Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology: The Course in General Linguistics after a Century 3030430960, 9783030430962

Citation preview

Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology The Course in General Linguistics after a Century

Beata Stawarska

Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology

Beata Stawarska

Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology The Course in General Linguistics after a Century

Beata Stawarska Department of Philosophy University of Oregon Eugene, OR, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-43096-2    ISBN 978-3-030-43097-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover pattern © John Rawsterne/patternhead.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the staff at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Nantes, France (IEA-Nantes), for hosting me as a Fellow in 2017–2018 and for providing an incredibly supportive and inspiring space for thinking and writing. This book would not have been possible without their generosity. Thanks especially to the former director, Samuel Jubé, and to the fellows and visitors at the institute, for engaging in a dialogue about this project. I appreciate the intellectual friendship of Simon Bouquet and Anna Petronella Foultier, my two primary interlocutors for research dealing with Saussure’s recovered writings, and their revolutionary potential for thought. I am grateful to John Joseph for recognizing my work in the context of the Cercle Ferdinand de Saussure. Geoffrey Owens, a colleague at the Semiotic Society of America, engaged in a generous intellectual exchange about the current project and its relation to methods in modern social sciences. I wish to acknowledge my home department in Philosophy at the University of Oregon. I am lucky to be a member of a vibrant intellectual community that values innovative interdisciplinary research. I am grateful to my department head, Daniela Vallega-Neu, for providing concrete support in the form of a graduate research assistantship. Harris Smith served as editorial assistant in the concluding stages of manuscript preparation. Phil Getz provided enthusiastic support of this project, and he actively shepherded it as editor at Palgrave Macmillan. The ideas presented here were originally developed in Saussure’s Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology: Undoing the Doctrine of the Course in General Linguistics (OUP, 2015). v

vi 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Oregon Humanities Center and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon provided a publication subvention toward permissions and indexing. Figures 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4 are being reproduced with the publisher’s permission. I dedicate this book to the students—past, present, and future. Thank you for inspiring me with your intellectual curiosity and courage.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Part I Legitimacy of the Saussurean Doctrine   7 2 Recent Developments in Saussurean Linguistics  9 3 Making the Course: Book Writing and Reviewing 15 4  La langue, the Proper Object of Linguistics 23 5 The Linguistic Sign and the Language System 33 6 A Sociohistorical View of Cultural Signification 49 7 Derrida and Saussure: Entrainment and Contamination 55 8 The Principle of Duality: Synchrony and Diachrony 67 9 Beyond the Doctrine: Linguistic Innovation 77 10 Language and Languages 87

vii

viii 

Contents

Part II Contemporary Legacy  97 11 The Structuralist Legacy: A Modern Human Science 99 12 Post-structuralism: The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing107 13 The Phenomenological Legacy: Speaking Subjects117 Bibliography125 Index131

List of Figures

Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4

Nomenclature view of language Arbitrariness of the sign The sign and the sign system The system of signs

36 37 42 43

ix

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract  The Course in General Linguistics (1916) has had over a one-­ hundred-­year-long legacy, and it became an indispensable “Great Book” in the contemporary canon of ideas. This canonical text laid out an innovative research program in modern linguistics, and it led to the development of structuralist methods in the humanities. While the Course is justifiably enshrined within the canon, recent developments in Saussurean linguistics offer multiple venues for developing a critical perspective on this foundational text. This groundbreaking research has been largely confined to specialized French-language academic venues, and it is therefore not as popular and widely accessible as the Course itself. This book seeks to fill a part of the gap in Saussurean scholarship for English-speaking readers. The first part is concerned with the legitimacy of the Course in light of discrepancies between Saussure’s personal manuscripts and the posthumous redaction of the Course itself. Part II examines the contemporary legacy of the Course in the reception of Saussure’s work by Lacan, Derrida, and Merleau-Ponty. Keywords Saussure’s Nachlass • Course in General Linguistics • Phenomenology • Post-structuralism The Course in General Linguistics (2013 [1916]) has had over a one-­ hundred-­year-long legacy, and it became an indispensable “Great Book” in the contemporary canon of ideas. This canonical text laid out an innovative © The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_1

1

2 

B. STAWARSKA

research program in modern linguistics, and it led to the development of structuralist methods in the humanities. It therefore occupies an important role in contemporary academic scholarship and college-level pedagogy. While the Course is justifiably enshrined within the canon, recent developments in Saussurean linguistics offer multiple venues for developing a critical perspective on this foundational text. This groundbreaking research has been largely confined to specialized French-language academic venues, and it is therefore not nearly as popular and widely accessible as the Course itself. This is the first English-language handbook addressed at a wide, interdisciplinary audience that reflects relevant scholarly developments related to the legacy and legitimacy of the Course today. It is designed as a self-­ standing assessment of where the materials from the Course and from the linguist’s Nachlass (works unpublished or unexhibited at Saussure’s death, some of which were recently discovered) agree and disagree on key aspects of cultural signification. This handbook may be consulted on its own as an accessible overview of Saussurean linguistics in the twenty-first century. It may also be read in tandem with the 1916 Course following the plan provided toward the end of this Introduction. This book examines the production, reception, and replication of the Course as an official statement of Saussure’s linguistics within its social and institutional context. It also considers the role played by social relations of power within academic institutions. It surveys the normative process of establishing true knowledge in emerging scientific disciplines such as general linguistics. It pays close attention especially to the set of oppositional pairings—the signifier and the signified; la langue and la parole; synchrony and diachrony—which became the hallmark of structuralism across the humanities. Sometimes referred to as the “Saussurean doctrine,” this hierarchical and oppositional conceptual apparatus undergoes a critical revision in favor of a horizontal and relational setup that resonates with the phenomenological tradition in philosophy. Ultimately, this handbook highlights the intellectual complexity of Saussure’s linguistics. Furthermore, it documents the relevance of Saussure’s linguistics to the two, oft antagonized, contemporary philosophical traditions: structuralism and phenomenology, suggesting a rapprochement. * * * Part I is composed of nine chapters dealing broadly with the legitimacy of the Course in General Linguistics. The second chapter outlines recent developments in Saussurean linguistics. It shows that scholars have

1 INTRODUCTION 

3

critiqued and complicated the received structuralist interpretation of Saussurean linguistics and challenged the legitimacy of the Course (1916) itself. Scholars exposed multiple discrepancies between the 1916 posthumous edition and the source materials from the linguist’s Nachlass. Thanks to access to some recently discovered autograph writings, it is now possible to glean additional insight into general linguistics. The third chapter sheds light on the process of writing and reviewing the Course as official doctrine. The two editors and ghostwriters, Albert Sechehaye and Charles Bally, usurped the role of Saussure’s disciples after the master’s death, and thereby assumed the right to write a book of their own design in his name. Sechehaye also authored three extensive book reviews of the Course where he cemented the validity of the “Saussurean doctrine” crafted in collaboration with Bally. The fourth chapter narrows the focus on one editorial strategy that imposed the understanding of language (la langue) as a single and simple object of linguistic study. The editors inserted an apocryphal statement to that effect into the conclusion of the Course, and they subsequently cited it in dedicated book reviews and specialized essays in linguistics. This so-­ called famous formula became a structuralist motto. It created an impression of a seamless transition from Saussureanism to structuralism. The remainder of the chapter documents that the editorial presentation tends to overstate the distinction between la langue and la parole such that la langue alone is deemed an object worthy of scientific interest. The fifth and sixth chapters tackle the influential account of arbitrary linguistic signification. This account became an integral element of the “Saussurean doctrine,” but it is based on an initial, provisional understanding of the linguistic sign that was ultimately revised in the course of Saussure’s lectures. Whereas the sign is a formal entity inscribed within a semiological system in the structuralist interpretation, the sign is motivated “from within” by the language system and “from without” by social conventions as they evolve over time in the Saussurean view. Ultimately, contrary to the structuralist view, cultural signification is subject to social forces, social critique, and social change. The seventh chapter expands a critical study of the Course to include Derrida’s influential interpretation of this canonical text. It offers a critique of the philosopher’s own critical reading of Saussure’s linguistics, and it reveals a profound rapprochement between their respective views in light of the linguist’s Nachlass. For both Derrida and Saussure, cultural signification is mediated by the plexus of differences within the language system, and it is shaped by the so-called extralinguistic world.

4 

B. STAWARSKA

The eighth chapter completes the overview of the “Saussurean doctrine” by tackling the interrelation between synchrony and diachrony. While this interrelation is construed as a hierarchical dualism in the Course, it is cast as an essential horizontal duality in the linguist’s Nachlass. In the latter, language study is characterized by self-reflexivity and conceptual complexity—traits that are overshadowed by the reductive scientific program developed in the Course. The ninth chapter renders the essential duality of la langue and la parole and synchrony and diachrony more concrete by considering linguistic creativity, that is, the production of innovative expressions on the basis of the established ones. Called “analogical innovation,” this process is an intrinsic feature of language (la langue) itself and illustrates how the speakers’ expressions (la parole) affect and alter the language system (la langue) from within. The dual essence of language—the intersection of stability and change—becomes grounded in speech practices that receive and revise the language code over time. The tenth chapter establishes that the editorial organization of the Course’s contents contributed to establishing the primacy of the language system (la langue) by situating it above the empirical plurality of existing languages (les langues). In contrast, the order of presentation moves from a detailed survey of the many languages (les langues) to a concluding, hypothetical notion of language (la langue) as such in the student lecture notes. La langue is but an ideal generalization from out of a vast linguistic plurality and not an a priori axiom. Part II is composed of three chapters examining the legacy of the Course in contemporary philosophy and the human sciences. Chapter 11 considers the role the Course played in the establishment of scientific structuralism in the humanities, and pays close attention to Lacan’s psychoanalysis. It examines the ideological role of the author within the structuralist reception of the Course as Saussure’s work, and the concurrent neglect of Saussure’s Nachlass. Chapter 12 turns to the post-­structuralist interpretation with a focus on Derrida. It highlights a tension between Derrida’s general critique of the civilization of the book and his exclusive reference to the volume of the Course in a deconstructive reading of Saussure’s linguistics. Saussure’s unbound writing may better illustrate Derrida’s call for open-ended textuality. Chapter 13 discusses the phenomenological interpretation of Saussure’s linguistics by Merleau-Ponty. It makes the case that MerleauPonty’s interpretation of the Course as a “synchronic linguistics of speech” is congruent with Saussure’s definition of language as a phenomenon contingent on the activity of speaking subjects in the Nachlass. Ultimately,

1 INTRODUCTION 

5

subject and structure-based approaches to cultural signification can be integrated, and the perceived antagonism between phenomenology and structuralism (and post-structuralism) softened. * * * This handbook critically examines the “Saussurean doctrine” that became the hallmark of structuralism across the humanities. It therefore focuses on materials from the Course directly relevant to establishing the conceptual apparatus, including: the signifier and the signified; la langue and la parole; synchrony and diachrony. It follows the order of presentation in the Course as much as it is feasible so that an interested reader may consult both in tandem. While each chapter clearly identifies the sections from the Course under discussion, I have also provided a side-by-side reading map below. The second and third chapters (“Recent Developments in Saussurean Linguistics”; “Making the Course: Book Writing and Reviewing”) provide a critical introduction to the Course as a whole and can be read on their own. The fourth chapter (“La langue, the Proper Object of Linguistics”) best accompanies the Introduction to the Course. The fifth and sixth chapters (“The Linguistic Sign and the Language System”; “A Sociohistorical View of Cultural Signification”) refer to Part One, Chaps. 1 and 2, and Part Two, Chaps. 4 and 6 from the Course, respectively. Chapter 7 (“Derrida and Saussure: Entrainment and Contamination”) engages materials from the Introduction, Chap. 6, and Part One, Chap. 1, from the Course. Chapter 8 (“The Principle of Duality: Synchrony and Diachrony”) may be read alongside Part One, Chap. 3, from the Course. Chapter 9 (“Beyond the Doctrine: Linguistic Innovation”) may accompany Part Three, Chaps. 4 and 5 of the Course. Chapter 10 (“Language and Languages”) may be read with Part Four of the Course. The last three chapters (“The Structuralist Legacy: A Modern Human Science”; “Poststructuralism: The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing”; and “The Phenomenological Legacy: Speaking Subjects”) may be read after completing some, if not all, of the Course.

Reference Saussure, Ferdinand de. 2013 [1916]. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Roy Harris. Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

PART I

Legitimacy of the Saussurean Doctrine

CHAPTER 2

Recent Developments in Saussurean Linguistics

Abstract  The Course in General Linguistics has played a foundational role in the development of structural methods within the humanities (philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, psychoanalysis, and literary theory). Its main premise is that cultural signification can be studied in terms of relatively autonomous and self-organizing sign systems situated within the social world. Because of its broad focus on signification, the Course made it possible to study the ensemble of human culture in a systematic, comprehensive, and rigorous manner. The Course introduces a basic set of oppositional pairings between the signifying and the signified facets of a sign, between the language system (la langue) and speech (la parole), and between synchrony and diachrony. This approach allows for the study of any human phenomenon on the basis of a rulegoverned system of contrastive and combinatorial relations between signifying elements. However, in the last sixty years, scholars have challenged the legitimacy of the Course itself. Previously, the Course was believed to be a simple recast of Saussure’s lectures on general linguistics, but the combination of critical works and direct access to Saussure’s private manuscripts allows for the Course to be called into question and examined anew. Keywords Saussure’s Nachlass • Course in General Linguistics • la langue • la parole, synchrony • Diachrony

© The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_2

9

10 

B. STAWARSKA

The Course in General Linguistics belongs to the contemporary canon of Great Books. Originally published in 1916, this important text has remained a classic for over 100 years due to its foundational role in the development of structural methods within the humanities (philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, psychoanalysis, and literary theory). The main premise of the Course is that cultural signification can be studied in terms of relatively autonomous and self-organizing sign systems situated within the social world. Signs are construed in the Course primarily as linguistic units, but they can include other signifying or meaning-bearing entities such as images in a magazine or a style of dress. Thanks to this broad focus on signification, the Course made it possible to study the ensemble of human culture in a systematic, comprehensive, and rigorous manner. Whatever the specialized disciplinary focus adopted within the humanities, for example, language in linguistics, literature in literary studies, kinship structures in anthropology, or neurotic symptoms in psychoanalysis, the scientist can deploy the same conceptual apparatus to explain the basic structures of cultural signification. The basic conceptual apparatus introduced in the Course includes a set of oppositional pairings between the signifying and the signified facets of a sign (also called the “signifier” and the “signified”; these minimal components of the sign where first distinguished by Stoic philosophers as signans and signatum); language system (la langue) and speech (la parole); synchrony and diachrony. An individual sign includes a mental representation of vocal or graphic content (speech sounds uttered and received; written marks on a sheet of paper or clay tablet) and the associated idea. Individual signs are interconnected via relations of contrast and solidarity to the other signs in the system. The sign system forms a repository that individual speakers draw on when they engage in communication. It evolves over time (dia-chrony, which indicates a passage over time), but can be studied via a temporal snapshot (syn-chrony, which indicates a relatively stable arrangement operating at the same time). Following the dichotomous paradigm adopted in the Course (discussed in more detail in Chap. 10), a properly scientific understanding of language should focus primarily on the systemic and synchronous organization of signs. The actual occurrences of speaking to one another and the many mutations affecting language over time are excluded (as much as possible) in order to identify a relatively fixed and autonomous sign system. A structuralist approach to language assumes, therefore, that cultural signification can be studied like an object within traditional physical sciences, that is,

2  RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SAUSSUREAN LINGUISTICS 

11

independently of users and/or observers and irrespective of historical change. The structuralist approach introduced a veritable paradigm shift in the humanities in that it enabled the study of any human phenomenon (matrimonial preference, literary motifs, culinary habits, and even sport) on the basis of a rule-governed system of contrastive and combinatorial relations between signifying elements. The Course in General Linguistics carries over a 100-year-long legacy of structuralist study of cultural signification. In the past sixty years, scholars have critiqued and complicated the received structuralist view and challenged the legitimacy of the Course itself. The Course was widely believed to be a simple recast of Ferdinand de Saussure’s lectures on general linguistics delivered at the University of Geneva between 1907 and 1911.1 However, the Course was authored and published in 1916—three years after Saussure’s death (1913)—by two Genevan linguists, Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, who did not attend any of the lectures on general linguistics and who actively prevented the students who did from publishing their own lecture notes. Albert Riedlinger, a student who attended the lectures, collaborated in the book writing process, but later expressed profound disappointment with the final product (see Chap. 3). Furthermore, critical studies of the Course (Godel 1957; Engler 1989) document multiple discrepancies between the 1916 posthumous edition and the student lecture notes. Finally, in the recent years, scholars have gained access to a set of newly discovered writings by Saussure himself that offer additional insight into his understanding of general linguistic study (published in the English translation as Writings in General Linguistics, 2006). These writings complement previously published student lecture notes (Saussure 1993, 1996, 1997) as well as the correspondence between the main stakeholders in Saussurean linguistics. Thanks to the existence of these critical works and direct access to source materials, it is now possible to develop an empirically based understanding of Saussure’s general linguistics and to reassess the validity of the Course. For example, it can be documented that the editors or rather “ghostwriters” of the Course introduced apocryphal content, reversed the order of presentation, projected a conceptual apparatus of vertical dichotomies, and adopted a dogmatic tone in their redacted version of general linguistics. They sought to conform the then emerging science of general linguistics to the normative expectations within scientific disciplines (namely, securing a domain of study distinct from that of the other sciences dealing with language like philology). They assembled the published

12 

B. STAWARSKA

volume in the format of a classic academic treatise. In doing so, they sacrificed the complexity and novelty of Saussure’s evolving understanding of language study in the process. The conceptual apparatus of oppositional pairings between the signifier and the signified, language system and speech, and synchrony and diachrony responds directly to pre-existing scientific norms, and it can be made to fit seamlessly into the format of classical academic writing. However, it does not represent the more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of language found in the materials from Saussure’s Nachlass. The latter adopt the speaking subjects’ perspective and endorse temporal change. They do not reduce language to a presumed fixed and autonomous sign system, and they do not dogmatically adhere to traditional scientific norms (see Chaps. 6, 7, 8, and 9 for development). At the same time, it must be acknowledged that, when it came out, the Course offered the best possible interpretation of Saussure’s linguistics at that historical moment. Furthermore, the Course was immensely successful in shaping the developments in contemporary humanities and providing a practicable research tool for the human scientist. The many shortcomings documented in recent critical assessments do not and cannot displace the formidable legacy of innovative research the Course generated in the many fields studying cultural phenomena. The latter include literary studies (Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva), psychoanalysis (Jacques Lacan and Melanie Klein), structural anthropology (Claude Levi-­ Strauss), and deconstruction (Jacques Derrida). In fact, a critical study of a Great Book is a testimony to its established legacy and enduring relevance. The force of the critique depends in part upon the recognized importance of the object being critiqued. Admittedly, the Course stands in a complex relation to the source materials. Many of the formulations found within it have direct manuscript evidence or represent the editors’ good faith attempts to distill passages from the sources in an intelligible manner. Here are notable examples of key statements in general linguistics that have manuscript evidence: “It is…possible to conceive a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life…We shall call it semiology” (Saussure 2013, [33] 15); “Language (la langue) and speech (la parole) are…interdependent; the former is both the instrument and the product of the latter” ([37] 19); “Evolution is inevitable: there is no known example of a language that is immune from it” ([111] 76); “language is a social institution” ([129] 90); “in language there are only differences without positive terms” ([166] 118).2 An inspired reader, like the contemporary French philosopher

2  RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SAUSSUREAN LINGUISTICS 

13

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, could therefore develop an unorthodox phenomenological reading of the Course, which departs from the “Saussurean doctrine,” without consulting the Nachlass (see Chap. 13 for development). The Course is a complex and multifaceted text that arguably deconstructs the very doctrinal understanding it seeks to espouse, for example, by declaring the interdependency of la langue and la parole and underscoring the temporal and social dimensions of la langue (as evidence by passages cited earlier), and simultaneously elevating la langue (the presumed proper object of linguistic study) above la parole and the sociohistorical world. Insofar as the dominant structuralist interpretation of the Course tends to endorse the doctrinal understanding of general linguistics, a deconstructive reading must go against the grain of the book’s established legacy and it can be easily dismissed as a simple error. Be it as it may, a critical reading of the Course does not and cannot undermine this key canonical text. Instead, it examines the potentials and pitfalls of a structure-based approach to cultural signification that was first developed in the 1916 book and later adopted within the French post-­ Second World War structuralism. The critical reading developed here follows the lead of reflections on language and general linguistic study from Saussure’s Nachlass. It proposes an understanding of cultural signification that combines subject- and structure-based approaches and, ultimately, serves as a bridge between the usually opposed philosophical traditions of phenomenology and structuralism.

Notes 1. Specifically, in 1907; 1908–1909; and 1910–1911 (Saussure 1993, 1996, 1997). 2. References to the Course are to the 2013 Roy Harris translation of Cours de linguistique générale (Bloomsbury Academic). Unlike the Wade Baskin translation (published most recently by Columbia UP, 2011), the Harris translation preserves the pagination of the French edition in the margins; the French pagination is helpful for cross-referencing different editions of the Course (including the 1986 Roy Harris translation published by Open Court). (Note that, in contrast to the 1986 translation, the 2013 Bloomsbury edition has removed the mention: “Edited by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye with the Collaboration of Albert Riedlinger” from the title page). The 2013 Harris translation is cited here as follows: (Saussure 2013, [page number in the French edition] page number in the English text).

14 

B. STAWARSKA

References Engler, Rudolf, ed. 1989. Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. First published 1967–68. Godel, Robert. 1957. Les Sources manuscrites du “Cours de linguistique générale” de F. de Saussure. Geneva: E. Droz. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1993. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu. Trans. Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 1996. Premier cours de linguistique générale (1907): d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger/Saussure’s First Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1907): From the Notebooks of Albert Riedlinger. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu and George Wolf. Trans. George Wolf. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 1997. Deuxième cours de linguistique générale (1908–1909): d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger et Charles Patois/Saussure’s Second Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1908–1909). Ed. and Trans. Eisuke Komatsu and George Wolf. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. by Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. and annotated by Roy Harris. With a new Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

CHAPTER 3

Making the Course: Book Writing and Reviewing

Abstract  It was commonly believed that Saussure’s students used their redacted lecture notes to compose the Course in General Linguistics in the wake of Saussure’s untimely death. However, Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, who were responsible for editing and composing the manuscript for the Course, did not attend Saussure’s lectures. Still, they positioned themselves as loyal disciples of their great master, and they sought to carry out their master’s legacy through the publication of the Course. Bally and Sechehaye did not solely base their reconstruction on the extant autograph manuscripts by Saussure and the student lecture notes, but they attempted to reconstruct a linguistics based upon a divination of Saussure’s thought. This dubious practice was legitimized by their efforts to secure themselves as the rightful heirs of the Saussurean intellectual estate and through the publication of scholarly essays and book reviews of the Course. Several students who actually attended Saussure’s lectures objected to Bally and Sechehaye’s simplified rendition. Paul Regard, Albert Riedlinger, and Antoine Meillet all expressed concerns, publicly and privately, about Bally and Sechehaye’s version of the Course. Keywords  Charles Bally • Albert Sechehaye • Antoine Meillet • Saussure’s lectures on general linguistics

© The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_3

15

16 

B. STAWARSKA

According to a popular view, the Course in General Linguistics was written by Saussure’s students who redacted their lecture notes from the course at the University in Geneva (1907–1911) in the wake of their teacher’s untimely death in 1913. For example, Antoine Grégoire writes, “Sirs Bally and Sechehaye realized the pious undertaking (la pieuse entreprise) of redacting the notes they took during the course in linguistics given by the illustrious F. de Saussure” (Mounin 1968, 176; my translation). However, Bally and Sechehaye did not attend Saussure’s lectures in general linguistics, and, therefore, were not in a privileged position to write a redaction of the student lecture notes. (They attended lectures on comparative grammar and Sanskrit (Amacker 2000, 208).) They did publicly situate themselves as disciples of “our great master Ferdinand de Saussure” (Bally 1908; my translation), and assumed this privileged bond in their Preface to the published Course (Saussure 1916, 9). The master-­ disciple bond may have been a sign of genuine admiration and respect, assuming, at times, the form of religious piety of an apostle for a godlike figure (Redard 1982, 21). Importantly, it also secured the filial right of property over Saussure’s intellectual estate, enabling Bally and Sechehaye to speak directly on behalf of the deceased master and to ghostwrite a book in his name. The intellectual property passed from Saussure to his self-named successors and acting heirs like from father to son. On March 1, 1913, Bally publicly lamented the fact that Saussure had confined his ideas to lectures and personal manuscripts, and did not write a book in general linguistics (Bally 1988, 74). He also actively opposed a combined publication effort by Paul Regard, one of Saussure’s students in general linguistics, who later became a linguist in his own right and Antoine Meillet, a renowned Parisian linguist, former student, and longtime friend of Saussure. The two scholars sought to publish Paul Regard’s lecture notes from the first two academic years of the course. Bally objected to this initiative by invoking anonymous and unsubstantiated rumors about Regard’s qualifications. On May 29, 1913, he wrote to Meillet: I have to add an important item, which is confidential and will, I hope, remain between us: I have learnt from a reliable source, from a person who read Regard’s notes, that these notes, however conscientious they may be, do not represent the spirit of Saussure’s teaching (l’esprit de l’enseignement de S.), and that sometimes they completely distort it. I cannot ascertain the validity of this piece of information, but it agrees with my impression of Regard’s working methods, which are apt to seize the details but not the totality of the question. (Amacker 1989, 103; my translation)

3  MAKING THE COURSE: BOOK WRITING AND REVIEWING 

17

In the letter Bally raises a curious objection to Regard that his lecture notes do not capture the spirit of Saussure’s teaching and fail to provide a comprehensive view of the matter at hand. Apparently, Bally thought that the reconstruction of general linguistics should be based on supernatural insight into Saussure’s thinking rather than a close study of extant textual documents. He preferred to infer Saussure’s linguistics rather than to closely track its development in the lecture notes. Regarding the latter he writes: The three courses differ in detail, each is original in its own way, but a totality of great principles unites them all, and rises like a solid trunk of an oak in the midst of the whimsical foliage of its branches. That’s what distinguishes F. de Saussure from other linguists of his generation: his detailed researches became embedded in the natural setting of his general views; that is why what can be inferred (qui se devine) is even more interesting than what appears (qui apparait). (Bally 1965, 149; my translation)

In Bally’s reconstruction of general linguistics, divination provides a basis for accessing Saussure’s thinking (in qui se devine (“what can be inferred”), the Anglo-French deviner and Latin divinare, ultimately from divus (god, deity), indicate a relation of discovery based upon intuition if not supernatural insight). The divinatory method enables conjuring up a presumed definitive doctrine from out of the textual labyrinth of student lecture notes. Bally identifies the basic principles of this basic doctrine already in October 1913. They include a clear distinction between language system (la langue) and speech (la parole), in which la langue is “the true object of linguistics” while la parole is a “secondary and contingent fact” (Bally 1965, 201; my translation). This inferred hierarchical opposition will serve as a guiding thread for the entire argument in the 1916 redaction. Similarly, in their Preface to the Course, the editors note that their goal is to reconstruct Saussure’s own, presumed, intentions rather than reconstitute the written sources page by page. They declare that publishing the original materials was “impossible,” and opt, in Sechehaye’s words, “to adopt a more or less systematic order which seemed appropriate to them” (1927, 234n; my translation). In the Preface, they justify their approach as follows:

