ABSTRACT
Saussure's linguistics explores modern society's favourite view of itself, as being not a mere aggregate of individuals brought together by historical chance, but an organized system with its own individuality. Although communication among human beings by means of language has been a focal topic of study and inquiry since the very beginnings of Western education, the social role of language and the socially decisive forms of communication have not remained constant. In human communication there is no dimension of pure statement, just as there is no dimension of pure grammaticality. The theory of language itself implicitly dismisses communication as a mere by-product of something more permanent and more basic, the system of linguistic knowledge. By proclaiming that the analysis of linguistic competence must take priority over the study of linguistic performance, generativist theory tried to rebuild Saussure's fences against unwelcome intrusions by psychologists or sociologists.
