1/28/2004   slide 8
Language and Structuralism
•Saussure (a founder of semiotics) believed that “thought is a shapeless mass, which is only ordered by language. […] no ideas preexist language; language itself gives shape to ideas and makes them expressible.” Dr. Mary Klages, Associate Professor of English, University of Colorado at Boulder, http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/saussure.html
•Structuralism: what are the units of the system and how can they be combined?
–The "units" in a Tinkertoy set: the colored rods, and connectors and wheels, and attachments; the "rules" of Tinkertoy construction = rods go into holes. Everything you can make out of Tinkertoys uses the units according to the rules. Doesn’t consider what you actually make. Dr. Mary Klages, Associate Professor of English, University of Colorado at Boulder, http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/saussure.html
–For language, units=words (or phonemes) and combination rules=grammar.
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Ferdinand Saussure, one of the founders of  semiotics. A linguist and a structuralist

Tinkertoy example from http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/saussure.html

Noam Chomsky is also an important player in this discussion, see http://www.chomsky.info/

SOURCES
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Dr. Mary Klages, Associate Professor of English, University of Colorado at Boulder, http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/saussure.html

Ferdinand de Saussure's "Course in General Linguistics" in Adams and Searle, ed., Critical Theory Since 1965.
Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide (New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1999) pp. 197-200.