LangueandParole
Authors: (Hans) Bakker J. I. 
Published: September 2017

Ferdinand de Saussure distinguishes between a “language” (langue) in its structural form and the spoken word (parole). Linguistics studies patterns of communication using an auditory mode, but vocalized sounds in one language are structurally related to sounds in other languages, particularly languages of the same language family. Chomsky makes a similar distinction between “competence” and “performance.” When a native speaker speaks a language, he or she “performs” theparolebut is not necessarily aware of the linguistic structure of that language as a generalized “competence” in the linguistics of thatlangue. It is possible to speak alanguein a grammatically correct manner without any knowledge of the discipline of linguistics in general, or even the application of linguistic rules to that specific language. The distinction is similar to the anthropological terms “etic” and “emic,” which are taken by analogy from phonetics and phonemics. In anthropology an “etic” approach to ethnographic fieldwork data is the outsider's academic perspective concerning patterns and structures, while the “emic” aspect is the indigenous knowledge of the culture in practice in daily life. An anthropological fieldworker attempts to learn the implicit rules and must become as adept at the local dialect as a native speaker. But the researcher then takes the data and makes broader generalizations than most indigenous speakers are likely to be concerned with in their everyday use of subtle distinctions. In linguistics, phonemics studies the phonemes, which are a class of phonetically similar “phones” or speech sounds (from the Greek word for voice), while phonetics is also concerned with patterns of sound changes in a language or group of languages. Grimm's law is a law of phonetics. Something similar is meant by Saussure's distinction, but it is not entirely clear whether he thought oflangueas an ontologically real structure or merely an epistemologically ideal device. Saussure's distinction is synchronic rather than diachronic; the actual utterance by a person is a product of that speaker's having been socialized into a language which is relatively fixed during his or her lifetime. There is some indication that Saussure may not have been entirely settled on the methodological importance of the distinction for general linguistics; however, many structuralist theorists have utilized it. Hence, the structuralist tradition in anthropology that is associated with Claude Lévi‐Strauss uses Saussure's distinction, which may be part of the reason why it was eventually transformed into the etic/emic distinction. A structuralist approach tolangueis compatible with “semiology,” “signology,” or – as it is usually called now, semiotics (Seung 1982). The implications of Saussure's distinction have been debated by philosophers influenced by the “linguistic turn.” The linguistic turn is often associated with “ordinary language philosophy” and with Wittgenstein's later philosophy, which stresses the ordinary use of words in “natural language” (Rorty 1967). Walter Benjamin was opposed to Saussure's ontological assumptions concerning the arbitariness of the signifier.