Martin (2013: 4):
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This is misleading because it is untrue. Saussure's example is not concerned with "this point", namely that "meaning has to do with relations between signs". Instead, it is an explanation as to why material phonic substance (sound) is not the linguistic signifier (sound-image) and so not a component of language. Saussure (1959: 118-9):
In addition, it is impossible for sound alone, a material element, to belong to language. It is only a secondary thing, substance to be put to use. All our conventional values have the characteristic of not being confused with the tangible element which supports them. For instance, it is not the metal in a piece of money that fixes its value. A coin nominally worth five francs may contain less than half its worth of silver. Its value will vary according to the amount stamped upon it and according to its use inside or outside a political boundary. This is even more true of the linguistic signifier, which is not phonic but incorporeal — constituted not by its material substance but by the differences that separate its sound-image from all others.
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