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Quote :A Course in General Linguistics
These signs thus function not according to their intrinsic value but in virtue of their relative position...All conventional values have the characteristic of being distinct from the tangible element which serves as their vehicle. For instance, it is not the metal in a piece of money that fixes its value. A crown piece nominally worth five francs contains only half that sum in silver. Its value varies somewhat according to the effigy it bears. It is worth rather more or rather less on different sides of a political frontier. Considerations of the same order are even more pertinent to linguistic signals. Linguistic signals are not in essence phonetic. They are not physical in any way. They are constituted solely by differences which distinguish one such sound pattern from another.
As the father of what we know today as semiotics, Saussure brought a structuralist approach to the study of signs and emphasized that the link between signifier and signified is arbitrary. That should pretty much be your mantra by now, but this is from one of the original works on the idea so you’re seeing it at the start, you lucky dog.
Using the example of a coin, Saussure emphasizes that the coin’s value isn’t based on what it’s made of. It’s not as though coins and banknotes have any inbuilt worth—like all cultural objects, they become invested with meaning. This consequently gives us another example of the conventionality that Saussure sees as defining sign production.
This quote also highlights the structuralist basis of Saussure’s approach, pointing out that an object’s value is created in relation to other objects. In terms of money, we can see that this isn’t just a question of a particular coin but rather money as a cultural system (it’s even easier to visualize with paper money: is a $100 bill made of better paper than a $20? Nope, but Ben Franklin gets you a bit closer to buying the new iPhone).
This doesn’t just apply to physical objects, either: Saussure adds that the same goes for linguistic signs. Whatever the form, signs take on meaning when we consider them in relation to one another. This means recognizing not just what a sign represents but what it doesn’t represent: that is, what sets it apart from the other signs around it.
These signs may seem similar on the surface, but if we study them on a semiotic level, we may find that this is far from the case. So Saussure helps demonstrate that signs don’t just have their own internal structure but are part of wider structures too. You sure? So sure!