The founder of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure inaugurated semiology, structuralism, and deconstruction and made possible the work of Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan, thus enabling the development of French feminism, gender studies, New Historicism, and postcolonialism. Based on Saussure's lectures, Course in General Linguistics (1916) traces the rise and fall of the historical linguistics in which Saussure was trained, the synchronic or structural linguistics with which he replaced it, and the new look of diachronic linguistics that followed this change. Most important, Saussure presents the principles of a new linguistic science that includes the invention of semiology, or the theory of the "signifier," the "signified," and the "sign" that they combine to produce.
This is the first critical edition of Course in General Linguistics to appear in English and restores Wade Baskin's original translation of 1959, in which the terms "signifier" and "signified" are introduced into English in this precise way. Baskin renders Saussure clearly and accessibly, allowing readers to experience his shift of the theory of reference from mimesis to performance and his expansion of poetics to include all media, including the life sciences and environmentalism. An introduction situates Saussure within the history of ideas and describes the history of scholarship that made Course in General Linguistics legendary. New endnotes enlarge Saussure's contexts to include literary criticism, cultural studies, and philosophy.
Author(s): Ferdinand de Saussure
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Year: 1916
Language: English
Pages: 321
Contents......Page 6
Editors’ Preface and Acknowledgments......Page 10
Textual Note......Page 12
Introduction:Saussure and His Contexts......Page 16
TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION......Page 50
PREFACE TO THE FIRSTEDITION......Page 54
Chapter 1. A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY OF LINGUISTICS......Page 60
Chapter II. SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE OF LINGUISTICS; ITS RELATIONS WITH OTHER SCIENCES......Page 65
Chapter III. THE OBJECT OF LINGUISTICS......Page 66
Chapter IV. LINGUISTICS OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS OF SPEAKING......Page 76
Chapter V. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE......Page 79
Chapter VI. GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF LANGUAGE......Page 82
Chapter VII. PHONOLOGY......Page 91
Chapter I. PHONOLOGICAL SPECIES......Page 97
Chapter II. PHONEMES IN THE SPOKEN CHAIN......Page 108
Chapter I. NATURE OF THE LINGUISTIC SIGN......Page 124
Chapter II. IMMUTABILITY AND MUTABILITY OF THE SIGN......Page 130
Chapter III. STATIC AND EVOLUTIONARY LEANINGS......Page 138
Chapter I. GENERALITIES......Page 160
Chapter II. THE CONCRETE ENTITIES OF LANGUAGE......Page 161
Chapter III. IDENTITIES, REALITIES, VALUES......Page 166
Chapter IV. LINGUISTIC VALUE......Page 170
Chapter V. SYNTAGMATIC AND ASSOCIATIVE RELATIONS......Page 181
Chapter VI. THE MECHANISM OF LANGUAGE......Page 186
Chapter VII. GRAMMAR AND ITS SUBDIVISIONS......Page 193
Chapter VIII. ROLE OF ABSTRACT ENTITIES IN GRAMMAR......Page 196
Chapter I. GENERALITIES......Page 199
Chapter II. Phonetic Changes......Page 202
Chapter III. GRAMMATICAL CONSEQUENCES OF PHONETIC EVOLUTION......Page 212
Chapter IV. ANALOGY......Page 220
Chapter V. ANALOGY AND EVOLUTION......Page 227
Chapter VI. FOLK ETYMOLOGY......Page 232
Chapter VII. AGGLUTINATION......Page 235
Chapter VIII. DIACHRONIC UNITS, IDENTITIES AND REALITIES......Page 238
APPENDICES TO PARTS THREE AND FOUR......Page 242
Chapter I. CONCERNING THE DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES......Page 250
Chapter II. COMPLICATIONS OF GEOGRAPHICAL DIVERSITY......Page 252
Chapter III. CAUSES OF GEOGRAPHICAL DIVERSITY......Page 256
Chapter IV. SPREAD OF LINGUISTIC WAVES......Page 264
Chapter I. THE TWO PERSPECTIVES OF DIACHRONIC LINGUISTICS......Page 271
Chapter II. THE OLDEST LANGUAGE AND THE PROTOTYPE......Page 274
Chapter III. RECONSTRUCTIONS......Page 277
Chapter IV. THE CONTRIBUTION OF LANGUAGE TO ANTHROPOLOGY AND PREHISTORY......Page 281
Chapter V. LANGUAGE FAMILIES AND LINGUISTIC TYPES......Page 287
Errata......Page 292
Notes......Page 294
Works Cited......Page 298
Index......Page 304
