Ferdinand de Saussure was born in 1857 and died in 1913. He was the founder of modern linguistics and (along with Charles S. Peirce) the co-founder of modern semiotics, a field of study he named semiology.
In his “Course in General Linguistics” Saussure states: “A science that studies the life of signs in society is possible, it could be part of social psychology and respectively of general psychology, I will call it semiology (from the Greek semeion, Semiology will show what it is that constructs signs, what rules govern them. Since science does not yet exist, no one can say what it will look like, but it has a right to exist, it has its own, predetermined place “(1916 [1966], 16).
Saussure’s influence on the study of signs is enormous.
However, there is also an independent tradition of semiotic research, rooted in Peirce‘s dedication to the formulation of a truly general theory of signs.
While Saussure emphasizes the relativity of the sign, Peirce emphasizes its triad. In addition, Saussure’s approach to the study of linguistics and other signs is based on a series of dichotomies (for example signifier/signified; synchronic/diachronic; syntagmatic/paradigmatic), while Peirce‘s approach includes many trichotomies (sign–object–interpreter; iconic). index–symbolic).
This formal difference is deep and important.
