system, we go beyond Saussure himself to affirm the
rigour of Saussure’s thought” (48)