It's All in Which Label is Able to Persist

“In language there are only differences without positive terms” (40), with this statement, Saussure has culminated his argument. Up until this point Saussure has explained that without language and without signs there would be no way to distinguish one thing from something else. As his argument continues he begins to break down the linguistic system. We learn that, “the meanings we give to words are purely arbitrary” (Barry 40) and that the usage of the word and its general approval are what give words meaning. To simply say that value is given to a word by putting together sound and concept is unrepresentative. Saussure also explains that “signs function, then, not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position” (39).  An example of this Saussure gives is the value of money; however another example that also remains relevant today is the value of a home.The structure of the home may remain unaltered, however if its value may change according to its relation within the economy.          

            Bringing back now the point to be explained that, “in language there are only differences without positive terms” (40). This means that meaning is only created through differences. The example in class that we discussed was the argument of light and dark. Dark is the absence of light and light is the absence of dark. The meaning stems from what the thing is not.

            When the signifier (sound-image) and signified (concept) stand alone, both are negative, however when brought together they become a positive truth – the sign. The statement of two negative differences making the positive sign is what Saussure means when he states “differences without positive terms”. Language can only be seen as negative in terms of the signifier and the signified, not the sign.

 “Their most precise characteristic is in being what the others are not” (38), exemplifies that meaning is relational and also proof that “the idea or phonic substance that a sign contains is of less importance than the other signs that surround it” (40). Encapsulating that meaning is arbitrary, relational and “attributed to the object or idea by the human mind, and constructed by and expressed through language: it is not already contained within the thing” (Barry 42).

              To explain Saussure’s third point about language Pater Barry discusses the common example of the paired alternatives ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom-fighter'. There is however, a song in the Broadway Show Wicked entitled “Wonderful” that has a verse that takes this common example even farther:

(spoken) Elphaba, where I'm from, we believe all sorts of
things that aren't true. We call it - "history."
(sung) A man's called a traitor - or liberator
A rich man's a thief - or philanthropist
Is one a crusader - or ruthless invader?
It's all in which label
Is able to persist
There are precious few at ease
With moral ambiguities
So we act as though they don't exist

The verse explains Saussure's point. The same person is called two different things, it all depends on how you look at it. Each word (thief/philanthropist) constructs the person in a different way, but the meaning of these words is only attributed to the person by the perspective of the onlooker.

Another song dealing with Saussure is The Magnetic Fields “The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure”.  First to discuss the meaning of the lyric “You can’t use a bulldozer/to study orchids”.  Generally bulldozers and orchids are not things you see in the same sentence, because they have little to do with each other, but perhaps that is the point (the bulldozer and the orchids are negatives, as written about earlier).  The lyric is used to explain how Ferdinand knows nothing about love.  Saussure is saying here that we cannot ever know the true meaning of things like love, only how it works in relation to other things. If orchids in this case are “love” then it’s safe to say that the bulldozer is our knowledge of it. We can never know the real “meaning” because the meaning is only what we give it.