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Ferdinand de Saussure Philosopher

Ferdinand de Saussure (/sɔːˈsʊr/ or /soʊˈsʊr/; French: [fɛʁdinɑ̃ də sosyʁ]; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist and semiotician whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments both in linguistics and semiology in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics and one of two major fathers (together with Charles Sanders Peirce) of semiotics/semiology.One of his translators, Roy Harris, summarized Saussure's contribution to linguistics and the study of language in the following way:Language is no longer regarded as peripheral to our grasp of the world we live in, but as central to it. Words are not mere vocal labels or communicational adjuncts superimposed upon an already given order of things. They are collective products of social interaction, essential instruments through which human beings constitute and articulate their world. This typically twentieth-century view of language has profoundly influenced developments throughout the whole range of human sciences. It is particularly marked in linguistics, philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology.Although they have undergone extension and critique over time, the dimensions of organization introduced by Saussure continue to inform contemporary approaches to the phenomenon of language. Prague school linguist Jan Mukařovský writes that Saussure's "discovery of the internal structure of the linguistic sign differentiated the sign both from mere acoustic 'things' ... and from mental processes", and that in this development "new roads were thereby opened not only for linguistics, but also, in the future, for the theory of literature." Ruqaiya Hasan argues that "the impact of Saussure’s theory of the linguistic sign has been such that modern linguists and their theories have since been positioned by reference to him: they are known as pre-Saussurean, Saussurean, anti-Saussurean, post-Saussurean, or non-Saussure."

Personal facts

Birth date	November 26, 1857
Birth place	Geneva , Switzerland
Date of death	February 22, 1913
Place of death	Switzerland , Vaud , Vufflens-le-Château
Era	19th-century philosophy
Main interest	Linguistics

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