| parole |
| Definition:
The Saussurean term for any speech act. Note: As opposed to langue, the particular language system the speech act is a part of. In other words, saying something we want to say is parole, whereas the set of rules and conventions that our language restricts us to use is langue. |
| Example:
(1) "How's it going" (parole) (2) English (langue) |
| Etymology: The technical term derives from the French parole in sense "(spoken) word or utterance." |
| Oxford English Dictionary: The first citation for the term in this sense is from 1935: "The utterance occurs, it is speech, ‘parole’; the form exists, so to say, it is a part of the language ‘langue’." (W. F. Twaddell in Lang. Monogr. XVI. 40) |
| Quotation:
"Let us follow de Saussure, and say that all those who ‘speak English’ (or are ‘speakers of English’) share a particular langue and that the set of utterances which they produce when they are ‘speaking English’ constitute instances of parole."
(Source: 1968 J. Lyons Introd. Theoret. Linguistics i. 51) |