18 

B. STAWARSKA

We eventually hit upon a bolder solution which was also, in our view, a more rational one. We would attempt a reconstruction, a synthesis. It would be based upon the third course of the lectures, but make use of all the material we had, including Saussure’s own notes. This would involve a task of re-­ creation. It would be by no means a straightforward one, since complete objectivity was essential. We should need to identify every essential idea by reference to the system as a whole, analyse it in depth, and express it in a definitive form, unobscured by the variations and hesitations which naturally accompany oral delivery. We should then need to put each idea in its proper place, and present all the various parts in an order corresponding to the author’s intentions, even if the intentions were not apparent but could only be inferred (qui se devinait). (Saussure 2013, [9] xxv; translation corrected)

The editors claim here to attain complete objectivity by placing oversimplified linguistic ideas and principles in their presumed proper place. They adopt a dubious—from a scholarly standpoint—method of intuiting authorial intentions at the expense of following the lead of the available sources. They engage in a séance-like study with Saussure’s spirit who would dictate his ideas for a book written by them. While they humbly acknowledge the limitations of their editorial venture (it is a partial and selective synthesis, if not a simple projection), they present the final product as official doctrine bestowed upon them by the master himself. Henceforth, the editorial reconstruction is not open to contestation or debate. Its validity is seemingly secured by Bally’s and Sechehaye’s inalienable rights to Saussure’s intellectual estate as his (self-elected) direct disciples and acting heirs. This adopted link of filiation binds them to Saussure’s spirit like Shakespeare’s Hamlet was bound to his father’s wandering ghost. Yet Bally and Sechehaye also assume the position of the scholar Marcellus (from Shakespeare’s Hamlet as well), who follows the path of rationality and objectivity. Combining the filial and scholarly positions, the editors are thereby empowered to cast their communications with Saussure’s spirit as scientific truth. * * * The editors did not solely write the Course in Saussure’s name. Sechehaye also authored a series of extensive book reviews wherein he reaffirmed the validity of basic linguistic principles previously inferred from Saussure, notably the primacy of the language system (la langue) over speech (la parole). As a book reviewer, Sechehaye adopted the stance of independent

3  MAKING THE COURSE: BOOK WRITING AND REVIEWING 

19

jury responding to a completed work. The former editor distanced himself from the ghostwriting process and reinforced the impression of simply receiving a finished doctrine from Saussure like a disciple from the master. Sechehaye authored the first book review of the Course in General Linguistics in 19171 (Sechehaye 1917). This review amounts, in fact, to an extensive, thirty-­page long article on general linguistics considered in historical and systematic terms. Sechehaye lists what he considers to be the basic principles from the Course: (1) “the distinction between the language system (la langue) and speech (la parole) within the totality of loosely defined phenomena called language (langage),” where the language system is to be considered on its own as an object of linguistic science (11; my translation); (2) the distinction between synchrony and diachrony that are posited as “by nature separate and irreducible one to the other” (23; my translation). In 1927, Sechehaye (1927) published an essay wherein he deployed these basic principles to make a case for the so-called Geneva School of General Linguistics (L’école genevoise de linguistique générale). Finally, in 1940, the linguist wrote yet another extensive, almost fifty-page long, review of the Course (Les Trois linguistiques saussuriennes). In the last review, Sechehaye cast the 1916 text as an exemplar of the Saussurean method that places the problem of the language system (la langue) “in all its logical abstraction” at the center of linguistics (2; my translation). This method entails “the famous distinction” between the language system (la langue) and speech (la parole) (1), as well as between synchrony and diachrony (7). Sechehaye concedes that the language system and speech may stand in a set of mutually determining relations that would complicate the hierarchical distinctions laid out above (8). Ultimately, however, he defends a dogmatic view of the Course as Saussurean orthodoxy (30) to be closely followed by any follower (fidèle) of Saussurean linguistics (28). In sum, Sechehaye actively reinforced the validity of the so-called Saussurean doctrine by issuing several dedicated scholarly essays and book reviews of the Course. He not only legitimized his and Bally’s rendition of Saussure’s reflections on language as a dogmatic science of semiological structures, but also occluded his own involvement in the doctrine-making process by adopting the stance of an external reviewer responding to a foundational text. Since the public did not have easy access to the sources, this doctrinal view became widely accepted. It was later adopted wholesale in, what the contemporary French semiotician Roland Barthes described as, the “structuralist activity”; the set of oppositional pairings

20 

B. STAWARSKA

(the signifier/signified, synchrony/diachrony) distinguishes structuralism from other traditions of inquiry in the humanities (Barthes 1972, 213). Saussure’s students and fellow linguists, on the other hand, expressed profound misgivings about Bally and Sechehaye’s posthumous redaction. Paul Regard largely appreciated the editorial effort but regretted the significant distortions of the source materials. He critiqued especially the artificial division between linguistic change and the so-called external conditions of language that turn the former into an abstraction devoid of reality (Regard 1918, 11; my translation). He also noted that temporal change is intrinsic to the conservation of linguistic traits—a point that was explicitly made in Saussure’s lectures (11). Regard was, therefore, unconvinced that language can be studied as an autonomous and static system of signs. Finally, he wondered: A student who attended a large part of Ferdinand de Saussure’s lectures, and was familiar with a number of the documents the publication [of the Course] draws on, is going to be inevitably disappointed to discover that the exquisite and captivating charm of the lectures is gone. Would publication of the [student] lecture notes not have more faithfully preserved Ferdinand de Saussure’s thinking, with its force and originality, despite being repetitive on some points? And would not the very variations which the editors apparently fear to make shown be of particular interest? (6; my translation)

Albert Riedlinger, a student who officially collaborated with Bally and Sechehaye in the editorial process, did not immediately express his own views in public. He wrote to a fellow student in 1957 (about a decade after Bally’s and Sechehaye’s deaths) to explain why he had refused to write an article for the Tribune de Genève journal: It would be impossible for me to represent the true greatness of F. de S[aussure] without comparing him to Bally. …. Bally slashed general linguistics, as Godel’s work will demonstrate beyond any discussion …. What is even worse is the scrapping of the wonderful 100 pages long introduction to the second course …. Godel sees the quintessential Saussurean thinking in this introduction. But Bally, though very gifted as far as observing linguistic facts is concerned, did not have his master’s philosophical sense. (cited in Bouquet 1999; my translation)

This lack of “philosophical sense” may help to explain why the 1916 redaction adopts a dogmatic tone and projects a conceptual apparatus featuring simple oppositional pairings (the language system and speech;

3  MAKING THE COURSE: BOOK WRITING AND REVIEWING 

21

synchrony and diachrony) onto a more complex philosophical conception of language found in Saussure’s Nachlass (see Chaps. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 for development). As to the scrapping of the long introduction to the second course of the lectures, it illustrates the editorial effort to marginalize linguistic diversity for the sake of a presumed single and simple language system (see Chap. 10 for more discussion). Finally, Antoine Meillet, Saussure’s former student and fellow linguist, forcefully articulated his concerns in two dedicated book reviews of the Course (1916, 1917). He challenged the “impudence” (hardiesse) involved in publishing a book that does not correspond to any of the lecture courses taught by Saussure under his name (1917, 50; my translation). He regretted the loss of differences between the many sets of student lecture notes within a single, systematic volume, as well as the loss of poetic force and imagery that typified Saussure’s delivery (1916, 32). Regarding the basic principles of the “Saussurean doctrine,” Meillet observed that the hierarchical opposition between the language system and speech made it difficult to apply observations about speech in phonetics to the general linguistic level (32). Similarly, the divide between linguistic change and its so-called external conditions turned the former into an undecipherable abstraction devoid of reality (32). Importantly, diachrony supposes that concrete historical facts related to the transmission of languages actually spoken—and thereby related to the entire social world—need to be accounted for (36). In sum, Meillet challenged the validity of the conceptual apparatus adopted in the posthumous redaction of Saussure’s linguistics. The hierarchical opposition between la langue and everything deemed “external” to it is bound to raise insoluble problems rather than solve the existing ones.

Note 1. “Les Problèmes de la langue a la lumière d’une théorie nouvelle,” Revue philosophique.

References Amacker, René. 1989. Correspondance Bally-Meillet (1906–1932). Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure (43): 95–127. ———. 2000. Le Développement des idées saussuriennes chez Charles Bally et Albert Sechehaye. Historiographia linguistica 27 (3): 205–264.

22 

B. STAWARSKA

Bally, Charles. 1908. Maître et disciples. Journal de Genève 18: 32–33. ———. 1965. Le Langage et la vie. Vol. 34 of Publications Romanes et Françaises, ed. Jean Frappier. Geneva: Librarie Droz. First published 1925. A modified version of Bally’s 1913 essay under the same title appears in this anthology. ———. 1988. Unveröffentlichte Schriften/Comptes rendus et essais inédits. Bonn: Romanistischer Verlag. Barthes, Roland. 1972. Critical Essays. Trans. Richard Howard. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Bouquet, Simon. 1999. La Linguistique générale de Ferdinand de Saussure: textes et retour aux textes. Paper presented at Congrès ICHOLS, Frontenay-St. Cloud, France, September. http://www.revue-texto.net/Saussure/Sur_ Saussure/Bouquet_Linguist-gen.html. Meillet, Antoine. 1916. Review of Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 64: 20, 32–36. ———. 1917. Review of Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Revue Critique d’Histoire et de Littérature 83 (1): 49–51. Mounin, Georges. 1968. Saussure, ou le structuraliste sans le savoir. Paris: P. Seghers. Redard, Georges. 1982. Charles Bally disciple de Ferdinand de Saussure. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure (36): 3–23. Regard, Paul. 1918. Contribution a l’étude des prépositions dans la langue du Nouveau Testament: thèse pour le doctorat ès-lettres présentée à la faculté des lettres de l’Université de Paris, Dissertation. Paris: Paul F. Editions Ernest Leroux. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, with Albert Riedlinger. Lausanne: Libraire Payot. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. and annotated by Roy Harris. With a new Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Sechehaye, Albert. 1917. Les Problèmes de la langue à la lumière d’une théorie nouvelle. Revue philosophique de la france et de l’étranger 84 (July– December): 1–30. ———. 1927. L’École genevoise de linguistique générale. Indogermanische Forschungen 44: 217–241. ———. 1940. Les Trois linguistiques saussuriennes. Zurich-Erlenbach: Eugen Rentsch Verlag.

CHAPTER 4

La langue, the Proper Object of Linguistics

Abstract  According to the dominant structuralist view, a language system (la langue) can be approached on its own, independently of speech (la parole) as well as the plurality of world languages (les langues). Bally and Sechehaye established this presumed autonomy of the language system by means of dubitable editorial strategies. They inserted an apocryphal statement, according to which language (la langue) is a single and simple object of linguistic study, into the conclusion of the Course in General Linguistics, and they subsequently cited it in dedicated book reviews and specialized essays in linguistics. This so-called famous formula became a structuralist motto. It created an impression of a seamless transition from Saussureanism to structuralism. Furthermore, the editorial presentation of Saussure’s argument in the Introduction to the Course tends to overstate the distinction between la langue and la parole such that la langue alone is deemed an object worthy of scientific interest. Keywords  la langue • la parole • Structuralism • General linguistics • Course in General Linguistics According to the dominant structuralist view, language system (la langue) can be approached on its own, independently of speech (la parole) as well as the plurality of world languages (les langues). Bally and Sechehaye

© The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_4

23

24 

B. STAWARSKA

established this presumed autonomy of the language system by means of dubitable editorial strategies that included: 1. Inserting apocryphal, axiom-like claims into the Course and, subsequently, citing the same claims in scholarly essays and dedicated book reviews (discussed in this chapter) 2. Overstating the separation between la langue and la parole and between synchrony and diachrony (discussed in Chaps. 4 and 7) 3. Reversing the order of presentation found in the student lecture notes in order to create an impression that language (la langue) has primacy over linguistic diversity (les langues) (discussed in Chap. 10) The editorial process, thus, effectively established general linguistics as a specialized, internal science of the language system (la langue), of which speech (la parole) and linguistic diversity (les langues) would be external and contingent manifestations. This oppositional and hierarchical apparatus, where language (la langue) towers at the top, is fueled largely by the editors’ own methodological commitments, especially Sechehaye’s self-­ avowed “taste for great abstractions” (discussed in Chap. 10), and is at odds with a more nuanced view developed in Saussure’s Nachlass. According to the latter, the general notion of language (la langue) emerges via a close study of as many as possible languages (les langues), all of which are inextricably tied to the practice of speaking (la parole). Consider first how language (la langue) gets established as the proper object of study in the 1916 text. According to the last lines of the book, “the only true object of study in linguistics is the language (la langue), considered in itself and for its own sake” (Saussure 2013, [317] 273). This concluding statement, accentuated in italics, captures the “fundamental thesis” of the course in general linguistics as a whole ([317] 273). It also responds to a question raised in the Introduction: “What is the actual object of study in its entirety?” ([23] 9). The entire contents of the Course are thereby organized around this stated goal of identifying a single and simple object of study in order to establish general linguistics as a science worthy of the name. The Course in General Linguistics is a book-long demonstration that such an object exists and that it can be studied on its own. The concluding statement (“the only true object of study in linguistics is the language, considered in itself and for it own sake”) has had a long legacy as a quintessential motto for the entire book. It is oft cited by the

4  LA LANGUE, THE PROPER OBJECT OF LINGUISTICS 

25

proponents of structural methods as well as the skeptics (Ricoeur 1974, 16). This presumed programmatic statement of a new linguistic science facilitated a seemingly seamless transition from Saussureanism to structuralism and from structuralist approaches in linguistics to the other disciplines in the humanities. However, this statement is apocryphal, and nothing in the source materials warrants its insertion (Godel 1957, 119, 181). The structuralist claim to the Course as its founding text turns out, therefore, to be problematic. The Italian linguist and translator Tullio De Mauro considers “The addition of the last phrase […] a seal of the editorial manipulation of Saussure’s notes” that led to “the exclusivist attitude of structuralism” (Saussure 2005, 476n; my translation). Specifically, “according to structuralist linguistics, to respect Saussure means to ignore the disequilibrium of the system, the synchronic dynamics, the social conditions, mutability, the link between the latter and the various historical contingencies  – the whole flotsam of linguistic phenomena thanks to which language is form” (476n; my translation). The editorial manipulation of the sources is significant in that it served to establish a doctrinal and dogmatic view of la langue as having an upper hand over the evolving social and historical conditions of language usage. Bally and Sechehaye did not solely insert apocryphal content into the programmatic conclusion of the Course. The two linguists also cited this insertion in their subsequent publications, signed with their own name, as if it came from the master himself. Bally professed simply to follow Saussure’s own method which the master would have summarized in the last phrase of his Course in General Linguistics: “the only true object of study in linguistics is language system (la langue) considered in itself and for itself” (Bally 1965, 17; my translation). As to Sechehaye, he wrote: the fate of language system (la langue) is completely removed from the speaking subjects’ psychology. This thesis is, as one knows, developed in the final pages of the Course and this doctrine is summarized in the famous formula found in the conclusion of this work: the only true object of study in linguistics is language system (la langue) considered in itself and for itself. (1940, 26; my translation)

As the editors, or ghostwriters, Bally and Sechehaye wrote programmatic statements reflecting a presumed autonomy of the language system into

26 

B. STAWARSKA

the Course. As book reviewers and professional linguists in their own right, they subsequently validated these apocryphal statements by means of deferential citations of the “famous formula” from the Course, as if it were the master’s own word. I noted in the preceding chapter that Sechehaye legitimized the editorial vision of Saussure’s linguistics as a dogmatic science and also occluded the editors’ involvement in the doctrine-making process by adopting a stance of an external reviewer of a finished work. In this chapter, I presented evidence regarding a key element of this new science: language (la langue) is an autonomous sign system. It must be conceded that the editors responded to the normative expectations regarding scientific legitimacy operative at their historical moment, when they crafted and cited the “famous formula.” Their intent may very well have been to safeguard the project left unfinished by Saussure himself by isolating the language system (la langue), and thereby providing a specialized domain of study to the emerging discipline of general linguistics. As a result, generalized linguistics gained legitimacy alongside other disciplines dealing with the historical, sociological, and psychological aspects of language. The editorial strategies involved in this good faith process remain, however, questionable from the standpoint of sound scholarship. They violate notably the standards of empirical validity of claims and of the correct attribution of sources. The “famous formula” is not mentioned in the source materials of general linguistics, and it does not correspond to the founder’s own understanding of language study. Its source may be found in another linguist’s—Franz Bopp’s—views, but Saussure overtly critiqued them for bias toward static language states (Bouquet 2003, 12). Insofar as the Course is organized around a fabricated and falsely attributed claim, it needs to be complemented with materials from Saussure’s Nachlass. * * * In the remainder of this chapter, I examine the distinction between la langue and la parole as it is established in the Introduction to the Course. Specifically, I document that the editorial presentation tends to overstate the separation between these two terms and to cast them as simple factual data. The importance attached by Saussure to perspectives or viewpoints in linguistics (discussed in more detail in Chap. 8) is neglected in favor of a seemingly objective system of differences that could fit seamlessly into

4  LA LANGUE, THE PROPER OBJECT OF LINGUISTICS 

27

the new program of linguistic science. The initially stated interdependency between the structured and spoken dimensions of language, or between la langue and la parole, gives way to an oversimplified understanding where la langue alone is deemed an object worthy of scientific interest. Initially, la langue and la parole are set up as being interdependent in the Introduction to the Course: These two objects of study are doubtless closely linked and each presupposes the other. A language (la langue) is necessary in order that speech (la parole) should be intelligible and produce all its effects. But speech (la parole) also is necessary in order that a language (la langue) may be established. Historically, speech always takes precedence…. Thus there is an interdependence between the language itself and speech. The former is at the same time the instrument and the product of the latter. (Saussure 2013, [37] 21)

While they acknowledge that the language system and speech make up one complex totality, the editors hasten to qualify: “But none of this compromises the absolute nature of the distinction between the two” (Saussure 2013, [38] 21). This line is strangely at odds with a concurrent emphasis on subjective viewpoints found also in the Introduction, and confirmed by the Nachlass. (It is an editorial insertion without manuscript support (Engler 1989, 57).) In the Introduction, it is initially conceded that the science of general linguistics contrasts with the other existing sciences, considering the following difference in their respective object-viewpoint relations: Other sciences are provided with objects of study given in advance, which are then examined from different points of view. Nothing like that is the case in linguistics. Suppose someone pronounces the French word nu (‘naked’). At first sight, one might think this would be an example of an independently given linguistic object. But more careful consideration reveals a series of three or four quite different things, depending on the viewpoint adopted. There is a sound, there is the expression of an idea, there is a derivative of Latin nūdum, and so on. The object is not given in advance of the viewpoint: far from it. Rather, one might say that it is the viewpoint adopted which creates the object. Furthermore, there is nothing to tell us in advance whether one of these ways of looking at it is prior to or superior to any of the others. (Saussure 2013, [23] 9)

28 

B. STAWARSKA

The methodological emphasis on the constitutive function of viewpoints in linguistics is fully corroborated by the manuscript sources.1 The linguistic viewpoint foregrounds, for example, the phonetic (speech sound), ideational (the idea or signified content), or diachronic (the Latin etymology) aspect of a sign (as in the French word nu (“naked”)), without any one aspect having superiority or priority over the others. In contrast to other sciences that may be said to “discover” their object of study, the speech sound or the signified idea in linguistics is a correlate of a constitutive viewpoint and not a pre-existing datum in nature. The significance of linguistic viewpoints is tied to the dual or two-faced character of any object being studied within this discipline. Hence, when we attend to a given observable aspect of a sign (such as the speech sound and signification), our focus can alternate between the reception and the articulation of the speech sound or between the signifying content and the signified idea. Similarly, we can attend to an individual expression and/or the social convention or to the present state of language and/or its inheritance from the past (Saussure 2013, [23–24] 9–10). This unsurpassable duality found within any linguistic phenomenon is coupled with a duality of viewpoints: the linguist can adopt a synchronic or a diachronic perspective; and he or she can attend to the audition or the articulation of speech sound, to the material inscription or the signification of a sign, and so on. In sum, the object of language study is complex and multifaceted, and each discernible facet calls for (and is constituted by) the corresponding perspectival orientation. In the manuscript writings, Saussure highlights the irreducible nature of linguistic viewpoints and advances a critique of naïve realism in linguistics. He writes: Since language does not, in any of its manifestations, present a substance …. and since all our distinctions, all our terminology, all the ways we express ourselves are based on this involuntary assumption of substance, it must be accepted that the most essential task of a theory of language will be to unravel the primary distinctions. (2006, 136; translation modified)

The “involuntary assumption of substance” in linguistics carries an unexamined metaphysical commitment to entities assumed to exist independently of language usage and linguistic grasp. It is a naturalist understanding of language as a positive being made up of component parts, such as the acoustic and articulatory properties of speech sound that can

4  LA LANGUE, THE PROPER OBJECT OF LINGUISTICS 

29

be studied like physical processes. This understanding is problematic because it neglects linguistic signification and reduces speech sound to physical sound. For example, a scientist who isolates a simple unit of sound such as the vowel a or the sequence aka has effectively stripped it of signification and the idea of usage (Saussure 1954, 55, 2006, 136). The scientist may offer a causal explanation of how this sound bite is articulated and audited in human physiology, but he or she cannot explain how this unit of sound, or any other, carries signifying properties. It is signification that parcels language up into basic signifying elements from the start; it cannot be added to physical sound après coup. A naturalist approach to language is reductive in that it reduces signs to “vocal figures” devoid of signification, and, therefore, not linguistic after all (2006, 6). The reductionist tendency results from “the illusion of things being naturally given” (2006, 137) or the “involuntary assumption of substance” (136) noted earlier. The naturalist orientation leads to a dominant focus on positive facts and a concomitant neglect of points of view in linguistics. It is, therefore, imperative to consider how linguistic facts emerge within linguistic understanding. For example, language can be viewed as a physiological phenomenon with a set of neuromotor properties within neural and motor anatomy; it can be viewed as a web of concepts and ideas within philosophy and logic; it emerges as a set of social institutions with a sociological approach; it is a document of customs from a bygone era for an archeologist. The various disciplines and subdisciplines that grapple in different ways with language all adopt a specific viewpoint and pick out a given facet via their distinctive lens. It follows that a “comparative criticism of points of view” (2006, 137) is a necessary task in language study, and that the scientist must carefully consider which viewpoint is most appropriate in a given investigation. The distinction between synchrony and diachrony belongs to this important methodological quest for valid viewpoints in linguistics. * * * In contrast to the subtle methodological reflections discussed earlier, the reader of the Introduction to the Course will find the initially stated emphasis on the linguistic viewpoint evacuated in favor of a reductive and purely object-centered understanding. The reader is presented with the following dilemma: “Either we tackle each problem on one front only, and risk failing to take into account the dualities mentioned above: or else we

30 

B. STAWARSKA

seem committed to trying to study language (langage) in several ways simultaneously, in which case the object of study becomes a muddle of disparate, unconnected things” (Saussure 2013, [24] 10). At this juncture in the argument, an aspiring general linguist seems torn between the Scylla of oversimplification and the Charybdis of methodological chaos. A solution to this predicament would be found in picking la langue as the object proper of linguistics: One solution only, in our view, resolves all these difficulties. The linguist must take the study of linguistic structure (la langue) as his primary concern, and relate all other manifestations of language (langage) to it. Indeed, amid so many dualities, linguistic structure seems to be the one thing that is independently definable and provides something our minds can satisfactorily grasp. (Saussure 2013, [25] 10–11)

The solution found by adopting a single focus on a single facet of language (langage), the language system (la langue), brushes the initial considerations of duality and subject-object interdependency to the side. We seem now to have gained access to a simple object, liberated from a constitutive dependency on a subjective viewpoint, and released from methodologically unmanageable complexity. The previously raised interdependency between la langue and la parole gets redefined in the process. Their relation is now construed as a factual hierarchy that directly entails a privileged status for the linguistics of la langue: In allocating to a science of linguistic structure (la langue) its essential role within the study of language (langage) in general, we have at the same time mapped out linguistics in its entirety. The other elements of language (langage), which go to make up speech (la parole), are automatically subordinated to this first science. In this way all the parts of linguistics fall into their proper place. (Saussure 2013, [36] 20)

The alleged “automatic subordination” of la parole to la langue is challenged by the source materials where la langue is presented as a platform or a viewpoint onto the other elements of language (langage) (“The best way of examining this speech part [of language] is by taking la langue as our point of departure” (Saussure 1993, 73)). La langue should not be construed as a superior and self-standing object but as an orientation onto the complex, heterogeneous linguistic terrain. Furthermore, we find no evidence that la langue must occupy the entire field of linguistics. The

4  LA LANGUE, THE PROPER OBJECT OF LINGUISTICS 

31

above-cited statement that “we have…mapped out linguistics in its entirety [in allocating to a science of linguistic structure (la langue) its essential role within the study of language (langage) in general]” is an editorial insertion without manuscript support (Engler 1989, 52). This statement prefigures the, also apocryphal, “famous formula” found in the conclusion of the Course discussed earlier. In contrast to the advocated single focus on a simple object, la langue, Saussure’s autograph notes emphasize that duality is the “first and last” principle in linguistics (2006, 3). Furthermore, there is no object in linguistics without a valid point of view (8), and linguistic generalizations are “the product of covert operation of the mind” (8). Combined, these statements imply that linguistic study involves an intellectually complex and self-reflective process that, in principle, precludes the possibility of unmediated access to a simple object. As discussed in more detail in Chap. 8, language (langage) is inextricably dual or has a “double essence” (144) in that it belongs both to the present and the past, and is available to two “equally legitimate,” synchronic and diachronic, viewpoints (27). Just as the editorial presentation of Saussure’s linguistics in the Course tends to overstate the separation between la langue and la parole, reducing the former to the status of a simple object, it overstates the corresponding distinction between synchrony and diachrony, turning synchrony into a single permissible perspective within linguistic science. The philosophical complexity of Saussure’s reflections on objects and methods is, therefore, ironed out in favor of a more manageable, yet ultimately reductive, scientific program: a synchronic linguistics of la langue.

Note 1. See Stawarska 2015, 109–119, for further discussion of viewpoints, and the related “involuntary assumption of substance” in linguistics.

References Bally, Charles. 1965. Le Langage et la vie. Vol. 34 of Publications Romanes et Françaises, ed. Jean Frappier. Geneva: Librarie Droz. First published 1925. A modified version of Bally’s 1913 essay under the same title appears in this anthology. Bouquet, Simon. 2003. Saussure après un siècle. In Cahier de l’Herne: Ferdinand de Saussure, ed. Simon Bouquet, 11–15. Paris: Editions de l’Herne.

