Mistaking Saussure's Rejected Model For Saussure's 'Sign' [1]

Martin (2013: 2):

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading because it is untrue. Saussure does not use these analogies "to guard against this common-sense misunderstanding" of his sign. Saussure uses these analogies in arguing against one view of language, not the sign. They appear in the section Language as Organised Thought Coupled with Sound. Whereas both elements of the sign are psychological, the concern here is with relating the psychological (thought) with the physical (sound). Saussure is quite explicit that sound is physical rather than psychological by distinguishing sound from the word-image (signifier). Saussure (1959: 12): 

I have included only the elements thought to be essential, but the drawing brings out at a glance the distinction between the physical (sound waves), physiological (phonation and audition), and psychological parts (word-images and concepts). Indeed, we should not fail to note that the word-image stands apart from the sound itself and that it is just as psychological as the concept which is associated with it.

 Saussure (1959: 113) states the first analogy as follows:

Language can also be compared with a sheet of paper: thought is the front and the sound the back; one cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time; likewise in language, one can neither divide sound from thought nor thought from sound; the division could be accomplished only abstractedly, and the result would be either pure psychology or pure phonology.

It will be seen that this misunderstanding is the source of Martin's misunderstanding of Saussure's sign in this monograph.