Abstract
Saussure’s formulation of the study of synchronic linguistics completely redirected the substantive interests of linguists. It also brought about profound changes of a philosophical, theoretical, and methodological nature. Saussure introduced a new relativistic and “constructivist” notion of a linguistic fact. He redefined language, making it an appropriate object for a strictly linguistic synchronic study. He suggested a new form of structural explanation of linguistic states that was neither causal nor historical. Saussure’s revolution was wide-ranging and radical, affecting major aspects of the idea system of linguistics.
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Notes and Reference
F. de Saussure, Course of General Linguistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 143 (hereafter CGL; see also ch. VII, note 16).
CGL, p. 161.
CGL, p. 14.
CGL, p. 98.
See, for example, the answers of Roman Jakobson et al and also of Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye to the questions “Quelles sont les méthodes les mieux appropriées à un exposé complet et pratique de la grammaire d’une langue quelconque?” in Actes du Premier Congrès International de Linguistes (Leiden: Nijhoffs, 1928), pp. 33–52.
Antoine Meillet, “F. de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale” in Revue critique d’histoire et de littérature, 1917, no. 4, pp. 49–51, and his compte rendu of the Cours in Bulletin de la société de linguistique de Paris, vol. 29, pp. 32–36
Maurice Grammont, compte rendu of the Cours in Revue de langues romanes, vol. 59 (1916–17), pp. 402–410
J. Vendryes, “Le caractère social du langage et la doctrine de F. de Saussure” in Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique, vol. 18 (1921), pp. 617–624.
Robert Godel, Les sources manuscrites du Cours de linguistique générale de F. de Saussure (Geneva: Droz, 1969), pp. 29–34.
The response to Otto Jespersen’s 1916 review of the Cours, reprinted in Linguistica: Selected papers in English, French and German (Copenhagen: Levin, 1933; pp. 109– 115)
can be found in Charles Bally “Langue et Parole,” in Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique, vol. 23 (1926)
Criticisms of Emile Benveniste (“Nature de signe linguistique,” Acta linguistica, vol. 1; 1940)
E. Pichon (“La linguistique en France,” Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique, vol. 33; 1937)
were answered by Charles Bally in “L’arbitraire du signe, valeur et signification,” (in Le français moderne, July 1940, pp. 3–16)
Albert Sechehaye, Charles Bally and Henri Frei in “Pour l’arbitraire du signe,” in Acta linguistica, vol. 2 (1940–41), p. 165–169. Similarly, the Geneva school answer to the criticisms of Meillet (see above note 6)
W. von Wartburg (“Das Ineinandergreifen von deskriptiver und historischer Sprachwissenschaft,” in Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sachsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig. Phil.-hist. Klasse, vol. 83; 1931, pp. 5–23)
Albert Sechehaye in “Les trois linguistiques saussuriennes,” in Vox Romanica, vol. 5 (1940), pp. 1–48.
Albert Sechehaye, “L’école genevoise de linguistique générale,” in Indogermanische Forschungen, vol. 44, pp. 217–241.
Georg Simmel, “The Stranger,” in Sociology of Georg Simmel, tr. and ed. Kurt H. Wolff (New York: Free Press, 1950)
Robert E. Park, “Human Migration and the Marginal Man,” in American Journal of Sociology, May 1928
Everett Stonequist, The Marginal Man (New York: Scribner, 1937).
Both Stonequist and Park also refer to Frederick Teggart’s Processes of History (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1918)
Frederick Teggart Theory of History (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1925).
Michael Mulkay, The Social Process of Innovation (London: Macmillan, 1972).
Recently, the association between marginality and innovation has been criticized by Thomas F. Gieryn and Richard F. Hirsh (“Marginality and Innovation in Science,” Social Studies of Science, vol. 13 (1983), pp. 87–106). They are, however, completely unable to distinguish “scientific importance” from the “cognitive discontinuity” which the association between marginality and innovation entails. Given the rarity of such discontinuous innovations in science, it is indeed unlikely that any such association would be statistically demonstrable. The criticism that looked at from a certain point of view anybody can appear marginal is more to the point, but it would be indeed a rare concept in the social sciences which would not imply such ambiguity: are we to get rid of “legitimation” because from a certain point of view many things can be shown to be both legitimate and illegitimate?.
See E. Frankel, “Corpuscular Optics and the Wave Theory of Light: the Study and Politics of a Revolution in Physics,” in Social Studies of Science, vol. 6 (1976), pp. 141–84.
On the uneven reception of Saussure’s Mémoire see Tullio de Mauro, “Notes biographiques sur F. de Saussure in Cours de linguistique générale, Ch. Bally and A. Sechehaye, eds. (Paris: Le Payot, 1973), pp. 328–29.
“Souvenirs de F. de Saussure concernant sa jeunesse et ses études,” in Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, vol. 15 (1957), p. 22.
“Souvenirs de F. de Saussure,” p. 24.
Claude Digeon, La crise française de la pensée allemande (1870–1914) (Paris: PUF, 1959), p. 375.
Digeon, p. 383.
Hans Aarsleff, “Bréal vs. Schleicher,” in From Locke to Saussure (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1982).
Aarsleff, pp. 304–305.
For example, Bréal’s “Le progrès de la grammaire comparée,” in Mémores de la Société de linguistique de Paris (1868)
the inaugural lecture at the Sorbonne of Abel Bergaigne, La Place du Sanscrit et de la grammaire comparée dans l’enseignement universitaire (Paris: 1886).
A. Meillet, “Les langues à l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes,” in Célébration du Cinquantenaire de l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris: Champion, 1922), pp. 19–20.
For the history of the society see J. Vendryes, “Première société linguistique,” in Orbis, vol. 4 (1955), pp. 7–21.
Meillet, p. 22.
Robert Gauthiot, “Ferdinand de Saussure,” in Thomas A. Sebeok, ed., Portraits of Linguists (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1966), vol. 2.
On the formal and informal organization of French higher education and research in the social sciences see Terry N. Clark, Prophets and Patrons: The French University and the Emergence of the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973).
Godel, p. 29.
Comparing Geneva and Paris, Albert Sechehaye writes: “When Fedinand de Saussure returned in 1891 to his native city of Geneva to occupy a chair of comparative grammar which was being created for him, he had to work… in an environment less favorable to linguistic endeavors” (Sechehaye, “L’Ecole génévoise,” p. 217.)
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Amsterdamska, O. (1987). Schools on the Periphery. In: Schools of Thought. Sociology of the Sciences Monographs, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3759-8_8
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