32 

B. STAWARSKA

Engler, Rudolf, ed. 1989. Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. First published 1967–68. Godel, Robert. 1957. Les Sources manuscrites du “Cours de linguistique générale” de F. de Saussure. Geneva: E. Droz. Ricoeur, Paul. 1974. The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics. Ed. Don Ihde. Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1954. Notes inédites de F. de Saussure. Introduction and notations by R. G. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure (12): 49–71. ———. 1993. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu. Trans. Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 2005. Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. Tullio de Mauro. Libraire Payot. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. and annotated by Roy Harris. With a new Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Sechehaye, Albert. 1940. Les Trois linguistiques saussuriennes. Zurich-Erlenbach: Eugen Rentsch Verlag. Stawarska, Beata. 2015. Saussure’s Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology: Undoing the Doctrine of the Course in General Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 5

The Linguistic Sign and the Language System

Abstract  According to the structuralist interpretation, Saussure’s linguistics is to be credited chiefly for its influential conception of an arbitrary linguistic sign. However, the thesis of linguistic arbitrariness, according to which signification is an internal property of the language system, offers an initial and provisional understanding of linguistic signification that is, ultimately, revised in the course of Saussure’s lectures. Even though a reader of the Course may glean some of the complications befalling the linguistic sign from the later chapters, the reader is unlikely to perceive them as organic developments of the initial discussion of the linguistic sign from the more influential Chap. 1. The architecture of parts and chapters suggests that each presents an element of a complete doctrine, whereas Saussure presents testable, evolving, and revisable hypotheses in his lectures. The lecture notes demonstrate that, ultimately, Saussure does not support the structuralist view of the sign. While language is arbitrary and unmotivated by natural laws, it is constrained by social conventions as they evolve over time. Language is situated in the sociohistorical world of cultural signification from the start. Keywords  Linguistic sign • Linguistic arbitrariness • Structuralism • Course in General Linguistics According to the structuralist interpretation, Saussure’s linguistics is to be credited chiefly for its conception of a linguistic sign. The linguistic sign (such as the word tree) is a complex signifying entity made up of two © The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_5

33

34 

B. STAWARSKA

distinguishable and interrelated facets: a mental representation of a graphic and/or an acoustic sign (printed marks on a page; speech sounds uttered and received) and a signified idea (the concept of a “tree”). The signifying and the signified facets are linked in a manner that is arbitrary, that is, devoid of any internal motivating relation. Individual signs deploy signification chiefly by means of contrastive relations to other signs in the language system. The sign tree contrasts with the similar sounding monosyllabic words like free and three, and it stands in semantic proximity to the Latin-derived arbor that could be used in its place. Signification, in this view, is an internal property of the sign system. It follows that language as a whole can be construed as a relatively self-contained signifying web. As one scholar of structuralism put it: The essential feature of Saussure’s linguistic sign is that, being intrinsically arbitrary, it can be identified only by contrast with co-existing signs of the same nature, which together constitute a structured system. By taking this position, Saussure placed modern linguistics in the vanguard of twentieth-­ century structuralism. (Harris 2013, xv)

The structuralist view of language attributed to Saussure is based chiefly on the arguably most influential section of the Course: Chapter 1. “Nature of the linguistic sign” (Part One, General Principles). This chapter introduces the above-noted distinction between the sign (signe), the signifier (signifiant), and the signified (signifié), and it lists two basic principles regarding the arbitrary and the linear nature of the sign. An individual sign, such as the word tree, is taken here as a basic building block of the language system. Chapter 1 does not explain how and why the self-­ standing sign will enter into a network of relations to the other signs. Such entry is especially difficult to imagine considering that an individual sign appears to be a purely positive parcel of signifying content, whereas the differential relations between signs suppose a degree of negativity (tree is not/does not mean the same as three or free). How then to reconcile the idea of a linguistic sign with statements found later in the Course that “…in a language there are only differences, and no positive terms” (Saussure 2013, [166] 140–141)? Philosophers like Derrida rightly wondered whether Saussure uncritically assumed the age-old metaphysical definition of a signans/signatum that is perennially at odds with the conception of language as a relational web (see Chap. 7 for Derrida’s critique). Should we say that in the beginning there was the word? Or rather that in the beginning there were differences between words?

5  THE LINGUISTIC SIGN AND THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM 

35

I will document in this chapter, and in the subsequent Chap. 6, that the influential signifier/signified thesis offers an initial and provisional understanding of linguistic signification that is, ultimately, revised in the course of Saussure’s lectures in favor of a differential and sociohistorical understanding. These revisions are partially represented in the Course in Part One, Chapter 2. “Invariability and variability of the sign,” and in the later chapters included in Part Two, “Synchronic linguistics” (Chap. 4. “Linguistic value” and Chap. 5. “Syntagmatic relations and associative relations”). Even though a reader of the 1916 redaction may glean some of the complications befalling the linguistic sign, e.g., its sociohistorical dimension (Chap. 2. “Invariability and variability of the sign”) and its system-bound character (discussed in Chap. 4. “Linguistic value” and Chap. 6. “The language mechanism”), he or she is unlikely to perceive them as organic developments of the initial discussion of the linguistic sign from the more influential Chapter 1 (“Nature of the linguistic sign”). The architecture of parts and chapters suggests that each presents an element of a complete doctrine, whereas Saussure presents testable, evolving, and, if need be, revised hypotheses in his lectures. I will, therefore, revisit the lecture notes to demonstrate that, ultimately, Saussure does not support the structuralist view of the sign as an entity that “can be identified only by contrast with co-existing signs of the same nature, which together constitute a structured system” (Harris 2013, xv; cited above). This presumed separation between words and the world becomes untenable in light of materials from the linguist’s Nachlass. While language is arbitrary and unmotivated by natural laws, it is constrained by social conventions as they evolve over time. Language is therefore situated in the world—the social world of cultural signification. As such, it is subject to social critique and social change. Chapter 1. “Nature of the linguistic sign” opens with a brief mention of the received view of language as nomenclature (from Latin nomen: name). In this view, language is a string of names that function like linguistic labels for things. The received view is illustrated by Fig. 5.1 (Saussure 2013, [97] 75). This figure is borrowed from the student lecture notes. Here is the relevant explanation: It has often been mistakenly assumed that in language (la langue) there is only nomenclature (tree, fire, horse, snake) …. That’s a childish approach. If we follow it for a moment, we shall easily see what the linguistic sign consists in and what it does not consist in. We face a series of objects and a series of names. (Saussure 1993, 74–75; emphasis added)

36 

B. STAWARSKA

Fig. 5.1  Nomenclature view of language1

In these words, Saussure invites the students to provisionally adopt the traditional understanding of language (if we follow it for a moment…) before advancing an alternative view based on an arbitrary linguistic sign. The arbitrary linguistic sign is illustrated in the Course by two figures. First, there is a generic representation of the sign as a two-sided psychological entity made up of a “concept” and a “sound pattern” (Saussure 2013, [99] 77). In the second figure (Saussure 2013, [99] 77), a specific linguistic example (arbor/“tree”) is used to illustrate this general distinction. Figure 5.2 is especially famed and oft reproduced. Its status is, however, complicated by the fact that it combines a representation of the traditional conception of language as nomenclature with the alternative view of an arbitrary linguistic sign. Specifically, the right-hand figure, featuring an image of a tree and the Latin word arbor, illustrates the previously critiqued nomenclature view according to which language could be reduced to a list of names for things—such as the Latin arbor (tree) or the Latin equos (horse). Figure 5.1, featuring the images of a tree and a horse and their Latin names, is a dedicated illustration of this traditional view. The

5  THE LINGUISTIC SIGN AND THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM 

37

Fig. 5.2  Arbitrariness of the sign2

editors elected to paste the graphic representation of the nomenclature view into the composite Fig. 5.2, which they intended as an illustration of Saussure’s alternative understanding of the linguistic sign. In the process, they muddled the entire presentation. They made it sound like, on the one hand, Saussure adhered to the traditional view of language as names-forthings, and, on the other hand, he upheld an alternative understanding of language in terms of arbitrary linguistic signification, ultimately attributed to the entire sign system and not just the individual signs (see the remainder of the chapter for development). As a result of a muddled presentation, Saussure’s conception of language seems to be divided between, on the one hand, the metaphysical idea of a sign as signans/signatum and, on the other hand, the novel differential understanding of signification developed later in the Course. Derrida famously argued exactly this point (Of Grammatology 2016). The right-hand figure turns out, however, to be an editorial insertion without manuscript support (Engler 1989, 150). It is a fit representation of the nomenclature view of language critiqued by Saussure, as already noted. The figure on the left has a manuscript source in Degailler’s lecture notes

38 

B. STAWARSKA

(Godel 1957, 82; Engler 1989, 150), but it is not coupled with the right-­ hand one. Even if the editors had intended to provide a helpful didactic tool by creating a composite figure of their own design, they compromised the novelty of Saussure’s understanding of linguistic signification in the process. If one were to accept the editorial presentation of the linguistic sign in Chapter I, one would need to assume that the idea “tree” could be founded on a preexisting order of things that exist in the world prior to any linguistic labeling. This thing, or in the case under discussion, this natural kind, could be represented by means of an idea, an image, and, finally, a word. The signifier tree would be thus three times removed from the thing itself, and situated at the far end of a classical representational chain one finds throughout Western metaphysics—from Aristotle’s De Interpretatione via the seventeenth-century rational grammarians of Port-­ Royal, and up to Wittgenstein’s thought experiment of a primitive language presented in the opening of the Philosophical Investigations (1953). On this classical metaphysical view, the world includes a pre-established order of things (such as trees and horses) that remains the same everywhere and at all times, and can be rationally grasped by means of the category of substance. Things belonging to this fixed and rationally knowable world are represented linguistically by means of apposite parts of speech (e.g. nouns for things, adjectives for properties, verbs for actions). In the words of rational grammarians of Port-Royal: The objects of our thoughts are either things, like the earth, the sun, water, wood, what is ordinarily called substance, or else are the manner or modification of things, like being round, being red, being hard, being learned, what is called accident … It is this which has engendered the principal difference among the words which signify the objects of thought. For those words which signify substances have been called substantives, and those which signify accidents … have been called adjectives. (Arnauld and Lancelot 1975, 69; translation revised)

In this view, an immutable order of things in the world is reflected in an immutable order of ideas and words. Substance metaphysics is, therefore, the implied, if unacknowledged, worldview within the conception of language as nomenclature. How to account for differences between actual languages in this metaphysical view? They simply label the same thing differently. For example, the natural kind “tree” is labeled arbor in Latin, tree

5  THE LINGUISTIC SIGN AND THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM 

39

in English, and Baum in German. The pre-existing order of the world is not, in the classical view, affected and altered by the existence of multiple orders of the word. Words are mere labels affixed to things.3 Since the editors of the Course implicitly adopt this traditional metaphysical view of the world and the word, they construe the principle of linguistic arbitrariness in a traditional way, as a simple labeling relation. They select this example from Saussure’s course: There is no internal connexion, for example, between the idea ‘sister’ and the French sequence of sounds s-ö-r which acts as its signifier. The same idea might as well be represented by any other sequence of sounds. This is demonstrated by differences between languages, and even by the existence of different languages. The signification ‘ox’ has as its signifier b-ö-f on one side of the frontier, and o-k-s (Ochs) on the other side. (Saussure 2013, [100] 78, translation corrected; the example is found in Constantin’s notes (Saussure 1993, 76))

If one were to limit the discussion of linguistic arbitrariness to the aforementioned example, it would be hard to glean the novelty of Saussure’s position in comparison to Aristotle or the seventeenth-century rational grammarians. The example could just as well serve to exemplify the nomenclature view according to which language is a string of words that identify pre-existent, universal categories such as “sister” or “ox.” However, the nomenclature view is at odds with Saussure’s argument that language is a system of differences. Once we consider the so-called differences of value between signs originating from different languages, we will be led to reject the traditional view that a word is a label for a thing. In fact, Saussure was highly suspicious of the word-category and urged for a renewed reflection on the utility of all basic categories used in linguistics. He noted: “One day, a very special and interesting book will be written on the role of the word as the main element of distortion in the science of words” (Saussure 2006, 111). If the word-category is “an element of distortion,” it is because it inadvertently validates the dominant philosophical view of language as a string of words or nomenclature. Arguably, the editorial presentation of the linguistic sign in Chap. 1 still moves within the confines of this distorting view. As Jakobson (1978) rightly noted, the theory of linguistic arbitrariness presented in the Course:

40 

B. STAWARSKA

is in blatant contradiction with the most valuable and the most fertile ideas of Saussurean linguistics. This theory would have us believe that different languages use a variety of signifiers to correspond to one common and unvarying signified, but it was Saussure himself who … correctly defended the view that the meanings of words themselves vary from one language to another …. Saussure himself cites “differences in value” between the French mouton and the English sheep … There is no meaning in and by itself …. In language there is neither signified without signifier nor signifier without signified. (111)

As Jakobson emphasized, the French mouton and the English sheep carry different linguistic values insofar as the English language distinguishes between sheep (an animal in the field) and mutton (meat on a plate), whereas the French does not. The signifiers sheep and mutton are therefore inscribed within a basic set of differences from the start (the signification of sheep includes being alive, that of mutton excludes it) and cannot be construed as simple linguistic labels for a pre-existent natural kind. The real difference between English and French is that they parcel up reality differently, such that the contrast between life and death is marked at the level of linguistic signification of certain animals in English and not in French. This simple linguistic comparison exposes the folly of the traditional metaphysical notion that there is an animal as such, and that it can be represented by means of an idea, an image, and a word. For the “animal itself” is signified differently depending on its relation to the living and the dead. One can and does translate sheep by mouton in the French, but the signified content is marked by relations to its neighboring signifieds and does not indicate a head-on relation to the thing itself. Each sign is, therefore, situated in a relational web from the start. To focus solely on properties of an individual sign is to lose sight of these mediating relations in a system of differences and potentially to fall back onto the classical understanding of signification as a property of a word-plus-thing. To expand the focus from the sign onto the system, however, will ultimately help to redefine linguistic arbitrariness as a relative rather than an absolute category. The theme of linguistic arbitrariness is developed in the student lecture notes to mark this change of focus from the individual sign to the language system. Having discussed the linguistic sign in Chapter II in the lecture notes (Saussure 1993, 74), Saussure raises the question of “concrete entities” in language, that is, entities where an idea is linked with a sound unit in Chapter III (78). This chapter concludes that the question

5  THE LINGUISTIC SIGN AND THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM 

41

of entities is the same as units, that is, it asks how complex linguistic expressions can be subdivided into basic component parts. Abstract units (the relation between sound and sense is indirect) are discussed next in Chapter IV (83). Importantly, the entire discussion of entities as units shifts emphasis from an individual sign, initially regarded on its own, to a global perspective on the so-called conceptual and acoustic chains of speech within which the interlinked individual units can be discerned. This global focus underpins the following Chapter V on absolute and relative arbitrariness (85). It introduces significant revisions to the initial understanding of what linguistic arbitrariness is. Saussure opens with a brief reminder about this initial understanding: I have taken it as an obvious truth that the link between the sign and the idea represented is radically arbitrary. (1993, 85)

This notion of radical arbitrariness (i.e., zero degree of motivation) is here provisionally construed as a property of an individual sign. Saussure offers vingt (twenty) as an example of radical arbitrariness considering that the term does not seem motivated to any degree. When considering dix-neuf (nineteen), however, we encounter a relative degree of motivation since the term is made up from other linguistic terms: dix and neuf (nine and teen) (85). Dix-neuf is, therefore, constrained by a chain that includes dix-­ sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf (or seventeen, eighteen, nineteen in English). Similarly, the English plural ships forms part of a series including birds, flags, books, and so on, and it is subject to a general principle of plurality (86). These examples make it increasingly clear that belonging to a language system imposes a set of limitations on the individual signs. For example, in English, the plural form ending with an -s and the numeral range of -teen are product of internal grammatical properties of this language system. We read in the conclusion of Constantin’s notes from May 9, 1911: “Everything that makes a language (une langue) a system needs to be approached from this point of view …: as a limitation on arbitrariness in relation to the idea” (87). The now proposed point of view limits linguistic arbitrariness by subjecting it to the rules and relations reigning within the language system as a whole.4 It follows that the very idea of an arbitrary linguistic sign, initially regarded on its own, needs to be coupled with a global perspective on language as a system of relations. Saussure (1993, 89) submits to the students:

42 

B. STAWARSKA

On the one hand we have this relation, already mentioned. The left-hand image in Fig. 5.3 reiterates the familiar illustration of an arbitrary linguistic sign, and the internal relation between the signifying and signified facets. The right-hand figure introduces a relation between signs, and constitutes, thus, a minimal system. The two intra- and inter-­ sign relations are in fact interdependent. The lecture concludes with the observation: “We could never conceive the relation between one word and the other without conceiving the internal relation for each word between the concept and the acoustic image” (1993, 90). Similarly, the relation between the concept and the acoustic image (or between the signified and the signifier) needs to be situated within the sign system from the start. When Saussure returns to the question of linguistic arbitrariness in the lectures (1993, 96), he notes: Every language forms a body and a system …. it is this aspect which is not entirely arbitrary, where one must recognize a relative rationality. The contract between the sign and the idea is much more complicated.

Fig. 5.3  The sign and the sign system5

5  THE LINGUISTIC SIGN AND THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM 

43

It must not be considered like this: but like this (Fig. 5.4) Linguistic signification must therefore be construed in systemic terms from the start. The initially held notion of a single and simple linguistic sign gets displaced in favor of a complex relational web. This understanding is in agreement with Saussure’s stated intent to rename the chapter on the “Nature of the linguistic sign” as “The language as a system of signs” (1993, 92). This title change is not reflected in the Course, nor is the concomitant change of perspective from a narrow to a wide systemic view. These changes are significant, however, insofar as the initially held notion of absolute arbitrariness becomes relativized as a result. As put in the autograph notes: Reduction in any system of langue of absolute to relative arbitrariness; this is what constitutes the “system.” If it was possible for a language to consist solely in naming objects, all the various terms in this language would have no relation among themselves; the terms would remain as separate from one another as the objects themselves. (Saussure 2006, 233)

Fig. 5.4  The system of signs6

44 

B. STAWARSKA

It turns out that the initially held conception of absolute arbitrariness was predicated upon the pervasive traditional understanding of language as a string of words standing in for things. On this traditional view, linguistic arbitrariness is a positive property of an individual word (or sign), seemingly unmediated by differential relations holding within the sign system. The initial, narrow focus on a linguistic sign is tied to an initial, absolute conception of arbitrary linguistic signification, both of which are displaced in favor of a relational understanding situated at the level of the sign system from the start. Even though a sign considered in isolation may be declared arbitrary or unmotivated, it is also the case that language as a whole acts as a system of motivation for all the elements situated within it. As the lecture course unfolds, Saussure concludes: We must not begin with the word, the term, in order to construct the system. This would be to suppose that the terms have an absolute value given in advance, and that you have only to pile them up one on top of the other to reach the system. On the contrary, one must start from the system, the solidarity of the whole (tout solidaire); this totality may be decomposed into particular terms from the rest, although these are not as easily distinguished as it seems. (1993, 134)

The systemic dimension of language is fleshed out in a twofold manner, by means of the so-called syntagmatic and associate relations. A syntagmatic relation combines at least two terms in a linear relation. It is often referred to as syntagmatic solidarity to underscore the fact that the terms involved are interconnected and not loosely strung together. Examples may include set phrases such as contre tous (against all), but one also observes syntagmatic relations within composite words, for example, in contremarche (countermarch). An associative relation connects a given term to a whole series of related terms. For example, education (or enseignement in Saussure 1993, 129–130) belongs to a larger series including to educate and we educate, as well as the fermentation, obfuscation, and so on, series. Regarding its signified content, it belongs together with instruction, schooling, training, and so forth. These two relations are contrasted as follows. The syntagm is an extended linguistic arrangement in the present (in praesentia), since the associated terms follow in a sequence. The association involves an in absentia arrangement where the associative series has no identifiable beginning or end (131), and functions as an open-ended constellation of

5  THE LINGUISTIC SIGN AND THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM 

45

cognate terms. While these two types of relations are distinct and irreducible, they necessarily coexist. We may illustrate this with an architectural analogy: an arrangement of columns supporting a building functions like a syntagmatic solidarity, but a single column styled in a Doric manner may bring to mind another, non-present one, for example, an Ionic or a Corinthian column (1993, 133). Even though the associative relation could be construed in terms of a simple lexical inventory, Saussure offers a more complex understanding that yet again challenges the naïve idea of a single and simple linguistic sign. For example, the Latin dominus (king) can initially be regarded on its own but turns out to be situated within a whole series of related terms: dominus, domini, domino that make up this particular flexional paradigm— a group that is also based on associative relations (133). If we follow the nomenclature view of language, we would typically pick out just the nominative case dominus, and consider it a noninflected proper name for the corresponding idea (“king”). The remaining declensional cases would in this view be secondary derivatives, instances of a deflection or deviance, from the standard norm. However, the nomenclature view unduly privileges the naming relation and the corresponding grammatical nominative case at the expense of the other equally legitimate ones, such as addressing the king (the vocative case) or offering him a gift (the dative). It also glosses over the fact that the nominative is, like all the other cases, formed according to the general grammatical principles of declension as they operate in a given language. Isolating the naming function of a noun makes therefore little sense from the point of view of language itself (133). Any term from a declensional series can be summoned up as well as any other (134). There is no proper name for the idea “king;” there is no idea existing independently from the entire series. Unsurprisingly, Saussure concludes this argument by demoting the linguistic sign from its traditionally privileged status. Of the familiar figure illustrating the signified/signifying facets of a sign, he notes: “it is doubtless justified but is only a secondary product of value” (139). Instead, the linguist proposes a series of diagrams wherein all the terms are interlinked. Ultimately, signification is both a counterpart of a linguistic unit and of the relations to coexisting terms (1993, 135). The principle of linguistic arbitrariness is redefined in the process. It is the contract between the entire series of signifiers and signifieds that is arbitrary (138). In other words, the way in which a given language articulates signification is arbitrary in that it depends on the properties of the

46 

B. STAWARSKA

system as a whole, and it does not reflect any pre-existing universal order of things and ideas. In Saussure’s terms, since the contract as a whole is arbitrary, the values are entirely relative (138). While individual signs regarded on their own are unmotivated, language as a whole—with its host of seemingly unending associative relations, possible substitutions, syntagmatic solidarities, contrastive differences, inflectional paradigms, general categories for tense, number, and so on—effectively enables and constrains signifying possibilities. We, therefore, abandon both a nomenclature view of language and the implied metaphysical view of the world as an immutable order of things. There may be a variety of meaning-making matrices among the world languages that do not fully map onto one another; and yet they can, and do, communicate with one another across differences. The above-discussed developments from the individual sign to the language system-based understanding of linguistic signification are partially represented in the Course. Specifically, in Part Two, Chapter 4. “Linguistic value,” we read that a definition of a linguistic term as a simple union between a sound and a concept is “a great mistake” (une grande illusion) (Saussure 2013, [157] 133). Instead, one should note: “…the concepts in question are purely differential. That is to say they are concepts defined not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast with other items in the same system” ([162] 137); see also the section “The sign as a whole” in Part Two, Chapter 4). Similar to the student lecture notes, syntagms and associations are here said to exemplify these systemic relations, and are discussed in detail in Part Two, Chapters 5 (“Syntagmatic relations and associative relations”) and 6 (“The language mechanism”). Finally, the distinction between absolute and relative arbitrariness is revisited in Part Two, Chapter 6, where it is conceded that language as a whole limits the reign of arbitrariness ([180–184] 153–156). However, the existing architecture of parts and chapters prevents the reader from appreciating that the discussion found in the midsection of Part Two retroactively revises the validity of earlier claims made in Part One, Chapter 1. The reader does not know of a planned title change from the “Nature of the linguistic sign” to “The language as a system of signs,” and cannot easily track the concurrent change from an initial myopic focus on an individual sign to a global understanding of language as a system of differences. The stylistic discrepancy between the traditional format of an academic treatise, on the one hand, and the lecture series, on the other, is significant in this context. An academic treatise presents a presumed

5  THE LINGUISTIC SIGN AND THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM 

47

completed doctrine, while the lectures offer, test, and, if need be, revise initially entertained possibilities in favor of more viable positions developed later on. These internal redactions and retroactive revisions of a thought in progress cannot be easily rendered in a classic academic book format. Unaccompanied by the sources from Saussure’s Nachlass, they are likely to be lost on the reader of the 1916 text.

Notes 1. © Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in Lectures on General Linguistics. 2013. Bloomsbury Academic, Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. 2. © Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in Lectures on General Linguistics. 2013. Bloomsbury Academic, Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. 3. Aristotle’s reflections bear this point out. He wrote: “Spoken sounds are symbols of affection in the soul, and written marks symbols of spoken sounds. And just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of – affections of the soul – are the same for all; and what these affections are likenesses of – actual things- are also the same” (1995, 25). For Aristotle, there is one and the same order of things in the world represented by a similar order of affections in the mind. The latter are differently rendered in speech (spoken sounds) and writing (written marks). Differences between existing languages at the level of speech and writing do not, therefore, undermine the universal validity of one and the same metaphysical and conceptual order. Different languages simply label the world of things and ideas differently. 4. Similarly, Saussure initially distinguishes between chiefly lexicological and grammatical languages, which are founded on absolute and relative arbitrariness, respectively. The former seem to contain a higher number of unmotivated terms (compared to “isolated pigeonholes”), while the latter have a high tendency to deploy grammatical principles affecting most, if not all, linguistic terms. In the end, however, the students are told that “there is something common in the principle [of arbitrariness],” and that “we can discern as it were two opposite poles, or two contrary currents present in all languages” (89). 5. This article was published in Saussure, Ferdinand de. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/ Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Edited by Eisuke Komatsu. Translated by Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Copyright Elsevier (1993).

48 

B. STAWARSKA

6. This article was published in Saussure, Ferdinand de. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/ Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Edited by Eisuke Komatsu. Translated by Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Copyright Elsevier (1993).

References Aristotle. 1995. De Interpretatione. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Revised Oxford Translation. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Arnauld, Antoine, and Claude Lancelot. 1975. General and Rational Grammar: The Port-Royal Grammar. Ed. and Trans, Jacques Rieux and Bernard E. Rollin. The Hague: Mouton. Derrida, Jacques. 2016. Of Grammatology. Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Introduction by Judith Butler. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Engler, Rudolf, ed. 1989. Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. First published 1967–68. Godel, Robert. 1957. Les Sources manuscrites du “Cours de linguistique générale” de F. de Saussure. Geneva: E. Droz. Harris, Roy. 2013. Introduction to the Bloomsbury Revelations Edition. In Course in General Linguistics, by Ferdinand de Saussure, xix–xxii. Trans. and annotated by Roy Harris. With a new Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Jakobson, Roman. 1978. Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning. Trans. John Mepham. Cambridge: MIT Press. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1993. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu. Trans. Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. by Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. and annotated by Roy Harris. With a new Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophische Untersuchungen/Philosophical Investigations. Ed. G.  E. M.  Anscombe and Rush Rhees. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Macmillan.

CHAPTER 6

A Sociohistorical View of Cultural Signification

Abstract  The influential account of the arbitrary linguistic sign in the Course in General Linguistics is ultimately revised in the course of Saussure’s lectures in favor of a differential conception of signification, one which is situated within the sign system from the start. The systemic understanding of language remains, however, incomplete without considering the role that the speech community plays within the signifying process. Language is received from others, especially prior generations, and present social interactions consecrate linguistic change. Consequently, there is no language without society, and there is no society without language—they are co-constitutive factors of cultural signification. Focusing solely on the social dimension of language, however, risks that we disregard the temporal factor or regard language at a single point in time only. Language is always already historical. The sociohistorical dimension of the language system partially transpires in the Course, where it is acknowledged that language (la langue), considered independently of the social world, would be made “artificial”; this complicates the order of the hierarchical dichotomies (la langue and la parole, synchrony and diachrony) from the “Saussurian doctrine.” Keywords  la langue • Society • History • Course in General Linguistics

© The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_6

49

50 

B. STAWARSKA

We saw in the preceding chapter that the influential account of the arbitrary sign becomes ultimately revised in the course of Saussure’s lectures in favor of a differential conception of signification, one which is situated within the sign system from the start. The systemic understanding of language remains, however, incomplete without considering the role that the speech community plays within the signifying process. Differently put, to construe language exclusively as a sign system is to approach it in the manner of an object and, thereby, to lose sight of the fact that language depends on speaking subjects who communicate with one another in communal life. As phrased in the student lecture notes, language regarded solely as an object “would only be language (la langue) apart from its social reality and unreal (since comprising only one part of its reality). In order for there to be a language, there must be a body of speakers using the language. The language…. is located in the collective soul right from the start” (Saussure 1993, 101). The weight of the community gives language a center of gravity (97), and its social dimension needs to be included in the very definition of la langue (101). A similar idea is found in the autograph notes where language (la langue) divorced from social reality is deemed “unreal,” and the speech community (masse parlante) considered part of the “very definition” of language itself (Saussure 2006, 238). Language is, therefore, a dual entity that, like the Roman god Janus (identified with doors, gates, and all beginnings), can be depicted with two opposite faces or facets. It comprises the above-described objective facet of the sign system and the subjective facet of the socius (a community of speakers who abide by the relatively stable and yet evolving conventions of usage). Importantly, the socius should not be construed as a group of individuals who contracted an actual or hypothetical agreement to establish language at one point in time (Saussure 1957). The eighteenth-­century philosophical notion of a social contract—a deliberate and voluntary consensus datable back to the presumed origins of social institutions—is only theoretical and does not apply to language (17). In fact, the origin of language cannot be seen or seized, and it makes little sense to posit its historical or mythical source point (22). Language is largely received from others, notably from previous generations. The hold of the past on the linguistic present does not in principle exclude novelty—there is mutability to a certain extent (Saussure 1993, 98). Still, linguistic change needs to be consecrated by the society to take effect. Some words and phrases become rare or obsolete, while others enter common parlance or assume new signification according to evolving social trends. Social contract is, therefore, a permanent condition of language rather than its origin.

