Louis
Hjelmslev
Glossematics
HJELMSLEV AND DE SAUSSURE
Glossematics is often described as the
study that is “de Saussure taken to his logical conclusion.” Since it takes
seriously the dictum that language is a form, not a substance. More than many
linguists, Louis Hjelmslev was concern with establishing a set of formal
definitions from which theorems ca be derived for the purpose of describing the
patterns of language, independent of a concomitant study of phonetics or
semantics. While he acknowledged his debt to de Saussure. Hjelmslev pointed out
that he arrived at his conception of linguistics independently. In the work of Saussure
and Sapir, however he found confirmation and encouragement for his own point of
view. The formalism of his linguistics. Hjelmslev note, is similar to that
employed by workers in other, quite diverse fields, for example physics and
logic. In The Structural Analysis of Language” he discussed his debt to other
workers : he considered de Saussure the founder of linguistics science from the
synchronic point of view because of his emphasis on the structural, analysis of
language which Hjelmslev saw as a scientific description. By “scientific
description” Hjelmslev meant a description of language “ in terms of relation the
between units but which are not relevant to the relations or deducible from the
relations.
Hjelmslev concluded that in language
study this approach entails an investigation of linguistic relations
independent of phonetics and semantics and that the latter studies presuppose
structural analysis of the language pattern. Glossematics resembles the work of
de Saussure and that of the logistic study of language as
well, but it is not to be identified with either of these studies. In
particular, Hjelmslev found that the logistic and that, as a consequence, its
concept of this sign is stressed, and both expression and content can be
studied structurally. Besides this
Hjelmslev believed that the logistic study of language overlooks commutation,
the fundamental relation for the understanding of language.
PROLEGOMENA
TO A THEORY OF LANGUAGE”
Whitfield’s revised English translation of
the Prolegomena is a slim work of 127
pages, with 23 sections and 108 definitions to which one must constantly refer
when reading trough the book the first few times. The summary account of the
work given here, therefore, should be supplemented by a thoughtful reading of
the text.
“The
Study of Language and the Theory of language”
Language is connected with everything
human and can, therefore, be studied as a clue to isolated or related human
characteristics, but such studies are means to an end outside language itself.
In order to have a truly autonomous linguistics we should study language not as
a conglomerate of nonlinguistic phenomena but according to its own
“self-sufficient totality , a structure sui generis” Hjelmslev stated that the Prolegomena is an attempt to formulate
and discover the premises of such a linguistics, to establish its methods, and
to indicate its paths. Thus it will be best to put aside all previous
linguistic findings and viewpoints. Except for those that have proved their
positive usefulness. Particularly useful in this connection are findings of de Saussure.
“Linguistic
Theory and Humanism”
The object of linguistic study is
language, and, like any science, linguistics must discover the constancy in the
flux of data it examines. This is to be constancy within language that “makes a
language a language, whatever language it may be, and that makes a particular
language identical with itself in all its various manifestations”
The procedure to be followed, then, is
to classify these elements and calculate their combinatory possibilities, and
then to examine the data to see which of the possible combinations they
exemplify. The humanities in general, and history in particular, have failed to
become sciences precisely because they did not use this procedure. Whatever doubts
one may have about the applicability of the method to other disciplines,
language seems to be peculiarly fitted for such a procedure.
“Linguistic
Theory and Empiricism”
Hjelmslev use of the term “empirical” in
describing this principle may be questioned, since it usually means that
findings should agree with could be changed, of course, but the requirements are
basic to glossematics.
“Linguistic
Theory and Induction”
The source of difficulties in
previous linguistic theories has been the mode of investigation: they have been
inductive, proceeding from segment to class. Hjelmslev suggested that we start
with the data, which impose the opposite direction on the investigator. This is
because the data that the linguistic is given is a text, whole and entire. The
text can be considered as a class to be divided into components, and the
components then as classes to be further subdivided in the same manner until
the analysis is exhausted. This procedure “may therefore be defined briefly as
a progression fron class to component, not from component to class. It is a
synthetic, not an analytic, movement, a generalizing, not a specifying,
method”. This method may be termed deduction, even though the use of the term
disturbs epistemologists.
“Linguistic
Theory and Reality”
De Saussure had remarked in passing
“the point of view creates the object.” Hjelmslev inquired whether the object
determines and affects the theory determines and affects its object. He decided
that the term “theory” can be used in more than one way: if it is taken to mean “a set of
hypothesis” then the influence between theory and object is in one direction-the
object determines the theory and not vice versa.
