Ferdinand de Saussure : origin and development of his linguistic theory in western studies of language : a critical evaluation of Saussurean principles and their relevance to contemporary linguistic theories

Description

The present study constitutes a contribution to general linguistic theory and to the history of linguistics. The choice of Ferdinand de Saussure as the central figure of the investigation is based on the following traditional assumptions: 1) Saussure has been almost unanimously regarded as the founder of modern structural linguistics; his posthumous Cours de linguistique générale has generally been interpreted as a complete break with previous theories of language, in particular those of the Junggramatiker, and 3) modern linguists have tended to regard his achievements as the creative act of a genius who was completely independent of the intellectual atmosphere of his time. Since these views have been expressed in all histories of linguistics up to the present date, and particularly because our own findings do not confirm this, we have found sufficient reason to question the manner in which the history of linguistics has been written. Histories of linguistics 1) have been almost exclusively concerned with relating ideas about language and its study in a merely chronological manner (suggesting at the same time that contemporary ideas are much more sophisticated, adequate, and naturally superior); 2) are frequently based on earlier accounts relying heavily on secondary sources; 3) have regarded developments in linguistic thought almost completely in isolation and have not taken into account their socio-political and cultural background, and 4) have not to date seriously attempted to construct a theory of how the history of linguistics should be written. In view of the distorted picture of Saussure's position in the history of linguistics and the inadequacy of the work of previous historians of linguistics, the first part of our study attempts to illustrate, by restricting our attention to a specific period of time and a particular cultural and historical area, the manner in which the account of linguistic thought of the past should he presented. In this part the concept of paradigm is introduced in the sense of intellectual atmosphere prevailing at a given time within a specific socio-political and cultural setting. Linguistic thought reflects mutatis mutandis the paradigm of its time and indeed we would argue that the history of linguistics represents the history of ideas par exceZZence. Saussure's ideas about the nature of language constitute an example of how the paradigm of his time had an impact on his theory. While we deny that Saussure was directly influenced by sociological, economic, psychological or philosophical concepts of the 19th century, his argument reveals that he belonged to the paradigm of the late 19th century and the turn of this century; his most immediate sources of inspiration were the Zinguistic studies of his own time. After having outlined, in the first part, how Saussure's linguistic thought evolved from the paradigm of his time and also the way in which he surpassed his predecessors and contemporaries by creating a new frame of reference within which linguistics should operate, the second part devotes particular attention to the manner in which subsequent generations of linguists have succeeded or failed to work out the proposals laid down in the Cours. After an analysis of the four main aspects of Saussure's theory, i.e. 1) the distinctions between langue and parole, 2) synchrony and diachrony, 3) syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations and 4) his ideas about the semiological nature of language, in the light of 20th-century developments, we have concluded that the new paradigm put forward by Saussure has not yet been welded into an overall general theory of language as envisaged by Saussure some fifty years ago.