Ace Ventura, de Saussure

In de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, he speaks about language and value placed on words and sounds. To find the value of a word, he says that it must be compared to other words that stand in opposition to it (8). This means that a word is only given value when we can define what it is NOT. Or as de Saussure says, everything that exists outside it (8). Another step in finding the value and meaning of a word is to be able to symbolically compare it to something, for example one dollar is comparable to four quarters. Or we must understand something that it could be exchanged for. This would work with monetary values or with abstract words, such as "kind" can be exchanged for "nice". This is further discussed in Section 4: The Sign considered in its totality. Of course, I think to understand a sign, you have to look at every aspect of it (its opposites, its comparisons, its exchanges). de Saussure clarifies the importance of comparing opposites by saying that this is "only true if the signified and the signifier are considered separately" (10-11). In order to get the totality of the sign’s meaning, the signified (or symbol/abstract idea) and the signifier (the word or thing used to represent that idea) must be considered together. This makes the sign positive in its own effect because it is given totality and meaning it both what the sign is and is not. And once the totality of the sign is established, this is what makes up language and allows meaning from one person’s ideas to be passed on to another person and understood by both.