6  A SOCIOHISTORICAL VIEW OF CULTURAL SIGNIFICATION 

51

Focusing solely on the social dimension of language, however, risks that we disregard the temporal factor or regard language at a single point in time only. Importantly, language is borrowed from others at a time immemorial. Following the linguist’s notes, “Langue is not unconstrained (libre), due to the principle of continuity or indefinite solidarity with previous ages” (Saussure 2006, 238). Similarly, in the lecture notes, we read that language “considered at any time, is always an inheritance from the past” (Saussure 1993, 94). Language is always already historical since “never has any society known its language other than as a product more or less perfected by preceding generations and to be taken as is. In other words, we recognize a historical fact at the origin of every state of the language” (94). As an inherently sociohistorical entity, language can be regarded as a social institution comparable to a school or church (Saussure 2006). However, language is unique in that it pervades all areas of social life. Members of a society are not necessarily members of educational and/or religious institutions in their life. However, the language institution binds them all insofar as they necessarily communicate with one another (120). Just as there is no language without society, there is no society without language. Saussure writes, “since the aim of language, which is to make oneself understood, is absolutely necessary in any human society as we know it, it follows that every society is characterized by the existence of language” (121). In sum, language and the social world are co-­constituting factors of cultural signification, and it would be impossible to posit one without simultaneously implicating the other. The sociohistorical dimension of language invites a comparison to a sea vessel whose course cannot be determined solely based on its intrinsic properties. It must also take the conditions of the maritime environment into account. It is the community that provides the environment (milieu) where language lives, and language “is made for collectivity, not for an individual, like a vessel is made for the sea” (Saussure 1957, 26; my translation). The linguist emphasizes, “It is only when the system of signs becomes a thing of the community that it merits the name, is a system of signs at all” (2006, 202–203). It follows that the social dimension is an internal element of the sign system, or that language is equally a semiological and a social product (203). The vessel-at-sea analogy should, therefore, not be construed as a container-like relation where the sign system is simply inserted into the social world. Instead, we must regard the sign system and the social world as one composite totality from the start: “only

52 

B. STAWARSKA

the ship at sea may yield information about the nature of a ship, and, moreover, it alone is a ship, an object available for study as a ship” (202). Finally, the vessel-at-sea analogy accommodates unforeseeable linguistic change: “Langue, or indeed any semiological system, is not a ship in dry dock, but a ship on the open sea. Once it is on the water, it is pointless to look for an indication of the course it will follow by assessing its frame, or its inner construction as laid out in an engineer’s drawing” (202). In sum, the vessel-at-sea analogy illustrates that language is intrinsically enabled and constrained by its social context, and that its future course cannot be programmed in advance. While it is the case that language is arbitrary and unmotivated by natural laws, it is motivated by social conventions as they evolve over time. Contrary to the received structuralist interpretation of Saussure’s linguistics, according to which signification is an internal property of the sign system—that is, the contrastive relations between signs that are unaffected by the “external” states of affairs, it turns out that language is situated in the world—the social world of cultural institutions. Saussure does not disconnect the word from the world. And even though he does not explicitly develop this idea, language is in his view a field of social forces, and, therefore, subject to social critique and open to social change. The sociohistorical dimension of the language system partially transpires in the Course, and it is addressed specifically in Part One, Chap. 2. “Invariability and variability of the sign.” This chapter acknowledges that language (la langue), considered independently of the social world, would be made “artificial” (or “unreal”—irréelle). It also concedes that the combined temporal and social forces affect the possibility of linguistic change despite the inherently arbitrary character of linguistic signification (Saussure 2013, [113] 90–91). Subsumed as it is under a separate chapter, this acknowledgment does not emerge as a logical next step in the discussion of linguistic arbitrariness. It is unclear whether or not sociality and historicity impinge upon the language system itself, and whether or not they constitute general linguistic principles comparable to linguistic arbitrariness. Furthermore, as De Mauro notes, its placement between Chap. 1 on the sign and Chap. 3 on static linguistics and evolutionary linguistics (or on synchrony and diachrony), which received most scholarly attention and “hypnotized” the readers of the Course, most likely contributed to a myopic focus on the language system alone (Saussure 2005, 48; n146). As a result, linguistic sociality and historicity received very limited scholarly attention within the dominant structuralist interpretation of the

6  A SOCIOHISTORICAL VIEW OF CULTURAL SIGNIFICATION 

53

Course—Chap. 2 (on linguistic invariability and variability) is one of the least referenced ones. The discussion of linguistic stability and change challenges, however, the structuralist idea that language (la langue) constitutes an autonomous and closed object of study. Chapter 2 effectively complicates the order of the hierarchical dichotomies (la langue and la parole; synchrony and diachrony) from the “Saussurian doctrine.” It calls into question the view that modern linguistics is an ahistorical and formal science, and it suggests that subject and structure-based approaches to cultural signification advanced, respectively, by the traditions of phenomenology and post-structuralism, can be productively combined. An example of such an integrated approach is found in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of language discussed in the concluding Chap. 13.

References Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1957. Cours de linguistique générale (1908–1909): Introduction. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure (15): 3–103. ———. 1993. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu. Trans. Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 2005. Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. Tullio de Mauro. Libraire Payot. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Roy Harris. Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

CHAPTER 7

Derrida and Saussure: Entrainment and Contamination

Abstract  A critical study of the Course in General Linguistics is here expanded to include Derrida’s influential interpretation of this canonical text. It develops a critique of the philosopher’s own critical reading of Saussure’s linguistics, and it reveals a profound rapprochement between their respective views. The chapter re-examines relevant sections of the Course, approaching them through the lens of their deconstructive reading by Derrida in Of Grammatology (2016) and Glas (1986), and considering them in conjunction with relevant sources from Saussure’s Nachlass. The goal is not simply to dismiss Derrida’s insightful reading of Saussure. Instead, it turns out that general linguistics and deconstruction are closer than usually thought, and they can be productively combined in contemporary studies of cultural signification. For both Derrida and Saussure, cultural signification is mediated by the plexus of differences within the language system, and it is shaped by the so-called extralinguistic world. Keywords  Derrida • Deconstruction • Of Grammatology • Entrainment • Contamination In this chapter, I expand a critical study of the Course to include Derrida’s influential interpretation of this canonical text. I propose both to challenge the philosopher’s own critical reading of Saussure’s linguistics and to reveal a profound rapprochement between their respective views. I will © The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_7

55

56 

B. STAWARSKA

be re-examining sections of the Course previously discussed (Introduction; Part One, Chap. 1), approaching them now through the lens of their deconstructive reading by Derrida in Of Grammatology (2016) and Glas (1986), and considering them in conjunction with relevant sources from Saussure’s Nachlass. The goal is not simply to dismiss Derrida’s insightful reading of Saussure. Instead, I suggest that general linguistics and deconstruction are closer than usually thought, and they can be productively combined in contemporary studies of cultural signification. Few scholars have challenged Derrida’s indictment of Saussure’s linguistics as a species of metaphysics of presence and a naïve phonocentrism that advocates the absolute primacy of speech sound over the other modalities of cultural signification such as writing. In Derrida’s interpretation, the Course is a historical document exemplifying the prejudices that plague the entire Western philosophical tradition: an illusion of direct and natural access to signification in thought and speech; an attachment to a set of violent hierarchies (such as speech and writing; purity and contamination; identity and difference; and life and death) that guide the scientific endeavor in linguistics, unbeknownst to the scientist him- or herself. The Course is, therefore, a classic case study of how human sciences rest on unexamined metaphysical assumptions. It provides an instance of how Western thought values the illusory presence of here and now in speech and silent thought over the separation between the author and the audience—the signifying intention and the subsequent reception, in space and time, at work within the medium of writing. It is difficult to imagine how Saussure’s linguistics could have made a difference to the study of cultural signification in the twentieth century, if it were as burdened by the Western metaphysical legacy as Derrida claims it is. I propose to complicate Derrida’s influential interpretation by revisiting relevant sections from The Course (ones which deal with the relation between speech and writing discussed in Introduction, Chapter I and with the challenge to linguistic arbitrariness raised by the so-called natural expressions such as onomatopoeias and interjections discussed in Part One, Chap. 1), and situating them in relation to Saussure’s Nachlass. I will put pressure on the presumed primacy of sound and/or speech as a site of unmediated signifying presence in general linguistics by documenting that Derrida’s textual evidence is suspect, when it is compared to the sources. Ultimately, Derrida’s and Saussure’s approaches are broadly in agreement. Derrida’s emphasis on “entrainment” and “contamination” finds an echo in the systemic and social character of the sign system noted by Saussure.

7  DERRIDA AND SAUSSURE: ENTRAINMENT AND CONTAMINATION 

57

In Derrida’s reading, Saussure was wedded to the metaphysics of presence by privileging the phone, speech and/or sound, construed as a site of direct signifying presence where the “natural bond” between sound and sense operates (Derrida 2016, 38). The phone is a positive phonological plenum that is only optionally inserted into, what the contemporary Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben described as, the “plexus of eternally negative differences” with the other signs in the language system (Agamben 1993, 155). A speaking subject enjoys, therefore, a (presumed) sensory and intuitive plenitude in that he hears himself speak, and, thereby, has immediate access to the auditory process as well as the intended meaning. This positivity of sense-in-sound would be threatened by any indirect reporting of the original speech, notably by its transmission in a written text. Derrida writes: The epoch of the logos … debases writing considered as mediation of mediation and as fall into the exteriority of meaning. To this epoch would belong the difference between signified and signifier … [which] belongs in a profound and implicit manner to the totality of the great epoch covered by the history of metaphysics…. This appurtenance is essential and irreducible; one cannot retain the convenience or the “scientific truth” of the Stoic and later the medieval opposition between signans and signatum without also bringing with it all its metaphysico-theological roots. (2016, 13)

Following Derrida, the Western philosophical tradition models signification on the metaphysical notion of presence (Agamben 1993, 155). The opposition between a signans (signifier) and a signatum (signified), which dates back to the Stoa and medieval logic, safeguards a problematic notion of a pure and primary signified, that is, “a concept simply present for thought, independent of a relationship to language, that is of a relationship to a system of signifiers” (Derrida 1981, 19). This concept would be directly expressed and understood via the medium of speech thanks to a direct bond of sense and sound. The medium of writing poses, therefore, a direct threat of separation and artifice to the signifying presence. The written word is no longer tethered to its originating source in concepts present to the thinking and speaking subject, but it can circulate in the absence of the author and communicate against his original intent. A critical reading of relevant passages from the Course complicates Derrida’s charge that metaphysics of presence weighs upon Saussure’s

58 

B. STAWARSKA

views of speech and writing. Importantly, the passages Derrida repeatedly cites as textual evidence, and the ones he deems especially colorful, are all of editorial making. Let me document this by reading Derrida’s reading of Saussure alongside the Nachlass. Derrida wonders, “But has it ever been doubted that writing was the clothing of speech? Even for Saussure it is a garment of perversion and misuse, a dress of corruption and disguise, a festival mask that must be exorcised…” (2016, 38). To prove the point, the philosopher cites from the Course: “Writing veils the appearance of language; it is not a guise for language but a disguise (non pas un vêtement mais un tra/vestissement)” (Saussure 2013, [52] 34; Derrida 2016, 38).1 Yet no such comparison of writing to travesty (tra/vestissement)—literally a cross-dress that distorts or debases—can be found in the sources (Engler 1989, 85). The idea that writing dresses down language in a misleading and inferior garb is an editorial projection. Derrida proceeds to highlight the “historico-metaphysical presuppositions” at work within the presumed natural bond between sound and sense (2016, 38). He cites from the Introduction: “…the superficial bond of writing is much easier to grasp than the natural bond, the only true bond, the bond of sound” (Saussure 2013, [46] 29; Derrida 2016, 38).2 The entire statement is, however, an editorial insertion devoid of support from the manuscript (Engler 1989, 73). Similarly, the oft-invoked “tyranny of writing” does not figure in the sources either (they mention the “influence” of writing instead; Engler 1989, 88). In Derrida’s interpretation, the natural bond between sound and sense leads Saussure to consider writing (together with artificial languages like Esperanto) as a monstrosity. He writes: The perversion of artifice engenders monsters. Writing, like all artificial languages [langues] one would wish to fix and remove from the living history of the natural language, participates in the monstrosity. It is a deviation from nature…. Saussure’s irritation with such possibilities drives him to pedestrian comparisons: “A man proposing a fixed language [langue] that posterity would have to accept for what it is would be like a hen hatching a duck’s egg.” (Derrida 2016, 41)3

Following Derrida, the scene featuring a hen hatching a duck’s egg is a dramatic illustration of the unnaturalness of artificial languages and the writing systems for ordinary languages alike. Especially the latter alter the

7  DERRIDA AND SAUSSURE: ENTRAINMENT AND CONTAMINATION 

59

natural character of language by fixing the flow of speech in a barely recognizable form. As such, they are to be condemned as monstrous deviations from nature. Derrida’s earlier citation (Saussure 2013, [111] 88) is an editorial rendition of a similar analogy found in the sources: “language (la langue) is a bit like a duck hatched by a chicken” (Engler 1989, 170; my translation). Importantly, this analogy is part of a broader discussion of sociolinguistic change which concludes that every language, including an artificial language like Esperanto, is subject to the “fatal law” of social convention and intergenerational transmission (170). Every language escapes the control of an individual subject (such as the creator of Esperanto), and becomes integrated into a shared “semiological life” whose laws may be far removed from the laws of its creation or constitution (170). Signs are circulated within the present-day speech community and passed down to successive generations (170). Language necessarily evolves during this socio-­ historical process. Linguistic change is, therefore, integral to semiological life. Hence the analogy: “language (la langue) is a bit like a duck hatched by a chicken” (170). The analogy serves to highlight the fact that language lives an adoptive life, and it can be nested in multiple environments. Like a freshly laid egg, it can be incubated and nurtured by a very different animal than its progenitor. The cross-species kinship illustrates the idea that diversity and migration are intrinsic to semiological life. The social model applicable to language cannot, in principle, be based on biological continuity and sameness. The adoptive kinship analogy serves a similar purpose to the vessel-­ at-­sea analogy discussed in Chap. 6 because they both stress that language is fully immersed in its social context and that its future course cannot be programmed in advance. Contrary to Derrida, the model of adoptive kinship does not suggest a “perversion of artifice” and a “deviation from nature.” The nature of language is to travel, to abandon the nest, to be at sea. Language ignores birthrights, and it thrives on artifice. “A duck hatched by a chicken” does not tell a cautionary tale about monsters, and it is not designed to induce horror by staging unnatural kinship scenarios. If anything, the analogy serves to invoke wonder about the availability of language to multiple adoptions within the open-ended course of socio-­ semiological life. * * *

60 

B. STAWARSKA

Consider now Derrida’s objection of phonocentrism and metaphysics of presence from Glas in the context of the famous discussion of the linguistic sign in the Course (Part One, Chap. 1). As noted earlier (in Chap. 6), the linguistic sign is an arbitrary signifier of a signified content. There is no natural relation of resemblance between, for example, the English tree and the Latin arbor, on the one hand, and the signified content of a woody perennial plant indicated by them, on the other. In the conclusion of the section dealing with the principle of linguistic arbitrariness, the editors anticipate possible objections to this thesis. Onomatopoeias and interjections are both of arguably natural origin in that they seem to imitate the sound associated with a given action or event, for example, the animal cry (expressed by, e.g., cock-a-doodle-doo) or a bodily sensation (such as ouch). If it can be established that these linguistic expressions derive from natural sounds, whether made by humans, animals, or inanimate objects found in nature, then the thesis of linguistic arbitrariness becomes limited in its scope. The editors present the difficulty thus: Onomatopoeic words might be held to show that a choice of signifier is not always arbitrary. But such words are never organic elements of a linguistic system. Moreover, they are far fewer than is generally believed. French words like fouet (‘whip’) or glas (‘knell’) may strike the ear as having a certain suggestive sonority. But to see that this is in no way intrinsic to the words themselves, it suffices to look at their Latin origins. Fouet comes from Latin fagus (‘beech tree’) and glas from Latin classicum (‘trumpet call’). The suggestive quality of the modern pronunciation of these words is a fortuitous result of phonetic evolution. As for genuine onomatopoeia (e.g., French glou-glou (‘gurgle’), tic-tac (‘ticking (of a clock)’), not only is it rare but its use is already to a certain extent arbitrary. For onomatopoeia is only the approximate imitation, already partly conventionalized, of certain sounds … once introduced into the language, onomatopoeic words are subjected to the same phonetic and morphological evolution as other words. The French word pigeon (‘pigeon’) comes from the Vulgar Latin pipiō , itself of onomatopoeic origin, which clearly proves that onomatopoeic words themselves may lose their original character and take on that of a linguistic sign in general, which is unmotivated. (Saussure 2013, [102] 79–80; translation corrected; emphasis added throughout, other than for the French and Latin terms, to indicate editorial insertions)

7  DERRIDA AND SAUSSURE: ENTRAINMENT AND CONTAMINATION 

61

Following this passage, genuine onomatopoeias derive from a mimesis of sounds found in the world (such as the gurgling noise made by a liquid poured from a bottle or the ticking of a mechanical clock). Onomatopoeias do, therefore, have a natural origin. These sound-imitative expressions are subsequently introduced into the language system whereby they assume the properties of a linguistic sign. They become entrained by linguistic (phonetic, morphological) laws, and lose some of their original properties in the process. Onomatopoeias are, therefore, curiously situated in the domain of nature insofar as they are motivated by natural resemblance to their sound-origin. They are, thereby, endowed with a suggestive sonority while being also entrained by semiological principles, and are, therefore, at least partially arbitrary. Looking at the relevant discussion in the materials from the Nachlass, there are no genuine onomatopoeias at all. Onomatopoeic expressions do exist, but their importance needs to re-examined. First, we may see onomatopoetic expressions where there are none. For example, in the French il pleut (it rains), the sound of rain might be suggested to a French speaker despite the verb being derived from the Latin pluit (previously plovit). Furthermore, and more importantly, expressions such as tic-tac or glou-­ glou are “so drowned in the mass that they are subject to the same set of rules as all words” (Engler 1989, 156; my translation). As linguistic signs, onomatopoeias are, therefore, part and parcel of the language system from the start. They are not sourced directly from a physical sound to be inserted into a web of linguistic differences next. Even the most seemingly primitive expressions, like grunts of pleasure and pain, can signify thanks to their relation of comparison and contrast, and they are socially conventionalized as linguistic interjections, for example, in the English aah or ouch. Even though the latter expressions may seem to be directly dictated by a bodily impulse, they turn out to be customarily prescribed when comparing different languages (156). In sum, there are no exceptions to the general thesis of linguistic arbitrariness, and all linguistic signs are equally entrained by the system they form a part of. The editorial exposition of Saussure’s view muddles this crucial point in several ways. First, the editors cast a shadow of doubt on the general validity of linguistic arbitrariness. They write, “But such words are never organic elements of a linguistic system” (Saussure 2013, [102] 79; cited above). There is no manuscript basis for this bizarre insertion (Godel 1957, 126), yet it introduces confusion and inconsistency into the argument by covertly allowing for the possibility of natural signs. Onomatopoeia

62 

B. STAWARSKA

would somehow be both a positive parcel of sound and an element of a plexus of negative differences with the other signs. Derrida can, therefore, rightly question the possibility of accessing “authentic onomatopoeias” in their original state, prior to their having become entrained by language (1986, 92). Rather than seek a pure origin of individual onomatopoeic expressions (whether in their presumed sound-source, or etymology), we must recognize that the “process of entrainment [by the language system] has always already begun” (93). Derrida rightly wonders why Saussure presented the idiosyncratic examples of glas (knell) and fouet (whip) as standard expressions of (presumed) imitative origin. In fact, it turns out that both examples are editorial insertions with no basis in the sources (Saussure’s example is pluit (rain) discussed earlier). The examples are poorly chosen from an empirical standpoint, since few, if any, French-language speakers, specialists or not, would claim that glas (knell) imitates the sound of a church bell and fouet (whip) the sound of lashing. The latter expression does not even indicate a sound but an object that is capable of making a sound when in use. How then to decipher this bizarre choice of examples? Following Derrida’s inspired reading, if the knell strikes the editors’ ear like a whip, it is not because of its intrinsically suggestive sonority but because of the encoded linguistic signification. Glas and fouet, knell and whip, are both linguistic signifiers whose sound is already imbued with sense (for the speakers of French and English, respectively). The sounds of glas/knell and fouet/whip affect an ear that had already been attuned, acoustically and semantically, to hear them as signifying something. The ear hears the signified content, “the sound made by a bell” and “an object capable of making a whip sound” together with the signifier. There is no natural sound in language. Ultimately, therefore, the intralinguistic motivation by the language system enables individual signifiers like glas/knell and fouet/whip to be heard as expressions indicating a sound (or an object capable of making a sound), rather than the external sound-source motivating these expressions directly. To revise the editorial presentation of the argument: onomatopoeic words are fully entrained in the same phonetic and morphological evolution as other words. There are no natural signifiers in language. Instead of implying a direct symbolism of/by sound, onomatopoeias confirm, therefore, the general principle of linguistic arbitrariness as it applies to all elements of the language system. Here, the proposed title change of Chap. 1 from the “Nature of the linguistic sign” to “The language as a system of signs” is

7  DERRIDA AND SAUSSURE: ENTRAINMENT AND CONTAMINATION 

63

relevant in that it shifts emphasis from an individual signifier, with its imputed origin, to the system of semiological relations. In sum, Saussure’s treatment of onomatopoetic expressions excludes the possibility of direct imitation of sound by signs. In agreement with Derrida, the entrainment of signs by the system has always already begun. Furthermore, Derrida and Saussure both situate the language system in an ambiguous relation to its constitutive outside. Following Saussure, linguistic signification is not a property of the language system only, but it depends on historically sedimented social conventions (discussed earlier in Chap. 6). Contrary to the structuralist understanding, the language system is situated within the social world, and is, therefore, neither closed nor autonomous. Derrida similarly questions the autonomy of the language system, noting an ongoing impingement of the “outside” upon the “inside.” He wonders: What if mimesis so arranged it that language’s internal system did not exist, or that it is never used, or at least that it is used only by contaminating it and that this contamination is inevitable, hence regular and “normal,” makes up a part of the system and its function, makes up a part of it, that is, also, makes of it, which is the whole, a part of a whole that is greater than it. (1986, 94)

Following Derrida, the language system is worked from within by forces deemed external to it (be they sounds found in the physical world, phonetic evolution that is deemed merely fortuitous in the Course, or intertextual relations). Just as there are no “authentic” onomatopoetic expressions based directly on the mimesis of sound, there are no absolutely arbitrary signifiers devoid of any and all external motivation. The contamination of the “inner” by the “outer” is inevitable in that the system “is the whole,” but it is also “a part of a whole that is greater than it”—ultimately including everything deemed “external” to it (94). A similar idea is found in Saussure’s linguistics where cultural signification is informed by temporally sedimented social conventions. In this construal, the language system is, to borrow Derrida’s term, “contaminated” by social and historical forces from the start. Recall that “in order for there to be a language, there must be a body of speakers using the language. The language…. is located in the collective soul right from the start” (Saussure 1993, 101; cited earlier). The social dimension needs to be included in the definition of language (la langue) itself (101), and the

64 

B. STAWARSKA

weight of the community gives language a center of gravity (97). Language (la langue) divorced from social reality would be “unreal,” and the speech community is part of the “very definition” of language itself (Saussure 2006, 238; cited above). It follows that in Saussure’s linguistics, as in Derrida’s deconstruction, the system “is the whole,” but it is also “a part of a whole that is greater than it”; the latter includes the social and historical forces that classical structuralism deemed external to la langue. The boundaries between the inside of the language system and its ambiguous outside are porous and permeable. They can be drawn to facilitate the separation between academic disciplines such as linguistics, sociology, and history but only with the understanding that the phenomenon under investigation is complex and heterogeneous. Its linguistic, social, and historical mappings serve to orient us to the field and not to divide it up into segregated regions. In conclusion, Derrida’s charge of metaphysics of presence and a naïve phonocentrism carries little force when considering the sources from Saussure’s Nachlass. First, the sources do not construe writing as an unnatural deviation from the living speech. Second, they do not entertain the possibility of sound-imitative expressions that would be partially or totally immune to linguistic regulation. Third, according to the sources, socio-historical motivation is internal to the language system itself. It follows that cultural signification is internally divided by the plexus of differences within the language system (whether we consider speech or writing), and that the language system is affected externally by the greater world of social conventions that have been passed down through the generations. In agreement with Derrida, the entrainment of the sign by the system has always already begun, and the contamination of the “inside” by a constitutive “outside” of the system is both regular and normal.

Notes 1. The relevant passage in the Course reads: “writing obscures our view of the language. Writing is not a garment, but a disguise” (2013, [52] 34). 2. The relevant passage in the Course reads: “Although the connexion between word and written form is superficial ….it is none the less much easier to grasp than the natural and only authentic connexion, which links word and sound” (2013, [46] 29). 3. The relevant passage in the Course reads: “Anyone who thinks he can construct a language not subject to change, which posterity must accept as it is, would be like a hen hatching a duck’s egg” (2013, [111] 88).