The most important feature of such
deductive is that they permit us to deduce theorems that are all in the form of
logical implications. As the theory has been described so far, Hjelmslev
pointed out, there are no axioms or postulates, since those required are not
peculiar to linguistics but are the sort necessary to any science. Such postulates
or axioms would be, for example “there is such a thing as language” or “we are
capable of recognizing the presence or absence of language”
“The
Aim of Linguistic Theory”
Did Hjelmlsev think his theory the
only possible one for linguistics it is arbitrary, and, therefore, calculative
: appropriate and therefore empirical. It predefines the objects to which it can
be applied, and it can neither be verified nor refuted by empirical data. It
can be checked only for internal consistency and exhaustiveness. Alternative
solutions are possible according to the theory, since alternative procedures
are allow able in it, so that, according to the empirical principle,
“straplicity” would be the criterion for the preferable solution. Alternative
theories are conceivable, therefore, and they are to be judge according to
their degree of approximation to the requirements of the empirical principle.
“Perspectives
of Linguistic Theory”
Just as de Saussure called for a
“conventional simplification of the data” Hjelmslev required that linguistic
investigation begin with a “circumscription of the scope” of linguistic
relations, would be to ignore other linguistically relevant facts. In
Hjelmslev’s view one should first attain the exactness his theory aims at and
then enlarge the perspectives of linguistitcs after this exhaustive analysis.
“The
System of Definitions”
In Hjelmslev’s approach to
linguistics definitions play a central role, as the methods sketched above
suggest. Each definition is to be clearly connected with the others that
premise it. Some definitions are formulated as “if such and such is the case..”
in order to stress the fact that they are not intended to be real, but rather,
formal or structural definitions, without the existence postulates of other
linguistics systems. Operational definitions will also be admitted at various
stages of the analysis, but these are to be replaced by formal definitions as
soon as possible, so that axioms and postulates in linguistic theory can be
held at a minimum.
“Principle
of the Analysis”
The principle of the analysis is
not to vary from one text to the need and Hjelmslev recalled de Saussure’s
saying that “language is a form, not a substance” in order to stress the
invariable nature of the procedure. This is a movement from class to component
until further analysis is no longer possible and is base on this particular conception
of what linguistic “form” is “ While the principle sounds simple enough when expressed
in this way, it is not always easy to
know where to start.
This is absolutely central to
Hjelmslev’s position, since he held that “both the object under analysis and
its parts have existence only by virtue of these dependence. This method of
defining through relations involves a problem of circularity.
“Function”
A precise terminology will be
required to distinguish and state the kinds of dependences that hold among
linguistics items, and Hjelmslev proposed such a terminology in the section
“Functions” A function, then is a dependence that fulfills the conditions for
an analysis, so that there is a function between a class and its components,
such as a chain and its parts or a paradigm and its members and between
components mutually. The terminals of a function are called an entity would be
groups of syllables, syllables themselves and parts of syllables.
One of the entities in relations is
a constant, a functive whose presence is a necessary condition for another a
variable is a functive whose presence is not a necessary condition for the
presence of another. Presupposed by such definitions are indefinable such as
presence, necessity, and condition, as well as the definitions of function and
functive.
“Signs
and Figurae”
This idea suggests the need not
only to analyze expression and content separately but also to distinguish
lexical from contextual meanings a single expression can be considered insolar
as it manifest one sign or more. Thus
when we consider language in and for itself, we must conclude that (1) language
is first and foremost a sign system but (2) not a pure sign system, since (3)
it consists ultimately of a system of nonsigns, the figurae which are used to construct signs. This very fact indicates
that “we have found the essential basic feature in the structure of any
language” since it manageable , consisting of a limited number of figurae, yet infinitive in capacity ,
since new signs can always be constructed from the figurae.
“Expression
and Content”
Is the linguist sign necessarily
one that “has a meaning” in the sense that a linguist sign must be a sign for
something or does it result from a connection of expression and content. The
latter is Hjelmslev’s formulation of what he considered already established: a
sign function is one “posited between entities, an expression and a content” in
which the content is not to be confused with the often artificial meanings
assigned to lexical items independent of text.
“Linguist
Schema and Linguist Usage”
For such reasons as these the
linguistic and non linguistic study of puport must be undertaken separately.
The sciences that should study puport “in respect of both linguistic expression
and linguistic content, may in all essentials be thought of as belonging to the
sphere of physic and partly to that of (social).Other sciences can employ the
same deductive methods as have been described for glossematics and thereby
discover non linguistic hierarchies that can be correlated with the linguistic
categories of glossematics. The linguistic hierarchy is called the linguistic
schema and the non linguistic hierarchy, when they are ordered to the
linguistic usage. The linguistic usage is said to manifest the linguistic
schema and the relation between them is one of manifestation.
“Function
and Sum”
Linguistic entities are viewed in
glossematics as the intersection of relations a class that has function to one
or more classes within the same rank is called a sum. A syntagmatic sum is
called a unit , and a paradigmatic sum is called category.
