Multi-dimensional Nature of Language in the Approaches of Nāser Khosro and Saussure

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Abstract

The nature of language and its development has always been a matter of concern for philosophers and thinkers. Excluding the ideas of Plato, the studies on language throughout history have been diachronic. Nevertheless, Saussure Introduced a new approach called “synchronic” to the studies of language. Saussure, following the strategy of Kant, searches before everything, for the dimensions of language and finds out that three dimensions of langue, langage and parole can be distinguished. In Iran, it was Nāser Khosro who distinguished four dimensions of Nafs-e Nāteghe (rational soul), Notgh (speech), Ghowl (statement) and Kalām (parole). This article does its best to show the correspondence between the above-mentioned terms of the two thinkers.

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