7  DERRIDA AND SAUSSURE: ENTRAINMENT AND CONTAMINATION 

65

References Agamben, Giorgio. 1993. The Barrier and the Fold. In Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture, 152–158. Trans. Ronald L.  Martinez. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1981. Positions. Trans. and annotated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1986. Glas. Trans. John P.  Leavey Jr. and Richard Rand. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ———. 2016. Of Grammatology. Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Introduction by Judith Butler. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Engler, Rudolf, ed. 1989. Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. First published 1967–68. Godel, Robert. 1957. Les Sources manuscrites du “Cours de linguistique générale” de F. de Saussure. Geneva: E. Droz. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1993. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu. Trans. Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. by Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Roy Harris. Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

CHAPTER 8

The Principle of Duality: Synchrony and Diachrony

Abstract  According to the official view of Saussure’s linguistics later enshrined in structuralism, the proper object of study is language viewed as a system (la langue). This view is established in the Course in General Linguistics in part by overstating the separation between la langue and la parole to create an impression of a quasi-natural, steep hierarchy that elevated the former above the latter. A similar argument can be made regarding synchrony and diachrony. While the editorial presentation partially agrees with the source materials in that it ties synchrony and diachrony to the two available perspectives on language (langage), it overstates the separation between synchronic and diachronic study. It construes their relation as a hierarchical dualism rather than as an essential duality, and it problematically attributes a properly scientific status to synchrony alone. As a result, the conceptual complexity of Saussure’s reflections on linguistic methodology is sacrificed for the sake of a more manageable, yet ultimately reductive, scientific program. The interrelation between synchrony and diachrony is cast as an essential horizontal duality in the linguist’s Nachlass; language study is here characterized by self-reflexivity and conceptual complexity. Keywords  Synchrony • Diachrony • Structuralism • Saussure’s Nachlass • Course in General Linguistics

© The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_8

67

68 

B. STAWARSKA

According to the official view of Saussure’s linguistics later enshrined in structuralism, the proper object of study is language viewed as a system (la langue). I previously documented that this view was established in the Course by various editorial strategies that included the insertion of apocryphal, axiom-like statements and the subsequent citation of them in dedicated book reviews. The editors overstated the separation between la langue and la parole to create an impression of a quasi-natural, steep hierarchy that elevated the former above the latter (discussed in Chap. 4). In this chapter, I develop a similar argument regarding synchrony and diachrony. While the editorial presentation partially agrees with the source materials in that it ties synchrony and diachrony to the two available perspectives on language (langage), it overstates the separation between synchronic and diachronic study. It construes their relation as a hierarchical dualism rather than as an essential duality, and it problematically attributes a properly scientific status to synchrony alone. As a result, the conceptual complexity of Saussure’s reflections on linguistic methodology is sacrificed for the sake of a more manageable, yet ultimately reductive, scientific program. The distinction between synchrony and diachrony is established in the Course in Part One, Chap. 3. This distinction is derived from the twin perspectives or viewpoints that a scholar (as well as an untrained speaker) can adopt in relation to language, that is, consider it either as a set of relatively stable and enduring language states or as temporal successions. The synchronic perspective hones in on a language state, that is, a time slice characterized by relative stability in the life of a language. This perspective registers the relational web that binds coexisting linguistic terms into a system which is collectively available to speakers (Saussure 2013, [125] 101, [128–129] 104–105, [138–140] 113–115). Admittedly, a language state is an approximate notion insofar as the linguist excludes linguistic changes deemed of limited importance, in agreement with “a conventional simplification of the data” ([143] 120), from the time slice. The synchronic perspective on language provides, therefore, a methodologically expedient abstraction. It does not simply reflect a preexisting system of semiological relations, but it actively constructs an apposite object. The diachronic perspective, on the other hand, tracks an evolutionary phase in the life of a language, and studies relations between successive states that evade collective grasp and do not form a coherent system ([140] 115). How to decide whether a synchronic or a diachronic perspective is suitable in a given case? The linguist will make the choice in response to the

8  THE PRINCIPLE OF DUALITY: SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY 

69

relative linguistic stability or mutability of a phenomenon in question. A diachronic viewpoint better captures drastic changes, while the synchronic is better for a period of relative stagnation ([141] 119). The editors follow the lead of materials from the Nachlass in acknowledging that the distinction between the twin perspectives is tied to the inner duality of a science like linguistics. In linguistics, one must follow the axis of temporal succession at one time and of simultaneity at another ([115] 93). It is the same object language (langage) that remains considered from the two angles ([117] 94). The editors correctly illustrate the distinction between synchrony and diachrony by means of a transversal and a longitudinal section of the stem of a plant that reveals the arrangement of inner fibers crosswise or lengthwise ([125] 101–102). They also borrow the now more famed analogy between language and a game of chess; however, their interpretation of this analogy grossly overstates the distinction between synchrony and diachrony, as discussed next. The editors note that in any game of chess, one can distinguish between, on the one hand, an arrangement of the pieces on the board at a given time, and, on the other hand, a succession of chess moves as the game unfolds ([125–127] 102–103). These two temporal orientations are seemingly independent insofar as a spectator who had been following the game from the start has no advantage over someone who walks in on the game at a later moment ([127] 103). The contemporary arrangement of pieces on the board cannot be described in terms of what happened prior—not even in the immediate past ([127] 103). Whether or not a seasoned chess player agrees with the above analysis, in the Course, the presumed divide between an arrangement of chess pieces on the board, on the one hand, and the succession of chess moves, on the other, serves to drive a wedge between synchrony and diachrony. We read, for example, that the chess analogy “confirms the radical distinction between diachronic and synchronic” (Saussure 2013, [127] 103; Engler 1989, 197; an editorial insertion). This last statement resonates with other similarly oppositional claims. For example, the editors invoke a “difference in nature” between successive and coexisting terms (Saussure 2013, [131] 106), whereas the lecture notes convey a difference of approach that should not be construed as a natural fact (Engler 1989, 193). Following the Course, “…it is of the utmost importance to assign each [linguistic] fact to its appropriate sphere, and not to confuse the two [synchronic and diachronic] methods” (Saussure 2013, [140] 115), while according to the lecture notes these distinctions are of a theoretical sort

70 

B. STAWARSKA

and are difficult to maintain in practice (Engler 1989, 226). Finally, Saussure writes that language construed as an arrangement of chess pieces only “seems much better suited to abstract speculation” and that it leaves open the question of how language can be historical (2006, 151). In sum, the analogy between language and the game of chess is consistently construed in terms of the two basic axes onto language (langage). This analogy will engender linguistic abstractions, if the synchronic viewpoint is disentangled from the diachronic one, and if it changes status from that of a relative and partial perspective to a presumably absolute and all-­ encompassing one. In fact, the game of chess analogy underscores the inseparability of synchrony and diachrony. The linguist notes that this analogy had been used before him in a potentially misleading manner: Theorists of language before the foundation of the discipline and adepts of linguistics since Bopp always considered the language system (la langue) to be ONE chess POSITION of the chess game with nothing before or after it, and have wondered about the respective value, power of the pieces, in this position. (Saussure 2006, 143)

Since Bopp, linguists isolated the arrangement of signs (or chess pieces) in a system (or on the board) from the temporal dimension of language (or the chess game) with “nothing before or after” a given position. Saussure himself does not endorse this dichotomous view. In fact, he charges Bopp with dissociating language from the speakers, and turning it into an inadmissible abstraction: The misunderstanding that the school founded by F[rantz] Bopp fell victim of was to assign languages an imaginary body and existence outside of speaking individuals. An abstraction relative to language (langue), even if made for good reasons, is in practice susceptible of limited application only – it is a logical device. (85)

Saussure cautions against considering language exclusively from a synchronic standpoint, as a system seemingly divorced from a speech community, and hence, ultimately transformed into a logical device of little practical relevance. As discussed in Chap. 6, language construed in such an objectivizing manner ultimately becomes unreal (Saussure 2006, 238). Just as the speech community belongs to the very definition of language, so does the social reality of play belong to the definition of chess. An

8  THE PRINCIPLE OF DUALITY: SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY 

71

objection made to Saussure by contemporary scholars could, therefore, have been made by Saussure to Bopp: For, if the game of chess involves not merely the learning of its simplest rules, governing the movement of pieces, or even the characteristics of individual positions, but the study of entire strategies, it is first of all because what appears in Saussure’s discussion to be a self-identical “state” or position is structurally divided … For the significance of any particular position on the chessboard is inseparable from the fact that there are two positions involved, and that there is always the question of who has the next move? This small fact …. introduces the diachronic dimension of difference and alterity into what appears to be the close system of the synchronic state; as part of a game, the position in chess is inherently both a response and an anticipation, involving the calculation of strategies which are neither entirely necessary nor entirely arbitrary. (Weber 1976, 932)

Saussure is as critical of adopting an exclusively synchronic approach to language as he is of adopting an exclusively historical one. To continue relying on the chess analogy, it can be said that historical grammar was concerned solely with the chess moves and paid little attention to the positions (Saussure 2006, 143). It was, therefore, unable to establish the identity of basic linguistic terms and their interrelations. As such, a purely historical approach missed the very problem of linguistic evolution it was trying to trace. Thus, it must be concluded that “a language can only be compared to the idea of the game of chess taken as a whole, including both positions and moves, both changes and states in succession” (143–144). Language should be compared to a chess game “taken as a whole” and in its complexity because language is inextricably dual or has a “double essence” (144). It follows that, from a methodological standpoint, the linguist must not mix up the synchronic and diachronic approaches: “no one would dream of describing a position by mixing up what is and what has been, even ten seconds previously” (151; translation revised). However, the object language itself is always already admixed and situated on temporal and systemic planes. The issue facing the linguist is how to study such a Janus-faced entity scientifically? How to do justice to the complexity of language itself and attain direct access to it? Saussure writes with a barely disguised tone of exasperation that the “irritating duality” found within language “always prevents it from being grasped” (151; my translation). Similarly, he laments the “slippery substance of language” (197; my translation) that prevents the linguist from assuming a firm hold upon it.

72 

B. STAWARSKA

In sum, while language itself is indissociably historical and contemporary, distant and close at hand, the aspiring scientist struggles to encompass these different facets under a single and simple object of study—that is, an object defined according to the normative constraints of academic disciplines. The difficulty consists in reconciling the avowed complexity of language itself with the ideal unity of a scientific object. The intrinsic duality of synchrony and diachrony is never denied. Saussure appends, therefore, a “note to the reader” into the “Dual Essence of Language” fragment with a “crucial point” stipulating that since “every fact of language exists in both present and past realms,” the latter are “both equally legitimate and equally impossible to remove” (27). This intrinsic duality must not be covered over even though it threatens the possibility of unequivocal expression of what language is: “this very fact leads us to hesitate over the nature of language, or to see how anyone can express its nature, since it is fundamentally double: this is the central truth” (144). Linguistics itself must, therefore, be a dual science (une science double). It does not easily fit into the confines of a single discipline (146), and it must include both a historical and a systematic dimension. Linguistics must somehow accommodate both the instituted being and the incessant becoming of language. For example, even though Saussure is suspicious of traditional historical approaches to language, he acknowledges that “historical inquiry may coincidentally throw considerable light on conditions governing the expression of thought, mainly in affording proof that it is not thought that creates the sign, but the sign that fundamentally guides the thought” (28). We encounter here another paradox in that, on the one hand, language can be regarded as expression of thought via sign in the present, and on the other hand, it consists in a transmission of sign from an individual to an individual, and from a generation to a generation, over time (28). Within a present-day expression, the sign is closely linked to thought. This link is loosened in trans-individual and trans-generational transmission, and the thought may be altered or lost in the passage (28). Such transmission of the sign endangers its expressive potential, but it is because signs are transmitted over time that expression in the present is possible. We note here, yet again, an essential duality between the historical and contemporary dimensions of language. While expression (in the present) and transmission (over time) must be analytically distinguished, they are interdependent within language (langage) taken as a whole. * * *

8  THE PRINCIPLE OF DUALITY: SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY 

73

The essential duality can be illustrated by means of crisscrossing paths traced within the linguistic terrain. In the opening methodological remarks in the First Course in General Linguistics, Saussure considers two perspectives or viewpoints onto language (itself having two facets): 1. The synchronic perspective of direct access that gives the speakers an immediate sense of being at home in the language they speak. 2. The diachronic perspective of mediated access contingent on historical knowledge of linguistic developments over time (1996, 27). The synchronic-diachronic distinction captures the two available perspectives on the language phenomenon: that of the speaking subjects and linguists, on the one hand, and of historians (specifically, historical linguists and philologists), on the other (Saussure 1993, 125). The former has primacy over the historical approach insofar as it offers insight into present day linguistic practice, focusing on language in use. However, the two approaches remain ambiguously admixed, as the student lecture notes from the third course (Saussure 1993) demonstrate. In these lectures, Saussure proposes a complex entity, langage, as the object of study in general linguistics, an entity within which the facet of la langue (the social code of conventions) and la parole (individual activity) can be distinguished (70). He insists that they be treated separately, each calling for its own theory (90). However, despite the insistence on separate treatment, the linguist repeatedly offers analogies that suggest more entangled relations. Hence, a scholar who traverses the linguistic terrain is said to come upon a junction—a bifurcation where two roads cross. The scholar cannot embark on the two routes simultaneously and must, therefore, choose one (or could follow them separately at different times). Saussure advocates embarking on the path of la langue (92). Importantly, the linguistic terrain itself is divided, bifurcated (presumably by the pathways that the linguist traced while traveling in its midst), and an orientation must be found, if one is to make headway. Note, however, that the choice of path of la langue does not annul its junction to the path of la parole (92). Linguistics is a dual science, and one must preserve a linguistics of la parole alongside a linguistics of la langue (92). Further, in the third lecture course, we encounter a second crossroads: one between synchronic and diachronic facts within la langue. Take, for example, a diachronic fact of the German ich was (I was) that evolved over time into ich war in analogy with wir waren (unlike the English I was that

74 

B. STAWARSKA

remained unchanged alongside we were). This linguistic change is undecipherable without considering the facts of speech (la parole). There must have been a body of speakers who began saying ich war instead of ich was for the change to occur and to become established as a linguistic fact (fait de langue) (119). However, we cannot establish exactly how many speaking subjects are necessary to introduce a lasting change into language (rather than mark a temporary idiosyncrasy). The facets of la parole and la langue are conjoined and difficult to separate in practice. And yet, Saussure advocates, again, selecting a single path in the linguistic terrain: “We cannot mix the two paths” (118). The linguist is to embark upon the path of synchrony and to study change when it enters the level of language (la langue) despite the difficulties of disentanglement signaled earlier. However, the synchronic orientation does not cut all ties with the diachronic one. Saussure stresses the importance of knowing diachronic facts, for they show us “the passivity of the speaking subjects with respect to the sign” (109). And while he insists that synchronic and diachronic facts are “perfectly distinct” (109), he concedes that la langue itself is a diachronic phenomenon in that it accommodates an “infinite solidarity with previous ages” (102) and that “considered at any moment, however far back in time, [la langue] is always an inheritance from the preceding moment” (94). While the language scholar is advised to follow the path of synchrony, la langue itself extends over a diachronous terrain. The acknowledged orientational complexity of the linguistic field complicates the project of establishing linguistics as a science. What may seem like a single and simple object of study (the sign; la langue; a synchronic fact) turns out to be crisscrossed with its other interlinked facet (the signified; la parole; a diachronic fact). The synchronic and diachronic viewpoints alternate and reverse, each one offering a partial and relative perspective onto the global language (langage) phenomenon. If language is so inherently complex, and access to it necessarily partial and mediated, can the emerging science of general linguistics be granted the status of an academic discipline according to the dominant norms of scientific knowledge? These methodological difficulties plagued Saussure’s project and may have contributed to its manifest impasse. In the manuscript writings, the scholar acknowledges the “necessary absence of any point of departure” in linguistics (Saussure 2006, 136). He concedes that the reader of his projected book on general linguistics will look in vain for rigorous order:

8  THE PRINCIPLE OF DUALITY: SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY 

75

We have arrived at each thing which we considered as a truth by so many different ways that we confess not knowing which one is preferable. It would be necessary … to adopt a fixed and defined starting point. But all that we have tended to establish in linguistics is that it is wrong to consider a single fact in linguistics as defined in-itself. There is therefore no starting point, and we are sure that the reader who follows our thinking attentively from one end to the other of this volume will recognize that it was in fact impossible to follow a rigorously defined order. We are obliged to submit to the reader the same idea, up to three or four times, in a different form, because no one starting point provides a more indicated foundation for the demonstration than the other. (136)

Sechehaye deemed the entire above-cited paragraph “unusable,” and he noted in the margins of his copy: “Here is a point of view which our redaction effaces almost entirely” (Matsuzawa 2003, 320; my translation). However, Saussure’s note to a projected future reader of an abandoned book on general linguistics offers a valuable insight into his method. The note instructs that general linguistics does not take the form of deduction from a set of axiom-like principles regarding the sign and the semiological system, la langue and la parole, synchrony and diachrony. Since no fixed anchors can be located in language itself, the linguist travels and traces interlocking pathways along the twists and turns in the terrain. The quest for first principles in linguistics is, therefore, rendered null and void. Importantly, while these methodological complications were excised from the published Course, they recur like a mantra in the manuscript notes. Here are some examples: “It seems impossible in practice to give priority to any particular truth in linguistics so as to make it the key starting point” (2006, 3); “in langue there is neither starting point nor indeed any fixed point whatsoever” (22; see also 136 and 197). And while la langue may be posited as being “precisely the starting point,” still the “irritating duality” of language (langage) with its inalienable historical dimension complicates the issue (151). The question of unde exoriar? (Latin: from whence to begin?) becomes, therefore, a central issue for general linguistics. It is a question “not really pretentious and in fact extremely modest and positive that can be raised before attempting to approach in any way the slippery substance of language” (197; my translation). This question found no echo in the published Course, although it admittedly did not receive a definitive answer in the manuscript writings from the Nachlass either. However, the writings’

76 

B. STAWARSKA

meandering and fragmentary character, having no clear linear progression and no identifiable beginning, middle, and end, indicates the complexity of the linguistic field, and provides a tentative travel guide to an apprentice in general linguistics. The under exoriar? question ultimately indicates that a scientist of language cannot avoid being a philosopher. As a philosopher, the scientist will need to integrate a reflection on the intrinsic complexity of the field, and on the plurality of available perspectives, into the linguistic study.

References Engler, Rudolf, ed. 1989. Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. First published 1967–68. Matsuzawa, Kazuhiro. 2003. Notes pour un livre sur la linguistique générale. In Cahier de l’Herne: Ferdinand de Saussure, ed. Simon Bouquet, 319–322. Paris: Editions de l’Herne. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1993. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu. Trans. Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 1996. Premier cours de linguistique générale (1907): d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger/Saussure’s First Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1907): From the Notebooks of Albert Riedlinger. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu and George Wolf. Trans. George Wolf. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Roy Harris. Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Weber, Samuel. 1976. Saussure and the Apparition of Language: The Critical Perspective. MLN 91 (5): 913–938.

CHAPTER 9

Beyond the Doctrine: Linguistic Innovation

Abstract  Saussure’s Nachlass challenges the official Saussurean doctrine from the Course in General Linguistics with its hierarchical oppositions between la langue and la parole and synchrony and diachrony. It underscores the inescapably dual character of language that intersects relative stability with temporal change. This inescapable duality can be rendered more concrete by studying linguistic creativity. Called “analogical innovation” (or “creation”), linguistic creativity consists in a production of innovative forms of expression on the basis of established ones. Importantly, while the doctrinal view chases creativity outside of the language system, which is thought to be relatively autonomous and fixed, Saussure considers innovation an intrinsic feature of language (la langue) itself. Linguistic innovation cannot be discounted as a contingent empirical process. It is intrinsic to the functioning language system, and it furnishes a cardinal principle of general linguistics. Furthermore, linguistic innovation illustrates how the speakers’ expressions (la parole) affect and alter the language system from within, as if rewriting its code. The dual essence of language—the intersection of stability and change—becomes grounded in speech practices that borrow existing linguistic resources and return them in a slightly revised format. Keywords Saussure’s Nachlass • Course in General Linguistics • Linguistic innovation • la langue • la parole

© The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_9

77

78 

B. STAWARSKA

In the preceding chapters, I drew on Saussure’s Nachlass to challenge the official doctrine with its hierarchical oppositions between la langue and la parole and synchrony and diachrony. I also highlighted the inescapably dual character of language that intersects relative stability with temporal change. This inescapable duality can be rendered more concrete by studying linguistic creativity. Called “analogical innovation” (or “creation”), linguistic creativity consists in a production of innovative forms of expression on the basis of established ones. Importantly, while the doctrinal view chases creativity outside of the language system, which is thought to be relatively autonomous and fixed, Saussure considers innovation an intrinsic feature of language (la langue) itself. Linguistic innovation cannot be discounted as a contingent empirical process. It is intrinsic to the functioning language system, and it furnishes a cardinal principle of general linguistics. Furthermore, linguistic innovation illustrates how the speakers’ expressions (la parole) affect and alter the language system from within, as if rewriting its code. The dual essence of language—the intersection of stability and change—becomes grounded in speech practices that borrow existing linguistic resources and return them in a slightly revised format. The reader of the Course is unlikely to fully appreciate the importance of linguistic innovation from the redacted text. The placement of sections on linguistic innovation within the architecture of the book suggests that they are lesser in importance than the preceding sections on general linguistics and synchronic linguistics. One finds a dedicated discussion of linguistic innovation only in Part Three, “Diachronic linguistics,” after the influential Part One, “General principle,” and Part Two, “Synchronic Linguistics.” Part Three in its entirety is an amalgam of disparate sources: a lecture from the first course in general linguistics (Godel 1957, 61), two relatively late lectures from the second (70, 74), and a lecture from the third (78, 100). However, the chapters dealing with analogy are based on materials from the first course in general linguistics (57–63). Whereas Saussure discusses linguistic innovation prior to differentiating between synchronic and diachronic linguistics in the first lecture course, the editors reverse this order of presentation and postpone its discussion to a later stage. As De Mauro observed, the editors create the impression that linguistic innovation is of a purely diachronic interest, and that it can be treated independently from a presumed static language system and its axiom-like rules (Saussure 2005, 269n). Finally, the English reader of the Course cannot appreciate that analogy is “a general linguistic principle applicable to language (la langue)” (the title of the relevant section in the

9  BEYOND THE DOCTRINE: LINGUISTIC INNOVATION 

79

first course of Saussure’s lectures). The Harris (Saussure 2013) translation reads “Analogy as the creative principle in languages,” and, thus, glosses over the general linguistic character of the principle (suggesting a principle from comparative philology). Baskin’s (Saussure 2011) translation uses “language” in agreement with the French edition, but the “general” validity of the principle (as it pertains to language as such) is lost in both. “Analogy” is derived from Greek grammar where it is distinguished from a simple “anomaly.” In Saussure’s appropriation of the term, analogy constitutes a principled and reasoned process (not to be confused with a random accident resulting from mere chance). One finds instances of analogical innovation especially in the language of those who are least likely or able to follow a pre-given order of idiomatic expressions and familiar turns of phrase: children and literary writers. Saussure observes “[n]o better idea [of the phenomenon of analogy] is given than by listening to the speech of a three or four-year old child” (2006, 107). For example, a juvenile speaker of French may draw on the existing knowledge of verb conjugations to generate a (nonexistent) formation: venirai or “I will come” (from venir, “to come”). This formation is made on the basis of other similar verbs such as punir or choisir, whose first-person singulars are je punirai and je choisirai, respectively. The connection between venir and je venirai follows the lead of existing and generalizable grammatical patterns. While the child’s innovation is incorrect (the correct form is viendrai), it is not an unprincipled and haphazard anomaly. The child does not simply grasp individual words (like punir, choisir, and venir) in isolation and does not consider their phonetic similarities to be of a purely physical kind. The child’s mistake is an “intelligent transformation” that detects and deploys grammatical relations operative in a given conjugational paradigm (107). This transformation is neither socially sanctioned nor historically sedimented, and it thus violates surface correctness. However, it is true to what can be described as the deep generative grammar of language: “There is nothing more consistent, nor more logical and more accurate, than the reasoning that leads to venirai” (107). The unintentional, albeit instructive, mistake made by a child deploys similar principles that drive linguistic innovation in the creative language of literature. For example, an author, writing in the French, may coin a new term répressionnaire (analogous to mission: missionnaire = répression: X) or an adjective firmamental/firmamentaux (from firmament and analogous to fin-final/finaux; Saussure 1996, 62). The novel term X emerges here as a result of a deliberate inventive process, but it similarly relies on

80 

B. STAWARSKA

established pathways connecting, for example, nouns with states and participants; nouns and adjectives; and singular and plural forms. The creative writer’s innovation and the child’s grammatical violation are equally enabled by an understanding of the language structure as a generative template for experimenting and inventing rather than as a finished product. Analogical innovation is not confined to the literary and young learners’ language use. It is also a motor driving historical change. For example, some currently accepted and “correct” grammatical forms emerged out of a process not unlike that of a child’s mistake. Specifically, the grammatical relation between the first-person plural nous poussons (“we push”) and the first-person singular je pousse (“I push”) may exercise an analogical impact onto other relations such as the first-person plural nous trouvons (“we find”) and the first-person singular je treuve (“I find”); the later form je trouve (“I find”) is engendered as a result (64). This process follows the ratio of the so-called fourth proportional, that is, A:B = C:D. In the earlier-­ described example, poussons (or A):pousse (or B) = trouvons (or C):trouve (or D). The novel form je trouve emerges as a result of the ratio between the first-person singular and plural conjugational forms; it is, therefore, not a simple phonetic change. The ratio provides a coherent plan for projecting principled linguistic changes that can be replicated (or altered) over time. Saussure compares analogical innovation to a drama revolving around three characters: the legitimate heir (e.g., treuve), the rival (e.g., trouve), and the collectivity that engendered the rival form (e.g., pousson-pousse-­ trouvons) (61). In the first act of the drama, the rival is installed next to the legitimate heir, and the two effectively coexist. It is only in the second act that the earlier form falls into disuse and eventually disappears (61). Unlike in phonetic change, where one and the same linguistic form undergoes change and the new one automatically displaces the old, analogical innovation supposes a more complex arrangement involving a relational set of terms. It is not a simple transformation, or a metaplasm (alteration of the standard verbal, grammatical, or rhetorical structure) of the old into the new, but a creation, or paraplasm, inscribed within a generative matrix for producing new linguistic expressions. The earlier and the newer forms can coexist here as two out of many possible recipes for confectioning linguistic terms (61). As the earlier analysis illustrates, analogical innovation deploys grammatical principles of novel formation harbored within the language structure. Saussure insists that it is only on the surface level that analogical

9  BEYOND THE DOCTRINE: LINGUISTIC INNOVATION 

81

change can be viewed as a historical error and a mistake. He critiques his predecessors (from Bopp to Schleicher) for failing to give due attention to “the incessant daily creation within the language system (la langue); I mean analogy” (Saussure 1997, 86). For the former linguists, “everything that departs from the primitive order seems not to be proper” (86). They hold on to an unexamined and, ultimately, unscientific notion that language was perfect in its original state, while the very notion of a clearly identifiable origin is suspect in linguistics (86). Even though linguistic innovation had been viewed as an infraction or license against a presumed pure and perfect language in its initial state, “it is the normal way for a language to renew itself” (86). Its “continual work of renewal” should be accepted as being both legitimate and universal (93). To convey this point in a maxim: “language always works; this work is analogy” (160). Innovation and renewal turn out to be intrinsic to the language system itself. Language as a whole can, therefore, be equated with the process and the products of analogical innovation: Any language at any moment is nothing other than a vast web of analogical formations, some very recent, others dating back so far that one can only guess them. Asking a linguist to name some analogical formations is therefore like asking a mineralogist to name some minerals, or an astronomer some stars; I say this at the outset so as to avoid any misconceptions concerning the value given to these facts: they are neither exceptional nor anecdotal, neither curiosities nor anomalies; rather, they are the most clear substance of language everywhere and at all time, its everyday history and the history of all times. (2006, 107–108; translation revised)

If analogical innovation is a normal and permanent linguistic condition, then the entire field of general linguistics needs to be rethought. Recall that the “Saussurean doctrine” stipulates that general linguistics can be mapped onto a set of hierarchical dichotomies (la langue and la parole, synchrony and diachrony). According to this doctrinal view, the language system (la langue) is relatively closed and autonomous, and so analogical innovation situated at the level of speech (la parole) would be qualified as an, in principle, avoidable accident and anomaly. Saussure’s predecessors considered analogical innovation as exactly such an aberrant event. However, if analogy conveys that language is always at work, then the interrelation between la langue and la parole, synchrony and diachrony, needs to be remapped in a nonhierarchical and non-dichotomous manner.

