ABSTRACT
One major achievement demonstrated by the celebrated masterpiece Course in General Linguistics, first published in 1916, by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand Saussure is that it transcended conventional linguistics by proposing a whole system of principles and methodologies that manifested salient tendencies of structuralism. In particular, the classic differentiation made by Saussure between the signifier and the signified provided a critical foundation for the explorations subsequently undertaken by structuralism into the process whereby meaning is generated, that is, the practice of signification. In order to probe into the relationship between meaning and reality, history, ideology, and culture, it is necessary not only to apply the concepts of the signifier and the signified but also to make this pair of correlated concepts to bear on yet another concept, i.e. the concept of "referents." The evolution of the relationship between the signifier and the signified from arbitrariness to motivation is a process whereby signs are socialized and become culturally and historically labeled.
