Ferdinand de Saussure
Saussure distinguished two different parts of language, langue and parole. Langue is the system of the language or the theory of the language. When we learn a language in school we are learning the “langue” of the language: vocabulary words, grammatical structures, the order of words, etc. Parole is how the language is actually spoken. Often times, people speak in a way that is different from how language is taught in schools. We make mistakes, use slang words, and use figurative language. This is all part of parole. Saussure was more interested in studying the langue of a language. Parole was harder to study because the language people speak changes often. Studying the langue allowed Saussure to understand the basic structure of language.