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Theessence of Saussure’s philosophy of language lies in the systematic approach,specifically in the approach of negativity. However, studies of Saussure’s theorieshave paid more attention to his theory of general linguistics, which has left thephilosophical aspects of linguistics, such as the relation between language and world,not deeply touched. To fully understand Saussure’s theory of meaning, it is necessaryto explore Saussure’s theory of general linguistics from the perspective of philosophyof language.
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CHAPTER TWOliterature review

2.1 Introduction
As mentioned in Chapter One, the purpose of the present study is to explore, (1) whatis negativity for Saussure; (2) how negativity is realized at different levels of thelanguage system through an analysis of Course in General Linguistics, Writings inGeneral Linguistics and other related works. It can be seen from the above statementthat to achieve this purpose, the current research in three areas has to be reviewed sothat the present study can be grounded on a more valid theoretical basis.More specifically, since this study explores what negativity is in Saussure’stheory of general linguistics, first included in this chapter will be a brief review of thestudies on Saussure’s negativity. Specifically, studies from the perspective of theprinciples of opposition and difference, studies on syntagmatic and associativerelations and studies from the perspective of the realizations of differences will bereviewed. Finally, there will be a summary of this chapter. The purpose of doing so isto provide the theoretical basis for the present study. They will also serve as areference against which the results of the present study can be compared.
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2.2 Studies on Saussure’s Negativity: An Overview
Negativity, as a philosophical and logical approach, was first mentioned by Feng(1946) as one of the ways to study metaphysics. He states that there are two ways totalk about metaphysics. One is the positive way which illustrates metaphysics in alogical way; however, since metaphysics is unspeakable, we need another way to talkabout it, and the other way is to talk about metaphysics in the negative way which isto say that these metaphysical abstractions are unspeakable. To say metaphysics isunspeakable means to illustrate some aspects of metaphysics. Simply put, since metaphysics is unspeakable, we simply speak of what it is not when talking about it.However, as Saussure’s approach to general linguistics, “negativity” is proposedand first defined by Huo (2014:5). He points out that Saussure has cut off the linkbetween a linguistic sign with the outside world. Hence the meaning of a linguisticsign cannot be defined by reference, and it has to be identified and demonstratedwithin the language system. That is to say, the meaning of a linguistic sign is a resultof the working of the whole language system. Thus, the value of a linguistic sign canonly be defined in the negative way. What is negative way? He defines it like this.To define the signifier of a signified, we will not define it in the way of genusplus species difference, which means providing characteristics of the signifierpositively and directly. Instead, we will define it in terms of its differences from allthe other signs in the language system. Usually, the differences will be a set ofdistinctive features with comparative properties.(Huo 2014: 5)Although Saussure’s “n