82 

B. STAWARSKA

Consider the interrelation between synchrony and diachrony first. As demonstrated earlier, analogical innovation deploys the deep language structure as a model for confectioning novel linguistic formations over time. This raises a theoretical difficulty regarding its exact topological status that can be phrased thus: “Something is new, therefore there has been a change. Here is an embarrassing question: if there is change are we in the realm of the diachronic? We have indeed to say that this is very delicate point in the distinction between synchronic and diachronic” (Saussure 1996, 58). Whether analogy should be classified as a phenomenon of synchrony or diachrony is not discussed in the published Course, but the “embarrassing question” reveals a major difficulty of maintaining a clear-­ cut boundary between the two. Analogy co-involves the (synchronic) axis of already instituted linguistic products and the (diachronic) axis of an evolving linguistic praxis. If we posited a definitive break between synchrony and diachrony, we would render the process of analogical innovation undecipherable (or anomalous). However, since analogy continually spins the “vast web” that language is, it turns out that synchrony and diachrony are interwoven in its midst and may be construed as crisscrossing and nonhierarchical threads or pathways. Similarly, analogical innovation troubles any clear-cut opposition between la langue and la parole. In fact, this famed distinction was first introduced in the discussion of analogical innovation in the first lecture course in general linguistics (65). The distinction serves to identify the two facets of the analogical process: 1. The comprehension of relations between engendering terms (such as nous poussons: je pousse = nous trouvons) 2. The engendered product, the X of the proportion (je trouve [formerly je treuve]). (64) The resulting novel formation je trouve is executed within speech (la parole), and the enabling forms operate within the reservoir or treasury of language (la langue) (64–65). These two distinguishable facets are interdependent in that it is the act of speaking that drives linguistic change. As Riedlinger’s notes describe it (with a slight tone of mockery) the novel formation “is not created in a meeting of scholars discussing the dictionary”; instead, someone must have improvised it in speech (65). The speakers’ improvisation in the ordinary context of language use can, therefore, engender new forms and, eventually, rewrite the language code. The notes pursue:

9  BEYOND THE DOCTRINE: LINGUISTIC INNOVATION 

83

If it is true that we always need the fund of the language (la langue) in order to speak, reciprocally, everything which enters the language (la langue) was first essayed in speech a sufficient number of times for a durable impression to have resulted: the language (la langue) is but the sanctioning of what has been evoked by speech (la parole). (65)

The distinction between la langue and la parole, drawn in the context of analogical innovation, suggests an interdependent setup involving the systemic and the surface levels of language. The system enables linguistic praxis, and it had been shaped by its emerging products from time immemorial. The distinction cannot, therefore, be mapped onto a hierarchical dichotomy between the “proper object” of linguistics and its (presumed) contingent and derivate forms. Hierarchies suppose a firm foundation of first principles, but neither la langue nor la parole come first within the innovative and evolving linguistic life. Furthermore, the la langue–la parole distinction draws a line between the enabling forms that are “subconscious, in the depths of thought” (65) and the enabled ones that alone are produced in speech and, henceforth, directly available to consciousness. The line separating la langue and la parole is a blurred and porous one, however, insofar as Saussure does not really oppose the linguistic unconscious to consciousness. He notes, for example: The notion of consciousness is highly relative, such that there are two degrees of consciousness, the higher of which remains that of pure unconsciousness when compared to the degree of reflection which accompanies most of our acts. (Saussure 2006, 106)

The relation between consciousness and the unconscious is approached here from the perspective of language acts (rather than a presumed nonlinguistic thought), where the act of speaking involves a degree of automatism even when executed with full awareness. Speaking does not proceed solely from consciously available signifying intentions, but it is animated partly by the deep language structures lying beyond the individual ken and control. As far as language is concerned, the distinction between consciousness and the unconscious is, therefore, one of degree and not in kind: There are many degrees of conscious or unconscious will; furthermore, of all the acts which can be compared, the linguistic act …. is characterized by being the least reflected, the least premeditated, as well as the most imper-

84 

B. STAWARSKA

sonal of all. That constitutes a difference of degree, which is so far-reaching as to have long appeared a fundamental difference, even though it is but a difference of degree. (99)

In sum, the distinction between linguistic consciousness and the unconscious is a permeable one, which is situated on a wide spectrum of gradational differences between what is more or less consciously available. Similarly, the distinction between the linguistic act and the linguistic structure, la parole and la langue, is situated within a gradational spectrum of differences of degree and not in kind. Analogical innovation, just like language in general, can be interpreted from either the point of view of the engendering structures or the engendered forms, the matrix of possibilities or the resulting product, but the distinguished terms crisscross and partially overlap. They should be conceptually mapped as entangled dualities rather than as steep ontological dualisms. The distinction between la langue and la parole forms an element of the analogical innovation process according to the student lecture notes. In the published Course, however, “analogical formations are mentioned as providing historical evidence…. for a distinction [between la langue and la parole] already established on a priori grounds” (Harris 2003, 30). The la langue–la parole distinction is, thus, presented in the guise of a universally valid law—an axiom within a deductive system—of which specific analogical formations would be concrete and contingent examples. This presentation occludes the fact that the distinction is of degree and not in kind and relative rather than absolute. It is, therefore, significant, as Harris writes, that “the majority of scholars who discuss ‘Saussure’s’ distinction between langue and parole are completely unaware of its original emergence from the doctrine of analogy” (30). Such epistemic ignorance regarding the source of a key linguistic distinction makes it easy for most scholars to continually accept the validity of the “Saussurean doctrine.” Contemporary readers of the Course are likely to interpret the discussion of analogical innovation in Part III as a simple illustration of a familiar conceptual apparatus with its hierarchical logic. For example, they will read that even though linguistic innovation occurs at the level of speech, it presupposes an already established hierarchical relation between la langue and la parole, in which la parole is relegated to “the fringe of the language (la langue)” (Saussure 2013, [227] 195; Engler 1989, 375; editorial insertion). They will encounter another editorial insertion in this concluding statement:

9  BEYOND THE DOCTRINE: LINGUISTIC INNOVATION 

85

Analogy teaches us once again … to distinguish between the language itself (la langue) and speech (la parole). It shows us how speech depends on the language. (Saussure 2013, [227] 195; Engler 1989, 376)

We have seen, however, that according to Saussure’s linguistics, the relation of la parole to la langue involves reciprocal interdependency rather than a unilateral support of a fringe by a foundation. Analogical innovation dissolves any projected, hierarchical dichotomies in general linguistics. Its close study enables present-day students and scholars to surpass the “Saussurean doctrine” and to expand their view of language beyond surface correctness, thus capturing the creative forces at work in its midst.

References Engler, Rudolf, ed. 1989. Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. First published 1967–68. Godel, Robert. 1957. Les Sources manuscrites du “Cours de linguistique générale” de F. de Saussure. Geneva: E. Droz. Harris, Roy. 2003. Saussure and His Interpreters. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1996. Premier cours de linguistique générale (1907): d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger/Saussure’s First Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1907): From the Notebooks of Albert Riedlinger. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu and George Wolf. Trans. George Wolf. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 1997. Deuxième cours de linguistique générale (1908–1909): d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger et Charles Patois/Saussure’s Second Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1908–1909). Ed. and Trans. Eisuke Komatsu and George Wolf. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 2005. Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. Tullio de Mauro. Libraire Payot. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. ———. 2011. Course in General Linguistics. Ed. Perry Meisel and Haun Sussy. Trans. Wade Baskin. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Roy Harris. Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

CHAPTER 10

Language and Languages

Abstract  The editorial organization of the contents of the Course in General Linguistics contributed to establishing the primacy of the language system (la langue) by situating it above the empirical plurality of world languages (les langues). La langue is defined by means of dogmatic, axiom-like statements with little empirical justification or background early on in the book. A survey of concrete data pertaining to linguistic diversity is found only toward the end, and it seems to offer a series of contingent variations on the basic theme of a pre-existent language structure. The validity of such a central language structure is assumed a priori, and the diversity of linguistic practices around the world is considered a posteriori as a set of factual consequences. This presentation is fueled largely by the editors’ methodological commitments, especially Sechehaye’s self-avowed “taste for great abstractions,” and it is at odds with a more nuanced view developed in Saussure’s Nachlass. In the student lecture notes, the order of presentation moves from a detailed survey of several languages (les langues) to a concluding, hypothetical notion of language (la langue) as such. La langue is a generalization from out of a vast linguistic plurality and not an a priori axiom. Keywords  la langue • Linguistic diversity • Saussure’s Nachlass • Course in General Linguistics

© The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_10

87

88 

B. STAWARSKA

In the concluding chapter of Part I, I will examine how the editorial organization of the book’s contents contributed to establishing the primacy of the language system (la langue) in the Course. La langue is placed above the empirical plurality of existing languages (les langues), and it is defined by means of dogmatic, axiom-like statements with little empirical justification or background early on in the book. A survey of concrete data pertaining to linguistic diversity is found only toward the end in Part Four, and it seems to offer a series of contingent, external variations on the basic theme of a pre-existent language structure. The validity of such a central language structure is assumed a priori (prior to empirical study), as if it were a universal law, and the de facto richness and diversity of linguistic practices around the world is considered a posteriori as a set of factual consequences following from the universal structure. In contrast, in the student lecture notes, the order of presentation moves from a detailed survey of several languages (les langues) to a concluding, hypothetical notion of language (la langue) as such. In their Preface to the Course, the editors advise that the book is a reconstruction based primarily on the third year of Saussure’s series of lectures in general linguistics (1910–1911). They do not mention, however, that the sequence of presentation they opted for runs in reverse order to the one Saussure followed in the lectures themselves. The Course is organized according to the following table of contents: Introduction, Physiological Phonetics, General principles (Part One), Synchronic linguistics (Part Two), Diachronic linguistics (Part Three), Geographical linguistics (Part Four), and Retrospective linguistics and Conclusion (Part Five). The architecture of five parts imposes an order of presentation that reverses the one followed in the lectures. The lectures begin with a study of geographical diversity of languages (les langues) and the causes of this diversity. A general theory of language as such (la langue) is discussed toward the end, and it is presented as an ideal notion in need of further inquiry. Specifically, Saussure broaches general questions relative to language as such (la langue) only in the second semester (April–July 1911) of the third lecture course. While the editors characterized the discussion of language as such as “the essential core of his subject,” (Saussure 2013, [7] xxiii), la langue was not fully developed in the lecture course itself. As noted in the concluding lines of the notes from the third course, “only the external part [of linguistics] is close to being complete” (Saussure 1993, 143a). The internal part of linguistics dealing with la langue was, in fact, far from being complete by the end of the third and final lecture course.

10  LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES 

89

Saussure begins the third lecture course with a study of “Geographical linguistics,” and he presents a wide-ranging overview of language families that include Semitic languages in addition to the Indo-European. This overview served as an introduction to general considerations regarding language (la langue) itself. The editors opted to bypass this introduction on the grounds that it was motivated by institutional demands and not intrinsic to general linguistics. They stated in the Preface: “The requirements of the curriculum …. obliged [Saussure] to devote half of each course to a historical and descriptive survey of the Indo-European languages, and the essential core of his subject was thus considerably reduced” (Saussure 2013, [7] xxiii). However, it is plausible that the survey formed an integral part of general linguistics. A similar survey (offered this time as a lengthy conclusion) makes up the bulk of the second-year lecture course (1908–1909), and it constitutes about three-fifths of the total (based on Riedlinger’s notes (Godel 1957, 53–76)). This survey clearly surpasses the “obligatory half” requirement intimated by the editors. It is also of note that, based on Saussure’s conversation with Riedlinger, the second-year survey served as an “introduction to general linguistics” and even as preparation for a philosophical course on linguistics (un cours philosophique de linguistique) (30). In agreement with Godel, Riedlinger considered “the wonderful 100 pages long introduction to the second course [to constitute] the quintessential Saussurean thinking” (cited in Bouquet 1999; my translation; cited above). It follows that the survey of linguistic diversity was not only integral to the overall design of Saussure’s course, but it served as a royal road toward a general understanding of language as such. Harris observes: “Suppressing an intrinsic part of a course can hardly pass muster as a conventional editorial practice. Here we see [a] reason why the students’ perspective on Saussure’s teaching can claim to be unique. They, unlike the subsequent readers of the CLG, were in a position to relate the ideas of general linguistics to the complementary picture of an established body of linguistic facts that the lecturer took care to present in tandem. Somehow, the two had to be understood as related” (2003, 21). The student lecture notes clearly bear this point out: questions of general linguistic nature are to be raised within the horizon of many—as many as possible—languages (Saussure 1993, 10). The master dictates to his students: This being our understanding of language (la langue), it is clear that we have access to it only through a series of different languages. We cannot grasp it except through some specific language, any one. The language (la

90 

B. STAWARSKA

langue), this word in particular, what is its justification? I intend it as a generalization, that which will turn out to be true for any given language, without having to specify which one. (78)

The linguist develops a similar idea in the autograph notes: Languages, found all over the globe are the linguist’s concrete object of study. Langue is the name which may be given to what linguistics will be able to derive from these observations of all languages, through time and across space. (2006, 215)

General linguistics turns out to be a science of generalizations based upon a global study of world languages. Considerations of linguistic diversity come, therefore, first in the lectures and in linguistics alike. A scholar can only make substantive general linguistic claims on the basis of extensive exposure to a vast array of languages that may only partially overlap. La langue as such is, therefore, an ideal and future-oriented notion rather than an already established principle. Crucially, Saussure himself did not complete the study of la langue in the lecture series. La langue retains, therefore, the guise of an enigma, an open-ended question that may require a lengthy, if not an infinite, investigation. While the general category of la langue may emerge in the process of comparing and translating one language to another, it does not thereby obliterate the singular and unique features of each. Unsurprisingly, according to Saussure’s notes for the third course, it is linguistic plurality, and not the language system, that constitutes “a primary fact”: The plurality of linguistic forms in the world, the diversity within language (la langue) as we move from one country to another, or one region to another, that’s the primary observation, immediately available to everyone…. I say that this geographical diversity is the primary fact for a linguist and indeed any person in general. Language variation over time necessarily escapes the observer, but variation in space cannot possibly do so. (2006, 215)

Language scholar and language user alike are thus faced with linguistic diversity in space, when adopting a synchronic viewpoint at a given historical moment and diversity in time, when adopting a temporally extended, diachronic one. The synchronic viewpoint entails, therefore, an

10  LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES 

91

appreciation of linguistic plurality, which is only confirmed from the more difficult to adopt diachronic perspective on language change over time (215). It follows that language is not a single and simple structure. Ultimately, the object of linguistic study is language broadly construed (langage)—a heterogeneous and multifaceted field that can be mapped via a series of dual terms. The linguist can project multiple dualities onto language (langage): the signifier and the signified, the speaking individual and society, la langue and society, la langue and la parole (208–209). Importantly, neither of the two coupled terms has priority over the other. Even though each term is analytically separable from the other, it remains effectively undecipherable without it. For example, la langue can be distinguished from society but only on the condition that “langue is social, or else does not exist” (208). As documented earlier (in Chaps. 8 and 9), language is a complex signifying site better mapped by means of a conceptual apparatus involving a set of indissociable dualities than hierarchical dualisms. General linguistics is a dual science grounded in the irreducible law of duality. In sum, the materials from the Saussure’s Nachlass do not support the idea that the language system (la langue) is the proper object of linguistics. This idea may have been fueled in part by the editors’ own methodological and conceptual commitments. Notably, Sechehaye endorsed the possibility of developing a science of theoretical linguistics that construes language as an abstract idea. He writes: Just as much as we can conceive an idea of language in general above the idea of particular languages, we can imagine a science which studies this phenomenon in the sense of an abstract idea….this is what we propose to call theoretical linguistics. (Sechehaye 1908, 9–10; my translation)

In Sechehaye’s programmatic vision of theoretical linguistics, language is stripped of its concrete social, historical, and material reality, and it is turned into an abstract idea elevated above linguistic plurality. The linguist follows especially the Swiss philosopher of science, Adrien Naville, who devised a dichotomous topology of the sciences that distinguishes between, on the one hand, empirical sciences that observe and describe facts (“sciences of facts”) and rational sciences that capture invariable laws (“sciences of laws”) (4; my translation). For example, a factual science may describe the sun as being hot and luminous, since it relies on the contingent contents of visual perception. A rational science would approach the

92 

B. STAWARSKA

same object with principles drawn from mechanics, physics, and geometry. It would thus be in a position to grasp an intelligible form, and it would seek to identify “the general and the necessary behind the contingent” (4–6; my translation). Sechehaye tends to dismiss the methodological naïveté of factual sciences in comparison to the sophistication of the rational ones. He notes, however, that ideally the two methodologies can be combined. Induction would serve as a basis for general laws that can in turn lead to various possible applications (5–7). Considered in the linguistic context, the methodological process will run as follows: Theoretical linguistics begins …. with the fact but one does not return to it; one moves up to the general principles and remains at that level; one defines them, lists them, justifies them rationally as much as that is possible, and equipped with these principles, instead of trying to reconstruct the reality of history in an imperfect way, one edifies by deduction a general system of possibilities, of which reality is but a contingent application. (8; my translation)

Following Sechehaye, language (la langue) is to be construed as such an “edified” and “elevated” system of general principles attained via rational deduction. Importantly, general principles do not necessarily emerge via a process of generalization from reality. The latter serves chiefly as a “contingent application” of rationally accessible necessary laws—an intelligible form behind contingent facts. We can, therefore, begin to decipher the methodological framework that Sechehaye deploys when editing the lecture notes into the 1916 Course in General Linguistics. The editor interprets Saussure’s survey of linguistic plurality as a stepping-stone on the way toward a “higher” plane of general linguistic laws where the abstract idea of language as such can be captured. He writes in his editorial notes: [The linguist] will derive by abstraction that which is universal from the languages. He will therefore be faced with a totality of abstractions by means of which he will have access to, as much as it is possible, to la langue; in other words, we will study that which can be gleaned of la langue within different languages within these abstractions. It is therefore necessary to pass through a study of languages to arrive at a study of language (la langue). (Harris 2003, 52)

10  LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES 

93

Even though the method of theoretical abstraction is at odds with Saussure’s claim that la langue is a generalization made on the plane of irreducible linguistic plurality, Sechehaye attributes his preferred method to the master himself. He writes: If we dare to make a comparison with F. de Saussure, we would say that his disciple [that is, Sechehaye] shares with him the taste – we say simply the taste (le gout) – for great abstractions and these mental visions which surpass and dominate the facts. (Sechehaye 1927, 234; my translation)

Sechehaye’s comment undoubtedly expresses profound admiration and respect for the deceased master. However, the professed “taste for great abstractions,” retroactively projected onto Saussure, is a sign of filial piety and filial privilege assumed by Sechehaye as executor of an intellectual estate. It effectively empowered the editor to impose a mental vision above and beyond linguistic facts and to convert general linguistics into a theoretical science. It must be conceded, however, that Sechehaye (and Naville) were not alone in adopting a dichotomous paradigm of science in the quest of establishing a new academic discipline. Another important example can be located in the works of the French sociologist Émile Durkheim. Durkheim considered collective consciousness to be the universal and unchanging domain of social life that determines, but is not determined by, individual consciousness. As such, collective consciousness “possesses specific characteristics that make it a distinctive reality” (1984, 39–40), and it can be studied on its own. In sum, the dichotomous scientific paradigm was deployed by several French scholars at the turn of the twentieth century in an effort to formally establish the emerging modern sciences. By demarcating a “distinctive reality” of language laws or collective consciousness, removed from empirical individuals and unaffected by the passage of time, they legitimated a demand for corresponding, specialized academic disciplines, such as general linguistics and modern social science. Still, the dichotomous paradigm effectively steered the editorial vision of general linguistics away from Saussure’s project. The editorial change of presentation from the lectures in general linguistics to the 1916 published Course is significant in this regard. Initially, the editors sought to follow the lecture plan for the third, 1910–1911, academic year course, that is, (1) languages (les langues), (2) language system (la langue), (3) individual faculty and exercise of language (langage). According to Harris, “At this

94 

B. STAWARSKA

stage in the editorial process, clearly, the program Saussure had devised for the third course was being taken very seriously and followed as closely as possible. That approach was later abandoned by the editors in favor of the quite different arrangement adopted in the 1916 text” (51). Ultimately, the editors reversed the order of presentations in the 1916 text such that the survey of les langues comes in the penultimate Part Four. They altered the methodological and conceptual framework of general linguistics such that (1) linguistic plurality changes status from a primary fact to a contingent empirical datum that merely illustrates a set of invariable laws, (2) la langue morphs from an empirically grounded generalization to a higher-­ order abstraction, (3) the horizontal link between linguistic plurality and language as such (la langue) is replaced with a hierarchal opposition of lower-order facts and higher-order laws. La langue can, therefore, be construed as an a priori abstract idea to be couched in universal laws. The real existence of many world languages, that may or may not yield a universally valid structure, becomes marginalized as a simple illustrative example of limited epistemic value and of no intrinsic theoretical interest. As Thibault observes, “Sechehaye’s Collation of the students’ notes as the basis for the 1916 edition clearly reflects the editors’ intention to reorganize Saussure’s third course along lines that clearly conformed to the requirements of the editors [to present a general theory of la langue] rather than to accurate transmission of what Saussure’s students had annotated” (2005, 670). Specifically, the 1916 text clearly reflects Sechehaye’s unbridled scientific optimism whereby “the whole world, with all its multiplicity, will be for us but a vast theorem demonstrated by the science of laws, and which history confirms experimentally” (Sechehaye 1908, 8; my translation). The abstract idea of language as such (la langue) constitutes the central element of this vast lawlike theorem projected within the Course in General Linguistics.

References Bouquet, Simon. 1999. La Linguistique générale de Ferdinand de Saussure: textes et retour aux textes. Paper presented at Congrès ICHOLS, Frontenay-St. Cloud, France, September. http://www.revue-texto.net/Saussure/Sur_ Saussure/Bouquet_Linguist-gen.html Durkheim, Émile. 1984. The Division of Labor in Society. Trans. W.  D. Wallis. New York: The Free Press.

10  LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES 

95

Godel, Robert. 1957. Les Sources manuscrites du “Cours de linguistique générale” de F. de Saussure. Geneva: E. Droz. Harris, Roy. 2003. Saussure and His Interpreters. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1993. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu. Trans. Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Roy Harris. Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Sechehaye, Albert. 1908. Programme et méthodes de la linguistique théorique: psychologie du langage. Paris: H. Champion. ———. 1927. L’École genevoise de linguistique générale. Indogermanische Forschungen 44: 217–241. Thibault, Paul J. 2005. de Saussure, Ferdinand. In Encyclopedia of Social Theory, ed. George Ritzer, vol. II, 665–672. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

PART II

Contemporary Legacy

CHAPTER 11

The Structuralist Legacy: A Modern Human Science

Abstract  The Course in General Linguistics played a significant role for the establishment of scientific structuralism in the 1950s’ and 1960s’ France. The structuralist readers tended to gloss over the complications befalling this posthumously edited text by receiving it reverently as the Vulgate, a popular scripture upon which the school of structuralism can be based. Foucault’s analysis of the authorial function helps to explain how the Course functioned ideologically as Saussure’s work, despite the empirical complications regarding its historical provenance and authorship; Foucault’s analysis also sheds light on the concurrent neglect of Saussure’s Nachlass. Lacan’s psychoanalysis provides a representative example of how structural scientists tended to appropriate the Course in the humanities. Keywords  Course in General Linguistics • Structuralism • Foucault • Lacan In the remainder of this study, the focus shifts from examining the legitimacy of the official doctrine developed in the Course in General Linguistics to its substantial legacy within contemporary philosophy and the human sciences. While structuralism and post-structuralism tend to validate the doctrinal view and cement the conceptual apparatus composed of vertical dichotomies (la langue and la parole, synchrony and diachrony), phenomenology can provide a complementary approach that deeply resonates © The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_11

99

100 

B. STAWARSKA

with Saussure’s reflections on general linguistics from the Nachlass. Ultimately, the structural and phenomenological approaches to cultural signification turn out to be more closely aligned than usually assumed. In this chapter, I overview the role the Course played for the establishment of scientific structuralism in the 1950s’ and 1960s’ France. I examine how the structuralist readers tended to gloss over the complications befalling the posthumously edited text by receiving it reverently as the Vulgate, a popular scripture upon which the school of structuralism can be based. Foucault’s analysis of the authorial function will help to explain how the Course functioned ideologically as Saussure’s work, despite the empirical complications regarding its historical provenance and authorship. Lacan’s psychoanalysis will provide a representative example of how structural scientists tended to appropriate the Course in the humanities. The 1916 Course is a textual locus of the “Saussurean doctrine,” which became a signature mark of French structuralism in the twentieth century. Adopting the conceptual apparatus—which is made up of steep oppositional pairings between the signifier and the signified, la langue and la parole, synchrony and diachrony—to decipher a wide range of human phenomena (such as kinship structures, neurotic symptoms and literary motifs) constitutes the very “hallmark of structuralist activity” and distinguishes it from the other traditions of inquiry (Barthes 1972, 213; cited above). Construed as a first formal expression of this apparatus, the Course became a foundational text. It was a little red book that was read widely by the human scientists, literary experts, and philosophers during the heyday of structuralism in 1960s’ France. Unsurprisingly, the book’s material fate on the market of ideas is closely correlated with the rise, and the eventual demise, of the structuralist movement. There were as many as twenty-three editions of the book between 1964 and 1985 compared to five dating back to the publication date in 1916 until 1955. These earlier five were followed by another five editions between 1955 and 1963 (Gadet 1989, 113). Twelve translations were issued between 1960 and 1980, compared to only half that many between 1916 and 1960. The structuralist claim to the Course as its foundational text in the 1960s served to retroactively constitute it as a Great Book in the contemporary canon of ideas. An actual copy of the book was de rigeur in the intellectual library of a French linguist, anthropologist, psychoanalyst, semiologist, as well as a street café intellectual at that historical moment.

11  THE STRUCTURALIST LEGACY: A MODERN HUMAN SCIENCE 

101

Similarly to the fate of the book, Ferdinand de Saussure, its presumed author, became retroactively crowned as the founder of the structuralist movement. Arguably, “structuralism” can be construed broadly as any approach to define objects in terms of structural elements within a system. However, it became standard to limit structuralism to the tradition of inquiry with a direct lineage to Saussurean linguistics. Consider the following scholarly expressions of this view. Jonathan Culler (2006), a literary theorist, writes: The term structuralism is generally used to designate work that marks its debts to structural linguistics and deploys a vocabulary drawn from the legacy of Ferdinand de Saussure … There are many writings, from Aristotle to Noam Chomsky, that share the structuralist propensity to analyze objects as the products of a combination of structural elements within a system, but if they do not display a Saussurean ancestry, they are usually not deemed structuralist. (5)

A scholar of structuralism John Sturrock (2003) states: The founding father of structural linguistics in Europe, and the man frequently looked on as the patron of the whole Structuralist movement, was the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. (26)

Finally, an intellectual historian Francois Dosse (1997) observes: [Structuralism’s] central core, its unifying center, is the model of modern linguistics and the figure of Ferdinand de Saussure, presented as its founder. (43)

In sum, even though scholars of structuralism may have construed it broadly in terms of any structure-based approach, they de facto limited their construal to a direct lineage to a foundational text (the Course) and the figure of the founder (Ferdinand de Saussure) by French intellectuals in the 1960s. This is a puzzling limitation, if one considers the stated goal to pursue a scientific study of semiological systems within structuralism itself. Why should it matter who proposed the structure-based approach first, assuming there was a single individual at a specific point in time, and which historical document lays it out? It seems that a synchronic study of rules and relations should, in principle, dispense with such “external” facts.

