The Influence of Saussure’s Language Theory on English Vocabulary Teaching

Many famous scholars have put forward their opinions on the nature of language. Among them, the most famous are Saussure’s dichotomy and Pierce’s trichotomy. Vocabulary learning plays a very important role in foreign language learning. Therefore, many scholars continue to carry out research and experiments on vocabulary learning and they try to find more effective and practical ways to help English learners remember words better and faster. Saussure put forward the viewpoint of arbitrariness of language signs. He believed that the first characteristic of language signs was their arbitrariness, that is, there was no natural and necessary essential relationship between the sound and meaning of language signs. Saussure’s discussion on the principle of arbitrariness points out two main points of the principle of arbitrariness. First, it refers to the relationship between the signifier and the signified. He points out that the connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. Beyond this scope, the principle will not apply. Saussure regards language as a purely psychological phenomenon. He believes that the signifier of language symbols is the sound image, and the signifier is the concept. Second, it refers to the "natural connection" between the two, that is, it cannot be seen from the physiological or physical properties of a certain language that it should be combined with a certain conceptual meaning into a language symbol. On the contrary, we can not see the reason that a certain concept combines with a certain voice to form a language symbol from its meaning characteristics. This paper attempts to apply Saussure’s language theory to daily English vocabulary teaching in order to find a simple, feasible and effective way to remember English words and phrases.