UTEL
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Glossary of Literary Theory |
Diachrony
:
A term describing a mode of analysis that undertakes to construct the
historical evolution of a system of thought or language. The synchronic,
by contrast, undertakes to describe the system as an existing whole without
respect to its history. Structural linguistics rejects the diachronic assumptions
of classical philology, which studies linguistic change over a long period
of time, and embraces the synchronic assumptions of Saussurian linguistics,
which studies language as a functioning system existing in the here and
now. (See also Structuralism.)
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