Saussure

by Joseph, John E.

• ISBN13: 9780199695652
• ISBN10: 0199695652
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-04-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

"In a language there are only differences without positive terms. Whether we take the signified or the signifier, the language contains neither ideas nor sounds that pre-exist the linguistic system, but only conceptual differences and phonic differences issuing from this system." (From the posthumousCourse in General Linguistics, 1916.) No one becomes as famous as Saussure without both admirers and detractors reducing them to a paragraph's worth of ideas that can be readily quoted, debated, memorized, and examined. One can argue the ideas expressed above - that language is composed of a system of acoustic oppositions (the signifier) matched by social convention to a system of conceptual oppositions (the signified) - have in some sense become "Saussure", while the human being, in all his complexity, has disappeared. In the first comprehensive biography of Ferdinand de Saussure, John Joseph restores the full character and history of a man who is considered the founder of modern linguistics and whose ideas have influenced literary theory, philosophy, cultural studies, and virtually every other branch of humanities and the social sciences. Through a far-reaching account of Saussure's life and the time in which he lived, we learn about the history of Geneva, of Genevese educational institutions, of linguistics, about Saussure's ancestry, about his childhood, his education, the fortunes of his relatives, and his personal life in Paris. John Joseph intersperses all these discussions with accounts of Saussure's research and the courses he taught highlighting the ways in which knowing about his friendships and family history can help us understand not only his thoughts and ideas but also his utter failure to publish any major work after the age of twenty-one.

