Ferdinand de Saussure

structuralism

is a thinker who repositioned language from something peripheral to our grasp of the world we live in, to something that is central to it.

Language is no longer regarded as peripheral to our grasp of the world we live in, but as central to it. Words are not mere vocal labels or communicational adjuncts superimposed upon an already given order of things. They are collective products of social interaction, essential instruments through which human beings constitute and articulate their world. This typically twentieth-century view of language has profoundly influenced developments throughout the whole range of human sciences. It is particularly marked in linguistics, philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology.

Ferdinand de Saussure, n.Definitions

Ferdinand de Saussure