Saussure, Ferdinand de (1857–1913)

Swiss language scholar, a pioneer of modern linguistics and the originator of the concept of structuralism as used in linguistics, anthropology, and literary theory.

He taught at the universities of Paris and Geneva. His early work, on the Indo-European language family, led to a major treatise on its vowel system. Cours de linguistique générale/Course in General Linguistics 1916 was posthumously derived mainly from his lecture notes by his students Charles Bally and Albert Séchehaye.

Saussurean concepts include: (1) language seen as both a unified and shared social system (langue) and as individual and idiosyncratic speech (parole); (2) language described in synchronic terms (as a system at a particular time) and in diachronic terms (as changing through time).