Author Biography

John E. Joseph is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Head of Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Language and Politics (2006), Language and Identity (2004) and, with Nigel Love and Talbot J. Taylor, Landmarks in Linguistic Thought II: The Western Tradition in the Twentieth Century (2001). He is also the editor of Language and Politics: Major Themes in English Studies, 4 Vl (2010) and (with Talbot J. Taylor) of the journal Language & Communication.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. x
The World into which he was Born
Rising to prominence	p. 3
Switzerland and its neighbour, Geneva	p. 3
The noble Saulxures of Lorraine	p. 4
In Monsieur Calvin's Geneva	p. 6
Becoming bourgeois	p. 10
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure	p. 15
Reforming the Collège de Genève	p. 24
The glory of Mont Blanc, the infamy of the Revolution	p. 27
His grandparents' and parents' generations	p. 32
The Congress of Vienna	p. 32
Albertine Necker de Saussure	p. 33
Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure	p. 38
Alphonse de Saussure	p. 40
Fanny Crud	p. 42
Count Alexandre de Pourtalès	p. 45
Augusta Sdadin de Crans	p. 51
The Genevese Revolution of 1846-1848	p. 52
Théodore de Saussure	p. 55
Adèle Pictet	p. 57
Henri de Saussure	p. 59
Countess Louise de Pourtalès	p. 67
The heritage of linguistics and semiology	p. 70
Continuity and progress	p. 70
The history of linguistics according to Saussure	p. 71
The emergence of linguistic thought in Greece	p. 73
The Christian Middle Ages	p. 77
Renaissance and Enlightenment	p. 79
The encounter with Sanskrit and the beginnings of comparativism	p. 82
The vowels of primitive Indo-European	p. 89
Early Years to the Mémoire
1857-1873	p. 101
Birth and childhood	p. 101
Mons-Djémila and Henri Dunant	p. 108
Hofwyl	p. 112
The Franco-Prussian War	p. 118
Institution Martine	p. 120
Infatuation	p. 127
Collége de Genève	p. 128
1873-1876	p. 137
First love	p. 137
Gymnase de Genève	p. 140
Adolphe Pictet	p. 147
'Essay for reducing the words of Greek, Latin & German to a few roots'	p. 152
Tragedy and triumph	p. 158
Université de Genève	p. 168
1876-1878	p. 178
Société de linguistique de Paris	p. 178
To Leipzig	p. 184
Courses at Leipzig	p. 192
First publications	p. 199
Indo-European a	p. 203
Family matters and military service	p. 212
Remembering Pictet	p. 217
The Mémoire on the original vowel system of the Indo-European languages	p. 221
Getting there first	p. 221
The Neogrammarian manifesto	p. 225
Reclaiming simplicity, relocating complexity: a1 and the sonant coefficients	p. 228
Phonemes	p. 236
Disyllabic roots	p. 237
Laws and dogma	p. 240
The book's reception	p. 242
Möller and laryngeals	p. 248
Doctorate and Paris Years
1879-1881	p. 253
Berlin and Whitney	p. 253
Retreat to Geneva, return to Leipzig	p. 256
The Sanskrit genitive absolute	p. 260
Voyage to Lithuania	p. 269
To Paris	p. 274
The École Pratique des Hautes Études	p. 279
1881-1884	p. 283
First courses	p. 283
Inner speech and linguistic signs	p. 288
Learning to teach	p. 291
Dismantling the phoneme	p. 296
Difference and intentionality	p. 300
Adjunct Secretary	p. 306
Weddings	p. 311
Publications	p. 318
1884-1888	p. 318
'Theoretical explanations' and 'Generalities about linguistic method and the life of language'	p. 318
Théodore de Saussure's book on the French language	p. 327
Teaching	p. 330
Family crisis	p. 333
Lean years	p. 339
1888-1891	p. 346
Courtship	p. 346
Friends and rivals	p. 349
Leave	p. 358
René de Saussure and difference	p. 365
Return and adieu to Paris	p. 369
Return to Geneva
1891-1894	p. 375
Inaugural lectures	p. 375
Double essence	p. 38o
Marriage and family	p. 388
Coloured hearing	p. 392
'The immensity of the work'	p. 397
1894-1899	p. 402
The International Congress of Orientalists	p. 402
Pro and contra Whitney	p. 409
Grief and grievances	p. 414
Indogermanische Forschungen articles and other writings	p. 421
The spirit world	p. 426
Lectures on the syllable	p. 436
1899-1903	p. 440
Leopold de Saussure's colonial linguistics	p. 440
Fin de siècle	p. 445
French versification	p. 448
Dialect research and local place names	p. 452
Postscript from Mars	p. 455
Publication by proxy: Naville	p. 458
1903-1906	p. 464
Legends and myths	p. 464
Personal legend	p. 469
Publication by proxy: Odier	p. 472
Losing his parents	p. 476
From Saturnian metre to anagrams	p. 483
Another responsibility	p. 489
1907-1908	p. 492
The first course in general linguistics	p. 492
Rethinking phonology	p. 495
Signalling linguistics proper	p. 497
February break	p. 500
Language change	p. 502
Language and speech	p. 506
Order and linearity	p. 509
Diachronic and synchronic	p. 512
René and Esperanto, Léopold and Chinese astronomy	p. 516
Landmarks	p. 521
Final Flourish
1908-1909	p. 533
The second course in general linguistics: the individual and the social	p. 533
Semiology	p. 536
Units and values	p. 538
Diachronic, (idio)synchronic, and panchronic linguistics	p. 543
Return to Paris	p. 547
Syntagms and associations	p. 550
Abandoning anagrams	p. 555
The Jubilees of Calvin and the Academic	p. 558
1909-1911	p. 561
Comparative grammar of Greek and Latin	p. 561
The third course in general linguistics	p. 566
Linguistic geography	p. 571
A new course: la langue	p. 574
Arbitrariness and linearity	p. 578
Entities, units, identities	p. 580
Limiting the arbitrary	p. 584
The fourth course in general linguistics?	p. 585
Static linguistics: one last go	p. 593
The end: 1911-1913	p. 601
Home and away	p. 601
Last work	p. 604
And so to bed	p. 605
William Rosier	p. 608
Bally and the Chair of Stylistics	p. 611
'Anodyne jokes at my expense'	p. 615
Getting personal	p. 619
Pyrrhic victory	p. 621
January-February 1913	p. 623
Reactions	p. 625
Opus posthumous	p. 632
The Cours de linguistique générale	p. 632
Friends and family	p. 635
Structuralism and its aftermath	p. 642
Saussurean studies	p. 648
Notes	p. 652
Selected Bibliography of work on Saussure	p. 741
Index	p. 755
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