Blackwell Reference Online

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P hilosophy of language, philosophy of social science A distinction drawn by Saussure in his linguistics and translated as the language/speech distinction. According to Saussure, language as a whole can be divided into institutional and innovational elements. The institutional element is called langue , and the innovational element is called parole. Langue comprises language rules, which exist as social conventions. It contains the traditional stock of knowledge held by members of a society that make communication possible. Langue is a social phenomenon and cannot be created or modified by the individual. Parole , in contrast, is language in use whereby new definitions of situations are created day by day. It is individual, and the source of linguistic change. The langue/parole distinction has had great influence in linguistics, philosophy, and other social scientific and humane disciplines. It is the precursor of Chomsky 's competence/performance distinction. “For language itself can be analysed into things which are at the same time similar and yet different. This is precisely what is expressed in Saussure's distinction between langue and parole, one being the structural side of language, and the other the statistical aspect of it, langue belonging to a reversible time, parole being non-reversible.” Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology ... log in or subscribe to read full text