Decoding the Bard: A Saussurean Analysis of Shakespearean Expressions

Excerpt from sonnet 40:I eaunot blame the, for my love you use; But yet he hlam'd, if thou thyself deceives.The process of monophthongization in the Middle English period led to such changes when the diphthong "ea" turned into the monophthong "e", as can be seen in words such as "Eaue" - "Eve" and "tearme" - "term", found in modern English.This process of change in the language structure also influenced the system of such relations as language (langue) and speech (parole). In the pseudo-authentic and authentic texts of F. de Saussure emphasizes that language, as a social system, is opposed to speech as an individual manifestation. Speech, in the understanding of F. de Saussure is an "individual act of will" that includes certain combinations that the speaker uses to express a thought. That is, we can note that the two language changes we have highlighted above can manifest themselves at the parole level when:1) the need to introduce anachronisms into the literary text2) with a low level of education of the native speaker, entailing anachronisms in speech used in everyday surroundingsThus, from a semiotic point of view, tradition can be considered as an archiseme (invariant), and innovation as a differential seme. The historically justified claim of the differential seme to the role of an archiseme leads to a radical change in the cultural paradigm. Saussure discovered a "special principle" of the construction of some poetic texts, according to which the structure of the text and the selection of the words forming it show dependence on the phoneme of the keyword. Saussure showed how the "external" element embedded inside the text affects the meaning of the "internal" elements, and the presence of an "external" element changes our attitude to the function performed by the order of the "internal" elements. Saussure proposed the idea of structuralism, according to which language consists of two main components - a linguistic sign and its meaning. Applying these theories to the analysis of Shakespeare's text helps to see the deeper meanings hidden behind words and phrases. The study of Shakespearean expressions with the help of Saussure's theories makes it possible to reveal not only the superficial content of the text, but also to reveal its internal structure and the connections between various elements. This helps to better understand the thoughts and ideas embedded in Shakespeare's works, as well as their impact on the modern world.