102 

B. STAWARSKA

We can decipher this puzzle by considering the ideological function of the author and the foundational role of Great Books within the establishment of recognizable schools of thought. Consider the function of the author first. Following Foucault, contemporary literary theory may very well have declared the disappearance or even the “death” of the author. As long as the idea of the work (oeuvre) exists, “the privileged position of the author” is maintained nonetheless (2002, 10). Foucault wonders: “Is [the work] not what the author has written?” (11). In other words, the very unity of the work, such as Saussure’s work in general linguistics, is guaranteed by an identifiable authorial hand. The contemporary reader may expressly attend solely to the intrinsic structure, the architecture, the play of internal relations within the work itself. Still, the “external” reference to a datable, empirical individual who wrote it is needed to demarcate the work and to identify it as such. The privileged position of the author is theoretically weak and raises empirical difficulties. Should everything found in the literary remains, including personal notes, be identified as work and published—and if not, then why not? Furthermore, the author performs an ideological role that usually goes unacknowledged. The author serves an especially important role in the case of “great” literary authors and the founders of science where it settles legitimate attribution of a text, a book, or a work to a given individual (11). The legitimacy of, for example, Saussure’s work is, however, not solely a matter of historical authentication (was it authored by Saussure’s hand?) but also of ideological exclusion of other texts in general linguistics. If one follows Foucault’s analysis, the author functions as “the principle of thrift,” impeding free textual circulation, play, and proliferation of meaning (21–22). Great Books are ideological products that need a Great Author to confine a written output to a doctrine. The Course in General Linguistics provides a unique case study on the author function. First, the death of the author emerges as an issue of a distinctive kind in that Ferdinand de Saussure had been empirically dead before the book was conceived, written, and published in his name. Since the death of the author preceded the birth of the book, the possibility of historically authenticating the text via single authorship does not really arise. The author can serve chiefly an ideological function, and not one of historical authentication, in such a case. (This limitation did not prevent the Course from being received and replicated as the living word of Saussure for over 100 years nonetheless.) Despite the absence of an empirical author, the name of the author served the ideological function

11  THE STRUCTURALIST LEGACY: A MODERN HUMAN SCIENCE 

103

effectively nonetheless. It helped to establish the structuralist tradition in the humanities of which Saussure became crowned as the official founder. The Course, identified as Saussure’s work, became canonized as a Great Book upon which the structuralist school of thought was founded. The Course can, therefore, be likened to the Book writ large. In the case of both the Bible and the Course, worshipful reception largely overdetermines matters of empirical authorship and historical provenance. What matters most is the foundational role “the Book” has played for the establishment of an institution, whether a religious or an academic one. Unsurprisingly, the Course has been compared to a vulgate edition, a so-­ called edition for the common people—a term previously used to refer to a popular translation of the Roman and Hebrew Bible into Latin in the fourth and fifth centuries (Saussure 2005). Indeed, the Course functioned as a popular, widely accessible reference and was received as the word issuing from the past master himself, just as the Bible is received by the devotees as the word of God. The Course became a scripture of structuralism due to the force of such a reverent reception. In the words of the German philosopher Manfred Frank, the Course served as “the sole basis of structuralism, just as the Vulgate served as the sole basis of biblical interpretation for the Catholic Church” (Frank 1989, 28). The Course provided secure bedrock upon which the structuralist school could be established within the European academic context where the establishment of a recognizable school of thought mimics the founding of the Church. (This analogy is perhaps less surprising if one considers the traditional bond between religious institutions and the instructions of higher learning within European history.) And while some scholars expressed hope for an eventual reformation of Saussure scholarship similar to the one of the Church (28), like good Catholics, they tended to continue reading solely from the Vulgate. They, thus, adhered to “the principle of thrift” (Foucault 2002, 21) that limits textual focus to Great Books at the exclusion of a greater proliferation of meaning. The ideological function of the author and the foundational role of Great Books both shed light on the French structuralist reception of Saussure’s work in the twentieth century. A suggestive title of a representative book from the era captures this point: Saussure was “a structuralist sans le savoir” (“without knowing it”) (Mounin 1968). It mattered little that “structure” was used rarely in the Course and never in a technical sense or that “structuralism” was first employed by the Russian-born Roman Jakobson, who represented the Prague Circle at the Hague

104 

B. STAWARSKA

Congress of Linguistics in 1928 (Dosse 1997, 44–45), and not by French intellectuals in the 1960s. These factual considerations were overshadowed by the foundational role the Course played in the French academic context after the Second World War. As a result, even though the existence of Saussure’s Nachlass was frequently acknowledged, the Course remained the sole site of Saussure’s work in general linguistics nonetheless. Lacan’s and Derrida’s reception of the Course provide representative examples of this trend within structuralist and post-structuralist thought (discussed in this chapter and Chap. 12). Saussure’s linguistics offered a properly scientific model for all human sciences, in accordance with the hopes of many in France during the 1950s and 1960s. The conceptual apparatus that privileges synchrony over diachrony and a set of rules and relations over subjective experience seemed to offer an independently verifiable object of study. Finally, the human sciences acquired an objective basis for their study of cultural signification! If structural linguistics became a pilot science for the humanities at large, then, for example, language defined as a structure within the unconscious mind attained the status of a scientific object in the modern sense (Lacan 2006, 414). Linguistics became, therefore, a methodological guide in Lacan’s psychoanalysis, similar to its piloting role in the structural anthropology of Levi-Strauss (Lévi-Strauss 1963, 33). Lacan drew explicitly on the conceptual apparatus from the Course in his influential essay “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious” (2006). Specifically, he adopted the distinction between the signifier and the signified, and he transcribed it as an S/s algorithm to better align psychoanalysis with the standards of modern science. This algorithm profoundly alters the adopted distinction. It morphs the interdependent signifying-signified (signifiant-signifié) relation, which is best represented by the two inseparable sides of a sheet of paper (Saussure 2013, [157] 132), into a hierarchy between an upper-case S representing a Signifier (Signifiant) and a lowercase s representing the signified content (signifié). Lacan, thus, attempts to peel off one side of the sheet so as to elevate the signifying facet of a sign to a dominant position and relegate the signified to a subservient role. The resulting hierarchical understanding of the signifier-­signified relation supports the related idea that signs, or signifiers, form part of an autonomous structure wherein they refer to the other signifiers in the system but do not ever settle on a core signified content. The signified content is separated from the signifying chain and access to it perpetually barred. There are signifiers standing in for other signifiers, ad infinitum.

11  THE STRUCTURALIST LEGACY: A MODERN HUMAN SCIENCE 

105

Lacan “attributes” his algorithm to Saussure despite the alterations discussed earlier. He writes: The sign written in this way [S/s] should be attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure, although is it not reduced to this exact form in any of the numerous schemas in which it appears in the printed version of the various lectures from the three courses he gave in 1906-7, 1908-9, 1910-11, which through a devotion (la piété) of his group of disciples became collected under a title, Cours de linguistique générale – a publication of prime importance for the transmission of a teaching worthy of the name, that is, that one can stop only on its movement. (2006, 415; translation modified)

Lacan’s attribution of the formal S/s construct to Saussure is not an empirical matter—as he admits, the algorithm is nowhere to be found in the Course. Saussure’s name is invoked to position Lacan within a lineage of disciples with valid claims to the past master’s work who can then traffic in Saussure’s own ideas independently of textual evidence. The structuralist reception of the Course by Lacan, thus, mirrors its initial inception by Bally and Sechehaye. In both cases, a “completely objective” reconstruction of intuited content is achieved via devoted discipleship. This tactic is an especially curious one for a proponent of signifying chains that perpetually bar access to the signified itself! Lacan legitimates the Course in General Linguistics as Saussure’s own word, disregarding historical evidence. First, he presents the volume as a simple collection of the student lecture notes compiled by the students themselves. (Even Bally and Sechehaye acknowledged using “reconstruction” and “synthesis” in their Preface to the Course). Furthermore, the analyst portrays the book’s production as a process driven by the convert devotion and filial piety (la piété) of Saussure’s disciples, who were inspired to transmit the master’s unstoppable teaching. That the volume is not a simple collection of lectures, was not produced by Saussure’s students in general linguistics, and was driven by usurped filial privilege as much as by filial piety is covered over. What matters is that the Course functions ideologically as Saussure’s work, that is, as a programmatic statement of structural methods and a foundational text for the establishment of scientific structuralism in the humanities (including psychoanalysis). A reverent reception of the Course supports this ideological function. It also detracts from the more complex state of Saussure’s general linguistics in the Nachlass and from the possibility of reading differently, that is, without deference to the author and with attention to textual detail.

106 

B. STAWARSKA

References Barthes, Roland. 1972. Critical Essays. Trans. Richard Howard. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Culler, Jonathan, ed. 2006. Structuralism: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. Vol. 4. London: Routledge. Dosse, François. 1997. History of Structuralism. Trans. Deborah Glassman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Foucault, Michel. 2002. What Is an Author? In The Death and Resurrection of the Author? ed. William Irwin, 9–22. Westport: Greenwood Press. Frank, Manfred. 1989. What Is Neostructuralism? Trans. Sabine Wilke and Richard Gray. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Gadet, Françoise. 1989. Saussure and Contemporary Culture. Trans. Elliott Gregory. London: Hutchinson Radius. Lacan, Jacques. 2006. Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963. Structural Anthropology. Trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf. New York: Basic Books. Mounin, Georges. 1968. Saussure, ou le structuraliste sans le savoir. Paris: P. Seghers. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 2005. Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. Tullio de Mauro. Libraire Payot. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Roy Harris. Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Sturrock, John. 2003. Structuralism. 2nd ed. Introduction by Jean-Michel Rabaté. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

CHAPTER 12

Post-structuralism: The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing

Abstract  The Course in General Linguistics had a significant legacy within post-structuralism, notably in Derrida’s deconstruction. Even though post-structuralism did not share the scientific aspirations of its predecessor, and did not seek to establish a new school of thought on the foundation of a Great Book, the Course continued to exercise an ideological function as “Saussure’s work” all the same. This chapter focuses especially on Derrida’s influential reception in Of Grammatology. It highlights a tension between Derrida’s general critique of the civilization of the book and his exclusive reference to the volume of the Course in a deconstructive reading of Saussure’s linguistics. Saussure’s unpublished writing may better illustrate Derrida’s call for open-ended textuality and his intellectual biography may serve as a testimony to the end of the book. Keywords  Post-structuralism • Derrida • Deconstruction • Of Grammatology • Course in General Linguistics • Saussure’s Nachlass In this chapter, I consider the fate of the Course in General Linguistics within post-structuralism. I focus especially on Derrida’s influential reception, and I examine a tension between the stated “end of the book” and the concurrent attachment to the book in the case of Saussure’s linguistics—an attachment which occurs at the expense of manuscript writing. Even though post-structuralism did not share the scientific aspirations of its © The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_12

107

108 

B. STAWARSKA

predecessor, and did not seek to establish a new school of thought on the foundation of a Great Book, the Course continued to exercise an ideological function as “Saussure’s work” all the same. I conclude by considering that Saussure’s unpublished writing is an exemplar of the unbound textuality Derrida advocates and that his intellectual biography is a testimony to the end of the book. Derrida’s reception of the Course breaks with its dominant scientific structuralist appropriation, but it similarly upholds the volume as Saussure’s work. His Of Grammatology (2016) proposes a general critique of the “civilization of the book.” In the words of the Indian theorist and translator Gayatri Spivak, Of Grammatology deconstructs the common expectation that a book “with its ponderable shape and its beginning, middle and end” can be possessed through knowledge, and it unsettles the human quest for a foundation that the book seems to provide (2016, xxix). These expectations are displaced in favor of an unbound text: “The text has no stable identity, no stable origin, no stable end. Each act of reading the ‘text’ is a preface to the next” (xxx–xxi). Deconstruction declares the end of the book and celebrates the beginning of writing. Despite the stated suspicion regarding passionate attachments to the book, Derrida’s deconstruction of Saussure’s linguistics remains firmly bound to it. The notions that (1) Saussure remained hostage to Western metaphysics by privileging speech and/or sound (phone) over writing and (2) he upheld the traditional notion of the sign as a primary locus of signification are developed in sole reference to the book of the Course without citing from the Nachlass. Derrida (2016, 387–388, 38n) was well aware of the existence of the latter from Godel’s Les Sources Manuscrites (1957). Arguably, they complicate his reading and can ultimately bring Saussure’s linguistics into proximity with Derrida’s deconstruction, as I tried to show earlier in Chap. 7. And wouldn’t the unfinished and fragmented character of the Nachlass better correspond to an unbound text than the Course “with its ponderable shape and its beginning, middle and end”? Derrida seems to have considered this question. He writes: It is not impossible that the literality of the Course, to which we have indeed had to refer, should one day appear very suspect in the light of unpublished material now being prepared for publication. (2016, 387, 38n)

12  POST-STRUCTURALISM: THE END OF THE BOOK AND THE BEGINNING… 

109

Writing in 1967, Derrida acknowledges that one day the Nachlass will call the validity of the Vulgate into question, and a critical approach to the canonical text will be needed. This possibility raises, however, a serious concern for Derrida’s own reading of Saussure’s linguistics in Of Grammatology. The doctrine he had painstakingly deconstructed may turn out to have failed to meet the basic standards of academic scholarship (empirical validity of claims and correct attribution of sources, discussed earlier in Chap. 4). As a result, the doctrine may turn out to be unfit for a deconstructive treatment after all. Derrida casts the difficulty thus: Up to what point is Saussure responsible for the Course as it was edited and published after his death? It is not a new question. Need we specify that, here at least, we cannot consider it to be at all pertinent? Short of profoundly misunderstanding the nature of my project, one will have perceived that, caring very little about Ferdinand de Saussure’s very thought itself, we have interested ourselves in a text whose literality has played a well-known role since 1915, functioning in a system of readings, influences, misunderstandings, borrowings, refutations, etc. What one could read there – and equally what one could not read there  – under the title A Course in General Linguistics seemed important to the point of excluding all hidden and “true” intentions of Ferdinand de Saussure. If one were to discover that this text hid another text  – and one will never be working with anything but texts – and hid it in a determined sense, the reading that we have just proposed would not be overturned, at least not for that particular reason. Quite to the contrary. (399, 38n)

Derrida raises a question as to whether the Course represents Saussure’s own true thinking or whether Saussure can be responsible for it. Even though he ultimately deems the question to be impertinent (which leaves the reader to wonder what the exact reasons for raising this particular question may be), Derrida, nonetheless, provides a response wherein he defends his reading of the Course as being valid. His reading is not bound to true authorial intentions—whatever they may be—but to the text. The way that Derrida framed the charge, however, allows for an easy defense. Few contemporary readers, I propose, seek to uncover Saussure’s very thought itself within the Course in General Linguistics or are likely to assign responsibility to a deceased scholar for a posthumous redaction published in his name. The former charge could well be leveled at the editors of the 1916 Course who sought to infer Saussure’s own ideas from after the grave (see Chap. 3), but it should not be directed by default at

110 

B. STAWARSKA

the future readers of his book. A search for hidden authorial intentions and innermost ideas has become obsolete in light of the disappearance, or the “death,” of the author in present day theory and reading practice. However, the question of the author is not limited to authorial intentions, and it includes the more pertinent and difficult question regarding the author function. What enables the identification of the Course in General Linguistics as a text? How is this particular text demarcated from other texts related to it? Why is Derrida passionately attached to this one at the exclusion of others? Following Foucault’s analysis, a text like the Course functions ideologically as a Great Book that laid the foundations of structuralism. It requires a backing from a Great Author to be constituted and received as such. Derrida may have expressly attended to the play of internal relations within the Course only, but the identity and the interest of the text he deconstructs remains bound to the name of Ferdinand de Saussure, who is its presumed genial creator. Great Books and Great Authors work in tandem not because of imputed authorial intentions but because of the ideological function performed by the author, who is crowned with heroic epithets such as the past master, the founder of structuralism, etc. Even though the Course cannot be attributed to Saussure historically (whatever his true intentions may have been), still Saussure-the-Author serves the ideological function of confining general linguistics to a canonical text and excluding the writings that do not fit the bill of Great Books. It, therefore, matters greatly that Derrida confines his reading to the Course and neglects materials from the Nachlass. In so doing, his deconstruction of Saussure’s linguistics remains attached to the ideology of Great Books more firmly than his stated preference for unbound text suggests. Derrida reads like a citizen of the civilization of the book. His deconstructive practice is bound by the limits of a single volume, and it does not enter into the web of manuscripts, lecture notes, and the correspondence that constitutes the open-ended textual field of Saussure’s linguistics. Derrida declares the end of the book and celebrates the beginning of writing. Still, he does not read the writing that arguably already deconstructed the book just like, as I argued in Part I, the Nachlass deconstructs the official doctrine from the Course. A critical reading of a canonical text like the Course is better pursed inter-textually than by focusing on a single volume. The contemporary reader can travel within the textual labyrinth constituted by Saussure’s writings in general linguistics (published under this title, 2006) and related texts. Needless to say, the latter task is

12  POST-STRUCTURALISM: THE END OF THE BOOK AND THE BEGINNING… 

111

inherently difficult. One risks losing one’s ground and getting lost in the textual labyrinths. There is no clearly marked beginning, middle, and end. And yet, such a reading practice is intrinsic, I propose, to Saussure’s writing. Consider one more time the note intended for a future reader of his abandoned book in general linguistics: We have arrived at each thing which we considered as a truth by so many different ways that we confess not knowing which one is preferable. It would be necessary … to adopt a fixed and defined starting point. But all that we have tended to establish in linguistics is that it is wrong to consider a single fact in linguistics as defined in-itself. There is therefore no starting point, and we are sure that the reader who follows our thinking attentively from one end to the other of this volume will recognize that it was in fact impossible to follow a rigorously defined order. We are obliged to submit to the reader the same idea, up to three or four times, in a different form, because no one starting point provides a more indicated foundation for the demonstration than the other. (Saussure 2006, 136; cited above)

This fragment can indicate Saussure’s failure to write a book that could have been practically rectified. It can also indicate a profound realization that the traditional book format, with its architecture of parts and chapters, imposes an untenable limitation of rigorous order, linear succession, and single mention, onto his writing. As various archives and recent publications document, Saussure was writing thousands of manuscript pages. He filled close to 200 notebooks with manuscript notes. He wrote on topics ranging from ancient Hindu mythology to Germanic legends and anagrams within Greek and Latin poetry and Latin prose. He did not turn these writings into a book. Specifically, Saussure wrote 995 manuscript pages commonly known as the “Harvard Manuscripts,” which are dated to the period between 1881 and 1885 (Saussure 1995, xiv).1 A portion of this material bears the handwritten title Phonétique (Phonetics), and it is generally believed to constitute notes for a book on phonetics that Saussure never completed.2 These notes form an important part of the overall project to develop a theoretical view of language as a system (Saussure 1995, 120). They are concerned with how linguistic ideas are articulated in conjunction with the way in which the ear distinguishes between material sounds. This articulation, which is made at the level of perceived speech, supposes an understanding

112 

B. STAWARSKA

of language as a system of relational terms. In addition to this study, and other technical issues in linguistics, the “Harvard Manuscripts” include reflections on Vedic literature, ancient Indian theosophy, and Vedic and Hindu mythology (Thibault 2005). Another substantial body of Saussure’s manuscripts is preserved in the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire in Geneva.3 This collection includes Saussure’s extensive notes on the Germanic legends of Niebelungslied, which are dated to a period from late 1903 to 1913. In the notes, Saussure approaches the Germanic legends as systems of signs whose constitutive elements take on a symbolic status as they became gradually removed from their historical source. The legends are, therefore, textual sites of signification, which are irreducible to the historical events they narrate. Saussure planned and eventually abandoned a book on the subject, even though he filled eighteen notebooks with notes.4 The linguist was consumed with a quest to reconstitute the anagrams in Saturnine Latin poetry. This project, dating back to 1906–1909, seeks to tease a second text out of the fragments isolated in the interior of a poem, typically from proper nouns. This research was extended to Greek and Latin epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry, and Latin prose. While a search for anagrams can be dismissed on empirical grounds (it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that easily accumulate evidence in favor of its hypothesis as it progresses), it raises an interesting question of whether a hidden text, “words upon the words,” can be traced within a text, and if so, is it due to a deliberate choice or a product of chance (Starobinski 1979, 119)? Saussure filled close to 140 notebooks with reflections on the anagrams without publishing any of it.5 Finally, the linguist assisted in spiritualist séances featuring the celebrated medium Helen Smith and wrote reports on her glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. He is invoked repeatedly in Theodore Flournoy’s From India to the Planet Mars: A Case of Multiple Personality with Imaginary Languages (1994) as an expert of Sanskrit, which is the language purportedly spoken by the Helen Smith, who, when in trance, adopted the personality of a Princess Simandini. Smith had a spiritual double, Leopold, who wrote down Princess Simandini’s messages in this language. Saussure sought to analyze the written messages, which he identified as “Sanskritoid.” His reports are cited in Flournoy’s book. In addition to pursuing conceptual and methodological issues in general linguistics, Saussure was, therefore, writing extensively on all things having to do with language broadly construed. He was a linguist and

12  POST-STRUCTURALISM: THE END OF THE BOOK AND THE BEGINNING… 

113

nothing about language was to be foreign to him! Arguably, some of the topics covered were “marginal” and not really “scientific” according to the dominant norms of modern science. They were unfit for publication in specialized venues. These writings went unpublished during Saussure’s life, and one could lament a rectifiable failure to deliver intellectual products or consider that the linguist was contesting scientific normativity and the civilization of the book. Saussure was performing the end of the book and the beginning of writing. The linguist may have been responding to a perceived crisis of the linguistic science via the reticence to deliver published work. Writing in 1910, he acknowledged with dread that he had succumbed to a protracted silence since the publication of the one book he had delivered during his lifetime: Mémoire sur les système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-­ européennes (1879; published at 21). Having just been elected a corresponding member of l’Institut de France, he wrote to Louis Havet: I am terrified to realize my thirty years of silence as I face this great honor that recognizes my scientific work. (Redard 1976, 348; my translation)

Saussure is said to have fallen into the grips of epistolophobia—a fear of writing compounded with a disgust at having this fear (Jakobson 1985, 222). However, he had been writing privately, and he was not delivering published works in scientific linguistics to the academic establishment. One of the reasons for his protracted public silence may be related to a sense that a radical reform was needed for linguistics to advance. In a letter to French linguist Antoine Meillet, which dates back to 1894 during the time when Saussure was still working on a book on general linguistics (1893–1894), he professed both his disgust and the great difficulty involved in writing “even ten lines of good sense on linguistic matters” (Benveniste 1964, 95; my translation). He continued: Preoccupied as I have been for a long time above all with the logical classification of linguistic facts and with the classification of the points of view from which we treat them, I realize more and more the immense amount of work that would be required to both show the linguist what he is doing, by reducing each process to a category laid out in advance for it, as well as the conceit of what one can effectively do in linguistics. (95; my translation)

114 

B. STAWARSKA

The task, then, is to dispel the remnants of substance metaphysics and naïve realism in scientific linguistics (discussed earlier in Chap. 4) to “show the linguist what he is doing” in uncritically accepting the resulting categories for classifying linguistic facts. Saussure decries “the absolute ineptitude of the current terminology” and points to “the need of a reform, and, for this purpose, of showing what kind an object language in general is” (95). The perceived crisis in linguistics would lead him to write a book “despite myself” (malgré moi). In such a book, he would have to explain without passion nor enthusiasm why he cannot attribute any meaning to a single term in linguistics (95). The dreaded book was never born, and Saussure resisted publishing the other scientific projects he was working on around that time (Joseph 2009, 189). When the essay on Lithuanian intonation and accentuation eventually saw the light of day, it was “without succeeding to avoid logically odious expressions, because a radical reform would be needed for that purpose” (Benveniste 1964, 96; my translation). The linguist clearly published despite, if not against, himself. I propose that Saussure’s prolonged public silence deliberately contests scientific normativity. As the French linguist Simon Bouquet observes, it calls to mind Nietzsche’s abandonment of classical philology and descent into the abyss before conceiving a radical reform—a new philosophy of morals (Bouquet 1997, 67). The silence should, therefore, be received in all its resonance and not dismissed as a simple failure to produce scientific work. It should be acknowledged as a process of thinking deeply and writing endlessly about language. The language of poetry and prose, of legends and myths, even the messages passed in a spiritualist trance, are all part of the vast text that must be carefully read. Each act of reading is a preface to the next. According to Agamben: Saussure represents …. the precious instance of a philologist who, caught in the net of language, felt, as Nietzsche did, the insufficiency of philology, and who had to become a philosopher or succumb. Saussure did not abandon linguistic study as Nietzsche had done, but, closing himself for thirty years of silence that appeared inexplicable to many, interrupted only by the publication of mélanges of brief technical notes….pursued to the limit an ­exemplary instance of the impossibility of a science of language within the western metaphysical tradition. (1993, 152–153)

12  POST-STRUCTURALISM: THE END OF THE BOOK AND THE BEGINNING… 

115

If Saussure’s publishing impasse testifies to the “impossibility of a science of language within the western metaphysical tradition,” his writing offers a sustained philosophical critique of substance metaphysics in linguistics. The critique is a necessary first step before embarking upon any reform. The scientist must begin to think about language anew. The response is also to follow the thread of the text—to read and write without borders. Saussure was a citizen of the civilization of writing. His intellectual biography is a testimony to the end of the book.

Notes 1. Selected excerpts with interpretative commentary have been published by Herman Parret as “Les manuscrits saussuriens de Harvard,” in Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, no. 47, 1993. 2. Maria Pia Marchese edited a critical edition of these manuscripts: Phonétique. Il manoscritto di Harvard, 1995; see also Jakobson “Saussure’s Unpublished Reflections on Phonemes,” 1969. 3. See Godel 1957; “Inventaire des Manuscripts de F. de Saussure Remis à la Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire de Genève” in Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, 1960. 4. A selection was published in a critical edition edited by Anna Marinetti and Marcello Meli (Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1986. Le Leggende Germaniche: Scritti Scelti e Annotati. Padua: Libreria Editrice Zielo–Este). 5. Jean Starobinski made this material available in an interesting study of the scientific status of Saussure’s research on the anagrams, his doubts surrounding the entire process and its eventual termination, in: Let mots sous les mots: les anagrammes de Ferdinand de Saussure (Gallimard, 1971; translated as Words upon Words: The Anagrams of Ferdinand de Saussure, Yale UP, 1979).

References Agamben, Giorgio. 1993. The Barrier and the Fold. In Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture, 152–158. Trans. Ronald L.  Martinez. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Benveniste, Emile. 1964. Lettres de Ferdinand de Saussure à Antoine Meillet. Cahiers Ferdinand De Saussure 21: 93–130. Bouquet, Simon. 1997. Introduction à la lecture de Saussure. Paris: Editions Payot & Rivages.

