synchrony and diachrony


synchrony and diachrony

  1. (LINGUISTICS) the distinction between the study of language as an existing system of relationships and without reference to the past (synchrony) and the study of the changes in language over time (diachrony) - See also SAUSSURE.
  2. (STRUCTURALISM) the distinction, deriving from the above, between an analysis and explanation of any feature of social life carried out with reference to existing 'structural’ features of a society or social system, without reference to history (synchrony), and historical analysis which focuses on change (diachrony).
  3. (similarly, but in sociology more generally) the distinction between accounts of social order and accounts of social change. For example, in his account of social evolutionary processes, Harré Social Being (1979) distinguishes between 'synchronic replicators’ and ‘diachronic selectors’.
In structuralism the distinction has often been associated with the downgrading of the significance of historical explanations, and an associated downgrading of the role of the SUBJECT and human agency, and the elevation of structural explanations to supreme status. However, there is no inherent reason why structural explanations and historical explanations should not be combined, or structural explanations combined with explanations in terms of the agency of individual human subjects (see STRUCTURE AND AGENCY, DUALITY OF STRUCTURE, STRUCTURATION THEORY). However, this is more easily said than done, with some sociologists, whether for convenience or for reasons of principle, preferring to concentrate on one or the other (see also EPOCHÉ).