A Brief History of Modern Linguistics

The world was turned upside down and could not be seen as before with the publication of one book, whose author was not even well regarded during his lifetime. It would have been heretic before, to state that identity is defined negatively and not through positive characteristics, now it could even be considered empty (Ernesto Laclau will bring this thought to conclusion). Further, de Saussure made a distinction between ”langue” and ”parole”, the former standing for the whole system of meaning, such as a language with its vocabulary and grammar, on which language users have agreed and can draw on. By parole he meant the individual act or instance of speaking. We could say, again, that also chess is a langue and the different moves are parole.