Abstract
In “Réflections inédites de Saussure sur les phonèmes” (1973: 287–295), Roman Jakobson mentions an untitled manuscript, described as “étude phonetique.” In it, Saussure provides an interesting equation: phonème = valeur sémiologique. The equation stresses the purely semiological aspect of the phoneme and will serve as a focal point for the analysis carried out in this paper. The discussion will also explore two other related concepts introduced in the manuscript and in the only book Saussure ever published, Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européens (1879): coefficient sonantique, and ‘équivalence sémiologique’ ” (Jakobson 1973: 294).
This study attempts to draw implications for a semiotic theory of phonology based on acoustic cues found in a case study of consonant / liquid / consonant (CLC/#) clusters that occur as congeners in two cognate Slavic languages: Polish and Czech. Apart from the semiological insights of Saussure, the study's analytical perspective also builds on the semiotic oeuvre of Roman Jakobson and Boris Uspiensky (Tartu semiotics). The Tartu notion of cultural text is a sort of time center, or a groove for the discussion. The empirical section analyzes a corpus of recordings of CLC clusters in various languages collected by the author, treating particular spectrograms as cultural texts in the Tartu understanding of the term: as visual data generated by a particular speech community.
Supplemental Material
The online version of this article (DOI: 10.1515/sem-2014-0082) offers supplementary material, available to authorized users.
About the author
Małgorzata Haładewicz-Grzelak (b. 1966) is a senior lecturer at Politechnika Opolska <m.haladewicz-grzelak@po.opole.pl>. Her research interests include cultural semiotics and Beats-and-Binding phonology. Her publications include “Dynamic modeling of visual texts: A relational model” (2012); “Ecological aspects of Beats-and-Bindings phonology as exemplified on the comparison of word-medial clusters in English and Spanish” (2013); “Natural Neogrammarians and poussière linguistique” (2013); and “Story-ing memory in the Licheń spiritual centre (Poland)” (with J. Lubos-Kozieł, 2014).
©2015 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
