The 8:25 - Saussure and Structuralism

In Course in General Linguistics, Saussure explains that “in language are only differences without positive terms.” (40). Essentially, Saussure means to say that all words in a text possess binary opposites, with no unchanging, inherent connotation in language. ‘Day and night,’ ‘male and female,’ network television and HBO,’ these binary opposites primarily contain meaning when they are in direct correlation with one another. Day is not night, and night is not day. An example Saussure uses for this, which I feel helps to support this idea, is the 8:25 Geneva to Paris train. The train is set to leave at this specific time, but each day it transports different passengers, different drivers on duty, it could be an entirely different train altogether. The train may or may not be a train, but a bus or another mode of transportation. Saussure wraps up this idea by saying that the 8:25 train exhibits its identity for the solitary reason that it arrives after the 7:25 train and before the 9:25 train; the ‘relational’ point in a structure of differentiation. In short, we understand a thing only for what it is not.
In opposition to structuralism and Saussure, post-structuralism goes against the idea that language has only differences without positive terms. Post-structuralism would argue against the idea that a system of differences forms a center of one unified meaning. It would destabilize the center and look for other possible meanings and, perhaps, expose it leading to potential contradiction. The process of reading a text against itself certainly is the technique in post-structuralism.