"You are nothing, I am nothing" [without lanaguge] - The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure

The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure states, “the bond between the signifier and the signified is radically arbitrary” (35). In this case, the signifier is a word, or an arrangement of sounds, and the signified is the object the word represents. What he means by this is that language cannot adequately represent reality. Our system of linguistics does not have the ability to take the place of actual objects. Humans create words to symbolize ideas, but there is no real relationship between the actual concept, or object, and the word that symbolizes it. A word is simply a human construct made up of a series of characters that represents an actual, concrete thing. It doesn’t matter what word we use to describe an object, for the signified will not change in reality, even when we change the signifier. Check here for a more in-depth analysis of semiotics - the study of sign processes, or signification and communication of signs and symbols.

For example, we can have more than one word to describe something. A couch is still the same thing even if one refers to it as a sofa. A soda is still the same even if it is called a tonic. This arbitrary bond between the signifier and the signified is particularly evident when we consider slang terms. We have language that is the “accepted vernacular”. These are the signifiers that are politically correct and used widely amongst a group of people. Most people use the word “father” or “dad”, but “pops” and “old man” are two slang terms that refer to the same thing. The fact that we can come up with these crude words to replace signifiers that already exist renders the relationship between the signifier and the signified useless and arbitrary. Humans simply assign meaning to words and everyone agrees that they will refer to a concrete thing. These signifiers have no real value of their own, they are simply letters put together that represent an idea.

To further prove the arbitrariness of a bond between the signifier and the signified, one can also look at the differences between English and a foreign language; French for example. In fact, the existence of multiple languages proves that a bond is arbitrary in that, there are many words in different cultures for the same finite, objective, thing. In the English language when one hears the word “salad,” it conjures up thoughts of a plate, or bowl, filled with vegetables, and maybe coated in dressing. However, if translated into French, “salade” can mean two distinct things – our idea of salad, or specifically “lettuce.” A similar situation with the word “door.” In English, one thinks of a door being a hinged, or sliding barrier at the entrance of a room, car, etc. When translated the French, “porte” brings up two distinct images – what our “English” mind thinks of, but it can also mean a “gate;” as in the hinged barrier of a fence. The word “porte” has a different value than the word “door.”

As one can see, the signifier is completely subjective, and the sounds we use to distinguish the signified have no real connection or bond. An American saying or reading the word “door” has a different, subjective idea of a door than a French person reading or saying the word “porte.” To the French they have to distinguish between two different meanings. This arbitrary bond goes even further due to the uniqueness of each humans mind and experience. The way one experiences a door (the shape, the size, the color, etc.) will not compare to the way another person experiences a door. This shows that language is just specific sounds affiliated with a concrete object. However, these sounds have no relative meaning or importance to the reality and essence of that object.

In relation to Saussure’s idea of the arbitrary bond between the signifier and signified, and the literary theory of Structuralism, The Magnetic Fields, an eminent indie/synth Boston-based band, wrote a song called “The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure.” Along with the nostalgia-induced high that comes from listening and remembering my childhood of 90's television riddled with The Magnetic Fields, sprouts a new emotion of literary criticism and analysis though the lyrics. The songs lyrics tell a narrative of the “shooting” of Ferdinand de Saussure in which Ferdinand says “you can’t use a bulldozer to study orchids.” Structuralism, which theorizes that everything plays on a central structure, argues the privileged have a better understanding of a text due to the aesthetic effect. The aesthetic affect works on the cultured and uncultured, and is based on the inequality of those who can interpret and those who cannot. This inequality forms a binary of dominant/dominated, which plays back into the system of the state ideological apparatus (ISA).

When applying this theory to the lyric “you can’t use a bulldozer to study orchids” one could postulate the bulldozer to be the uncultured and the orchid, to be the cultured. The orchid is cultured, and thus dominant, because it holds beauty and sophistication whereas the bulldozer is uncultured due to its clumsiness and robotic aspects, thus the dominated one (it’s also controlled by a human, but that’s an analysis for a different day).
When including linguistics into the analysis, Structuralism theorizes that there is nothing, no truth or reality, outside the system of language. This parallels perfectly with the chorus of “The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure” –

"He said so we don't know anything
You don't know anything
I don't know anything
about love
But we are nothing
You are nothing
I am nothing
without love…

His fading words were
We don't know anything"

Now, if The Magnetic Fields were only to replace the words “about/without love” with “without language” this would, in essence, explain the Structuralist theory that nothing exists outside the system of language. Language is a system of differences with no positive terms. It’s certainly quite a stretch, however these lyrics do encompass some of the ideas of Saussure, language and Structuralism.