116 

B. STAWARSKA

Derrida, Jacques. 2016. Of Grammatology. Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Introduction by Judith Butler. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Flournoy, Théodore. 1994. Edited and introduction by Sonu Shamdasani. Commentary by Mireille Cifali. From India to the Planet Mars: A Case of Multiple Personality with Imaginary Languages. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Godel, Robert. 1957. Les Sources manuscrites du “Cours de linguistique générale” de F. de Saussure. Geneva: E. Droz. Jakobson, Roman. 1969. Saussure’s Unpublished Reflections on Phonemes. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 26 (1969): 5–14. ———. 1985. Selected Writings. Vol. 7. Berlin: Mouton. Joseph, John E. 2009. Why Lithuanian Accentuation Mattered to Saussure. Language & History 52 (2): 182–198. Parret, Herman. 1993. Les manuscrits saussuriens de Harvard. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 47: 179–234. Redard, Georges. 1976. Ferdinand de Saussure et Louis Havet. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 71: 313–349. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1879. Mémoire sur les système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. ———. 1986. Le Leggende germaniche: scritti scelti e annotate. Ed. Anna Marinetti and Marcello Meli. Padua: Libreria Editrice Zielo–Este. ———. 1995. Phonétique. Il manoscritto di Harvard. Ed. Maria Pia Marchese. Vol. 3. Padua: Unipress. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. Starobinski, Jean. 1979. Words upon Words: The Anagrams of Ferdinand de Saussure. Trans. Olivia Emmet. New Haven: Yale University Press. Thibault, Paul J. 2005. de Saussure, Ferdinand. In Encyclopedia of Social Theory, ed. George Ritzer, vol. II, 665–672. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

CHAPTER 13

The Phenomenological Legacy: Speaking Subjects

Abstract  The dominant structuralist and post-structuralist legacy of the Course in General Linguistics imposed an understanding of Saussure’s linguistics as a chiefly system-based approach where speech is a secondary and derivate fact. If language operates as a relatively autonomous system of rules and relations, we can dispense with invoking the daily activity of expression and communication. Language is primarily an object that does not need speaking subjects. This concluding chapter tracks an alternative legacy of Saussure’s linguistics in contemporary philosophy that agrees with his stated emphasis on speech practice and language change. This interpretation is found in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. Specifically, Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the Course as a “synchronic linguistics of speech” is congruent with Saussure’s definition of language as a phenomenon contingent on the activity of speaking subjects in the Nachlass. Ultimately, subject- and structure-based approaches to cultural signification can be integrated, and the perceived antagonism between phenomenology and structuralism (and post-structuralism) softened. Keywords  Merleau-Ponty • Linguistic phenomenology • Structuralism • Speaking subject • Saussure’s Nachlass • Course in General Linguistics The dominant structuralist and post-structuralist legacy of the Course in General Linguistics imposed an understanding of Saussure’s linguistics as a chiefly system-based approach where speech is a secondary and derivate © The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_13

117

118 

B. STAWARSKA

fact. If language operates as a relatively autonomous system of rules and relations, we can dispense with invoking the daily activity of expression and communication. Language is primarily an object that does not need speaking subjects. As discussed earlier, the sociohistorical aspect of cultural signification (Chap. 6) and the possibility of linguistic innovation (Chap. 9) both dispute a solely system-based understanding of language. According to Saussure’s linguistics, la langue and la parole are interdependent, and language evolves over time. In this concluding chapter, I will point out an alternative legacy of Saussure’s linguistics in contemporary philosophy that agrees with the stated emphasis on speech practice and language change. This interpretation is found in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. It can be corroborated by Saussure’s own insistence that language is a phenomenon. The structuralist (and post-structuralist) and the phenomenological traditions of inquiry are usually opposed. The former privileges an understanding of cultural signification in terms of self-organizing systems of rules and relations, whereas the latter does so in terms of consciously available signifying intentions deployed by speaking subjects. While in structuralism the system does not need the subject to operate, in phenomenology, the subject is a condition sine qua non of signification. Structuralism, therefore, excludes what phenomenology considers indispensable: signifying subjectivity. Unsurprisingly, the two approaches were pitted against each other in a longstanding relation of institutionalized antagonism without a middle ground. Considering that structuralism has been closely associated with Saussure’s linguistics, it is usually accepted that the subject plays no significant role for Saussure. Sturrock (2003) writes: [T]he loss of the authority in the “speaking subject” or language-user is a most important and contentious aspect of Structuralism, exploited to the full in post- Structuralism … and it can be traced back to this insistence of Saussure that the language-system impinges at every moment on languageevents. (43)

Similarly, Kristeva affirmed that Saussure’s linguistics and its philosophical offspring oppose any importance being attached to a speaking subject (Culler 2006). If Saussure is a founder of structuralism, then his linguistics expulses a phenomenological subject from its model of cultural signification.

13  THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL LEGACY: SPEAKING SUBJECTS 

119

Consider, however, that in the manuscript writings, Saussure was preoccupied with the philosophical question of the nature, or “essence,” of language and concluded that language is a phenomenon without existence outside of speaking subjects (2006, 17). The linguist states explicitly “Language (langage) is a phenomenon” (85). As such, it is indissociable from the acts of speech (actes de paroles) performed by the speakers (85–86). It is likely that Saussure drew on his knowledge of the phenomenological tradition as he inquired into the essence of language. Carol Sanders (Saussure 2006) writes: As a fluent speaker of German, Saussure was no doubt aware of the contemporary resonance of the term ‘phenomenon’ in a philosophical tradition with which he has not been usually associated, that of Hegel and Husserl …In particular his comments about the language act (cf. today’s ‘speech act’) and the emphasis on the speaking subject, both show us a different Saussure from the one most often associated with the Course. (xxv)

“Phenomenon” is used in a sufficiently precise sense in Saussure’s writings to count as a technical term, and it figures as an entry in a planned index for a book in general linguistics (2006, 156–160). It indicates language events, as distinguished from the resulting language states, and it is, therefore, tied to a diachronic rather than a synchronic axis of the language system (160). However, an event is a structured phenomenon that carries system-based properties. For example, Saussure critiques Sechehaye for having misunderstood the grammatical problem of language and, thus, failing to capture the language phenomenon despite an emphasis on a psychological study of language. The phenomenon of language carries specific, unique properties that are brought out by studying the laws of grammar and not simply our general psychic make-up (186–187). To emphasize the role of the speaking subject does not, therefore, mean to adopt an introspectionist psychology of inner, mental states. The language phenomenon combines subject- and system-based properties. It co-involves voluntary conscious intentionality and a relative automatism of deep linguistic structures. Finally, the subject is equal parts a “human being” and a “social being,” and speaking is an inherently communicative act which borrows from society and thanks to which one interacts with the community (120). The language phenomenon belongs, therefore, to the individual speaking subject and to the greater social world of historically

120 

B. STAWARSKA

sedimented conventions. As such, the language phenomenon described by Saussure cannot be confined to the inner world of consciousness emphasized within the classical tradition of phenomenology. * * * Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical reception of the Course is unique in that it highlights the phenomenological dimension of Saussure’s linguistics. The philosopher noted that “certain linguists … without knowing it tread upon the ground of phenomenology” (1964b, 105) and that especially Ferdinand de Saussure’s reflections on speech were congruent with the phenomenological approach. The traditional, scientific study engendered a crisis because it treated language from an external, observational standpoint and, thereby, missed its communicative role. The scientific approach is directed toward an already instituted or established language (such as a body of written documents in philology or a system of phonological, morphological, and syntactic rules in structural linguistics) and, thereby, regards language solely “in the past” (104). The result is a fragmentation of language into a sum of atomic facts and a loss of intrinsic unity that connects a community of users via the communicative process (39). Merleau-Ponty writes: Taking language as a fait accompli – as the residue of past acts of signification and the record of already acquired meanings – the scientist inevitably misses the peculiar clarity of speaking, the fecundity of expression. From the phenomenological point of view (that is, for the speaking subject who makes use of his language as a means of communicating with a living community), a language regains unity. It is no longer the result of a chaotic past of independent linguistic facts but a system all of whose elements cooperate in a single attempt to express which is turned toward the present or the future and thus governed by a present logic. (85)

The phenomenological approach to language will, therefore, hone in on the process of subjective expression and intersubjective communication. Here the speech situation provides a starting point of analysis: To know what language is, it is necessary first of all to speak. It no longer suffices to reflect on the languages lying before…in historical documents from the past. It is necessary to take them over, to live with them, to speak them. It is only by making contact with the speaking subject that I can get a sense of what other languages are and can move around in them. (1964a, 83)

13  THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL LEGACY: SPEAKING SUBJECTS 

121

Assuming a perspective of the speaking subject entails a methodological subjectivism, that is, an internal approach to language that can even be adopted within a historical study. The scientist will regard former language states from the perspective of extinct subjectivities as an extended, linguistic present, a present which culminates in “the now” across a series of convergent and discordant acts (1973, 25). Diachrony translates, therefore, into a synchrony. It has been in its time for its language users. Rather than indicating a distant object lodged within dusty documents, diachrony marks a series of linguistic acts and manners of speaking, which are all anchored in their historical situation (1964b, 112). Methodological subjectivism offers a remedy for the crisis in modern science. Phenomenology of language is, therefore, not really opposed to linguistic science, but instead, it provides the basis of a reform wherein language will recover its intrinsic unity of expression and communication. Following Merleau-Ponty, the Course in General Linguistics is a key resource in this phenomenological reclamation. In the 1953 lectures from the Collège de France, the philosopher proclaimed that Saussure adopted “speech as his central theme” (1970, 19), and the remaining task was “to illustrate and extend the Saussurean conception of speech as a positive and dominating function” (20). Language is not a closed semiological system; it must be spoken. Signs hold signification in abeyance—that they do so only emerges when the subject transcends signs toward their signification in speaking (1964b, 88). Speech is, therefore, intrinsic to the system of signs. Hence, the interdependency between la langue and la parole: “Already in Saussure … speech is far from being a simple effect of language, it modifies language just as much as it is conveyed through it” (19). Considering language in its primary role of expression and communication helps to recover its essential unity: Saussure shows admirably that if words and language in general, considered over time – or as he says, diachronically – offer an example of virtually every semantic slippage, it cannot be the history of the word or language which determines its present meaning …. Whatever the hazards and confusions in the path of the French language … it is still a fact that we speak and carry on dialogue, that the historical chaos of language is caught up in our ­determination to express ourselves and to understand those who are members of our linguistic community. (1973, 22–23)

Ultimately, Saussure’s reflections on language pave the way for a new, situated conception of reason where historical contingency goes hand in

122 

B. STAWARSKA

hand with an enduring logic of both mutual understanding and world disclosure that are attained via an evolving linguistic medium (23). Reason is no longer construed as a theoretical abstraction, but it is tethered to the signifying “body” of language in the social and historical context. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological appropriation of Saussure’s linguistics reverses the usual set of categories found in the doctrinal view. Recall that in the structuralist interpretation, Saussure’s linguistics is a science of the language system (la langue). A science of speech (la parole) is deemed an underdeveloped aspect of the project, which is confined, in any case, to observing the contingent and external (to the language system) phonetic changes over time. Synchrony provides a privileged methodological viewpoint in the linguistics of la langue, while diachrony is appropriate for studying the evolution of la parole. In Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation, the synchronic perspective retains primacy, but it is bound up with the subjective experience of speech. The two main subfields of Saussure’s linguistics would be “a synchronic linguistics of speech (parole)” and “a diachronic linguistics of language (langue)” (1964b, 86). The synchronic linguistics of speech reveals a system, an order, but it is one “without which communication and linguistic community would be impossible” (1973, 22–23). The speaking subjects are, therefore, agents of unity and cohesiveness within the language system despite all the historical hazards and semantic slippages it may have gone through. The subjects are intrinsic to the scientific object itself. Merleau-Ponty’s contemporaries (Ricoeur 1967; Mounin 1968) deemed his phenomenological interpretation of Saussure’s linguistics an error. The philosopher is arguably wrong on multiple counts. First, he attributes primacy to speech (la parole), whereas the primary object of linguistic study should be the language system (la langue). Second, he promotes “a synchronic linguistics of speech (parole),” which is distinguished from “a diachronic linguistics of language (langue),” whereas synchrony should be aligned with la langue and diachrony with la parole. The philosopher is, apparently, guilty of a series of misunderstandings of basic linguistic principles. According to Merleau-Ponty’s critics, speech does not lend itself to a systematic study, and no science of la parole worthy of the name is possible. Methodological subjectivism may belong in phenomenological philosophy but not in modern linguistics. However, consider that the philosopher’s approach is broadly congruent with Saussure’s philosophical reflections on the nature or essence of language. As noted in the

13  THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL LEGACY: SPEAKING SUBJECTS 

123

beginning of this chapter, the linguist defined language as a phenomenon inextricably tied to the speech acts (actes de parole) performed by subjects as part of the daily communicative process. Saussure’s definition approximates Merleau-­Ponty’s commitment to the primacy of speech. The philosopher and the linguist both highlighted the importance of historical change and the social exchange of ideas via a shared communicative medium in their work. Perhaps Merleau-Ponty did not misunderstand his predecessor after all. He may have inaugurated the methodological reform of language study envisaged by Saussure via his phenomenological proposal for a new science of speech. If so, the subject and structure-based approaches to cultural signification need not be opposed. Language construed as a phenomenon is individual as well as social, intentional and automatic, received and invented, contemporary yet ancient. Language construed as a phenomenon calls, therefore, for combined phenomenological and structural approaches to cultural signification. Saussure’s linguistics points a way out of the institutionalized antagonism between these two philosophical traditions of inquiry, and it enables a greater rapprochement than is traditionally acknowledged. Saussure’s linguistics can therefore be claimed as an important intellectual resource in contemporary research on how subjective experiences and structural arrangements continually intersect (see, e.g., Stawarska 2018).1

Note 1. Recent developments in Critical Phenomenology provide an important example of contemporary research that eschews traditional disciplinary divides and sheds new light on personal experiences situated in ethically, socially, and politically salient contexts (for an overview, see 50 Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, Northwestern University Press, 2019).

References Culler, Jonathan, ed. 2006. Structuralism: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. Vol. 4. London: Routledge. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1964a. The Primacy of Perception and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History, and Politics. Ed. and introduction by James M. Edie. Trans. William Cobb. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ———. 1964b. Signs. Trans. and introduction by Richard C. McCleary. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

124 

B. STAWARSKA

———. 1970. Themes from the Lectures at the Collège De France, 1952–1960. Trans. John O’Neill. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ———. 1973. The Prose of the World. Ed. Claude Lefort. Trans. John O’Neill. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Mounin, Georges. 1968. Saussure, ou le structuraliste sans le savoir. Paris: P. Seghers. Ricoeur, Paul. 1967. New Developments in Phenomenology in France: The Phenomenology of Language. Trans. P.G.  Goodman. Social Research 34 (1): 1–30. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. Stawarska, Beata. 2018. Subject and Structure in Feminist Phenomenology: Re-reading Beauvoir with Butler. Rethinking Feminist Phenomenology: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives. Sturrock, John. 2003. Structuralism. 2nd ed. Introduction by Jean-Michel Rabaté. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Bibliography

Agamben, Giorgio. 1993. The Barrier and the Fold. In Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture, 152–158. Trans. Ronald L.  Martinez. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Amacker, René. 1989. Correspondance Bally-Meillet (1906–1932). Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 43: 95–127. ———. 2000. Le Développement des idées saussuriennes chez Charles Bally et Albert Sechehaye. Historiographia linguistica 27 (3): 205–264. Aristotle. 1995. De Interpretatione. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Revised Oxford Translation. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Arnauld, Antoine, and Claude Lancelot. 1975. General and Rational Grammar: The Port-Royal Grammar. Ed. and Trans. Jacques Rieux and Bernard E. Rollin. The Hague: Mouton. Bally, Charles. 1908. Maître et disciples. Journal de Genève 18: 32–33. ———. 1965a. Le Langage et la vie. Vol. 34 of Publications Romanes et Françaises, ed.Jean Frappier. Geneva: Librarie Droz. First published 1925. A modified version of Bally’s 1913 essay under the same title appears in this anthology. ———. 1965b. Linguistique générale et linguistique française. 4th ed. Bern: A. Francke. First published 1932. ———. 1988. Unveröffentlichte Schriften/Comptes rendus et essais inédits. Bonn: Romanistischer Verlag. Barthes, Roland. 1972. Critical Essays. Trans. by Richard Howard. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Benveniste, Emile. 1964. Lettres de Ferdinand de Saussure à Antoine Meillet. Cahiers Ferdinand De Saussure 21: 93–130.

© The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9

125

126 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bouquet, Simon. 1997. Introduction à la lecture de Saussure. Paris: Editions Payot & Rivages. ———. 1999. La Linguistique générale de Ferdinand de Saussure: textes et retour aux textes. Paper presented at Congrès ICHOLS, Frontenay-St. Cloud, France, September. http://www.revue-texto.net/Saussure/Sur_Saussure/Bouquet_ Linguist-gen.html. ———. 2003. Saussure après un siècle. In Cahier de l’Herne: Ferdinand de Saussure, ed. Simon Bouquet, 11–15. Paris: Editions de l’Herne. Culler, Jonathan, ed. 2006. Structuralism: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. Vol. 4. London: Routledge. Derrida, Jacques. 1981. Positions. Trans. and annotated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1986. Glas. Trans. John P.  Leavey Jr. and Richard Rand. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ———. 2016. Of Grammatology. Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Introduction by Judith Butler. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Dosse, François. 1997. History of Structuralism. Trans. Deborah Glassman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Durkheim, Émile. 1984. The Division of Labor in Society. Trans. W.  D. Wallis. New York: The Free Press. Engler, Rudolf, ed. 1989. Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. First published 1967–68. Flournoy, Théodore. 1994. Edited and introduction by Sonu Shamdasani. Commentary by Mireille Cifali. From India to the Planet Mars: A Case of Multiple Personality with Imaginary Languages. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Foucault, Michel. 2002. What Is an Author? In The Death and Resurrection of the Author?, ed. William Irwin, 9–22. Westport: Greenwood Press. Frank, Manfred. 1989. What Is Neostructuralism? Trans. Sabine Wilke and Richard Gray. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Gadet, Françoise. 1989. Saussure and Contemporary Culture. Trans. Elliott Gregory. London: Hutchinson Radius. Godel, Robert. 1957. Les Sources manuscrites du “Cours de linguistique générale” de F. de Saussure. Geneva: E. Droz. ———. 1960. Inventaire des Manuscripts de F. de Saussure Remis à la Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire de Genève. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 17: 5–11. Harris, Roy. 2003. Saussure and His Interpreters. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ———. 2013. Introduction to the Bloomsbury Revelations Edition. In Course in General Linguistics, by Ferdinand de Saussure, xix–xxii. Trans. and annotated by Roy Harris. With a new Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

127

Jakobson, Roman. 1969. Saussure’s Unpublished Reflections on Phonemes. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 26 (1969): 5–14. ———. 1978. Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning. Trans. John Mepham. Cambridge: MIT Press. ———. 1985. Selected Writings. Vol. 7. Berlin: Mouton. Joseph, John E. 2009. Why Lithuanian Accentuation Mattered to Saussure. Language & History 52 (2): 182–198. Lacan, Jacques. 2006. Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963. Structural Anthropology. Trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf. New York: Basic Books. Matsuzawa, Kazuhiro. 2003. Notes pour un livre sur la linguistique générale. In Cahier de l’Herne: Ferdinand de Saussure, ed. Simon Bouquet, 319–322. Paris: Editions de l’Herne. Meillet, Antoine. 1916. Review of Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 64 (20): 32–36. ———. 1917. Review of Cours de linguistique générale, by Ferdinand de Saussure. Revue Critique d’Histoire et de Littérature 83 (1): 49–51. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1964a. The Primacy of Perception and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History, and Politics. Ed. and introduction by James M. Edie. Trans. William Cobb. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ———. 1964b. Signs. Trans. and introduction by Richard C. McCleary. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ———. 1970. Themes from the Lectures at the Collège De France, 1952–1960. Trans. John O’Neill. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ———. 1973. The Prose of the World. Ed. Claude Lefort. Trans. John O’Neill. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Mounin, Georges. 1968. Saussure, ou le structuraliste sans le savoir. Paris: P. Seghers. Parret, Herman. 1993. Les manuscrits saussuriens de Harvard. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 47: 179–234. Redard, Georges. 1976. Ferdinand de Saussure et Louis Havet. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 71: 313–349. ———. 1982. Charles Bally disciple de Ferdinand de Saussure. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 36: 3–23. Regard, Paul. 1918. Contribution a l’étude des prépositions dans la langue du Nouveau Testament: thèse pour le doctorat ès-lettres présentée à la faculté des lettres de l’Université de Paris, Dissertation. Paris: Paul F. Editions Ernest Leroux. Ricoeur, Paul. 1967. New Developments in Phenomenology in France: The Phenomenology of Language. Trans. P.G.  Goodman. Social Research 34 (1): 1–30.

128 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

———. 1974. The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics. Ed. Don Ihde. Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1879. Mémoire sur les système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. ———. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, with Albert Riedlinger. Lausanne: Libraire Payot. ———. 1954. “Notes inédites de F. de Saussure.” Introduction and notations by R. G. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 12: 49–71. ———. 1957. Cours de linguistique générale (1908–1909): Introduction. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 15: 3–103. ———. 1967. Corso di linguistica generale. Ed. and Trans. Tullio De Mauro. Rome: Laterza. ———. 1986a. Course in General Linguistics. Ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, with Albert Riedlinger. Trans. Roy Harris. LaSalle: Open Court. ———. 1986b. Le Leggende germaniche: scritti scelti e annotate. Ed. Anna Marinetti and Marcello Meli. Padua: Libreria Editrice Zielo–Este. ———. 1989. Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. Rudolf Engler. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. First published 1967–68. ———. 1993. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911): d’après les cahiers d’Emile Constantin/Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910–1911): From the Notebooks of Emile Constantin. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu. Trans. Roy Harris. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 1995. Phonétique. Il manoscritto di Harvard. Ed. Maria Pia Marchese. Vol. 3. Padua: Unipress. ———. 1996. Premier cours de linguistique générale (1907): d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger/Saussure’s First Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1907): From the Notebooks of Albert Riedlinger. Ed. Eisuke Komatsu and George Wolf. Trans. George Wolf. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 1997. Deuxième cours de linguistique générale (1908–1909): d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger et Charles Patois/Saussure’s Second Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1908–1909). Ed. and Trans. Eisuke Komatsu and George Wolf. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ———. 2005. Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. Tullio de Mauro. Libraire Payot. ———. 2006. Writings in General Linguistics. Ed. by Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler, with Antoinette Weil. Trans. Carol Sanders, Matthew Pires, with Peter Figueroa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published in French 2002. ———. 2011. Course in General Linguistics. Ed. Perry Meisel and Haun Sussy. Trans. Wade Baskin. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2013. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. and annotated by Roy Harris. With a new Introduction by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Sechehaye, Albert. 1908. Programme et méthodes de la linguistique théorique: psychologie du langage. Paris: H. Champion.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

129

———. 1917. Les Problèmes de la langue à la lumière d’une théorie nouvelle. Revue philosophique de la france et de l’étranger 84 (July–December): 1–30. ———. 1927. L’École genevoise de linguistique générale. Indogermanische Forschungen 44: 217–241. ———. 1940. Les Trois linguistiques saussuriennes. Zurich-Erlenbach: Eugen Rentsch Verlag. Starobinski, Jean. 1971. Les Mots sous les mots: les anagrammes de Ferdinand de Saussure. Paris: Gallimard. ———. 1979. Words upon Words: The Anagrams of Ferdinand de Saussure. Trans. Olivia Emmet. New Haven: Yale University Press. Stawarska, Beata. 2015. Saussure’s Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology: Undoing the Doctrine of the Course in General Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2018. Subject and Structure in Feminist Phenomenology: Re-reading Beauvoir with Butler. Rethinking Feminist Phenomenology: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives. Ed. Sarah Cohen Shabot and Christy Landry. Rowman & Littlefield. Sturrock, John. 2003. Structuralism. 2nd ed. Introduction by Jean-Michel Rabaté. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Thibault, Paul J. 2005. de Saussure, Ferdinand. In Encyclopedia of Social Theory, ed. George Ritzer, vol. II, 665–672. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Weber, Samuel. 1976. Saussure and the Apparition of Language: The Critical Perspective. MLN 91 (5): 913–938. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophische Untersuchungen/Philosophical Investigations. Ed. G.  E. M.  Anscombe and Rush Rhees. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Macmillan.

Index1

A Agamben, Giogio, 57, 114 Analogy, linguistic, 70, 78 Arbitrariness, linguistic, 39–42, 44, 45, 52, 56, 60–62 Aristotle, 38, 39, 47n3, 101 Associative relations, 44–46 Author function, 102, 110 B Bally, Charles, 3, 11, 13n2, 16–20, 25, 105 Barthes, Roland, 12, 19, 20, 100 Benveniste, Emile, 113, 114 Bopp, Frantz, 26, 70, 71, 81 C Civilization of the book, 4, 108, 110, 113 Consciousness, 83, 84, 93, 120 Constantin, Emile, 39, 41

Course in General Linguistics, 1, 10, 11, 92, 94, 109 Culler, Jonathan, 101, 118 D de Mauro, Tulio, 25, 52, 78 Deconstruction, 12, 56, 64, 108, 110 Derrida, Jacques, 3–5, 12, 34, 37, 55–64, 104, 107–110 Diachrony, 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, 19–21, 24, 29, 31, 52, 53, 68–76, 78, 81, 82, 99, 100, 104, 121, 122 Dichotomous paradigm, 10, 93 Divination, 17 Double essence of language, 31, 71 Durkheim, Emile, 93 E Engler, Rudolf, 11, 27, 31, 37, 58, 59, 61, 69, 70, 84, 85 Epistolophobia, 113

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 B. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9

131

132 

INDEX

F Foucault, Michel, 100, 102, 103, 110 G General linguistics, 3, 11–13, 16, 17, 19–21, 24, 26, 27, 52, 56, 73–76, 78, 79, 81, 85, 88–94, 100, 102, 104, 105, 110–113, 119 Ghostwriting, 19 Godel, Robert, 11, 20, 25, 37, 61, 78, 89, 108 Grammar, 16, 71, 79, 119 H Harris, Roy, 13n2, 34, 35, 84, 89, 92, 93 J Jakobson, Roman, 39, 40, 103, 113 K Kristeva, Julia, 12, 118 L Lacan, Jacques, 4, 12, 100, 104, 105 La langue (language system), 2–5, 10, 12, 13, 17–19, 21, 23–31, 33–47, 50, 52, 53, 59, 63, 64, 68, 70, 73–75, 78, 81–85, 88–94, 99, 100, 118, 121, 122 La parole (speech), 2–5, 10, 12, 13, 17, 23, 24, 26, 27, 30, 53, 68, 73–75, 78, 81–85, 91, 99, 100, 118, 121, 122 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 12, 104

M Master-disciple relation, 16 Meillet, Antoine, 16, 21, 113 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 4, 13, 53, 118, 120–123 Metaphysics (of substance), 38, 57, 60, 64, 108, 114, 115 Mounin, George, 16, 103, 122 N Nachlass, Saussure’s, 2–4, 12, 13, 21, 24, 26, 27, 35, 47, 56, 58, 61, 64, 69, 75, 78, 91, 100, 104, 105, 108–110 Naville, Adrien, 91, 93 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 114 Nomenclature view of language, 35–39, 45, 46 O Onomatopoeia, 56, 60–62 P Phenomenology, 2, 5, 13, 53, 99, 118, 120, 121, 123n1 Phenomenon, 4, 11, 28, 29, 64, 69, 73, 74, 79, 82, 91, 118–120, 123 Prague, Linguistic Circle, 103 R Regard, Paul, 16, 20 Riedlinger, Albert, 11, 13n2, 20, 82, 89

 INDEX 

S Saussurean doctrine, 2–5, 13, 19, 21, 81, 84, 85, 100 Séance, 18, 112 Sechehaye, Albert, 3, 11, 13n2, 16–20, 23–26, 75, 91–94, 105, 119 Semiology, 12 Signifier, 2, 5, 10, 12, 20, 34, 35, 38–40, 42, 45, 57, 60, 62, 63, 91, 100, 104 Social convention, 3, 28, 35, 52, 59, 63, 64 Speaking subject, 4, 12, 25, 50, 57, 73, 74, 117–123 Starobinski, Jean, 112, 115n5 Structuralism, 2–5, 13, 20, 25, 34, 64, 68, 99–101, 103, 105, 110, 118 Sturrock, John, 101, 118 Subjectivity, 118, 121

133

Synchrony, 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, 19–21, 24, 29, 31, 52, 53, 68–76, 78, 81, 82, 99, 100, 104, 121, 122 Syntagmatic relations, 44, 46 T Time, 3, 4, 10, 12, 16, 27, 30, 35, 38, 50–52, 56, 68, 69, 72–75, 80–83, 89–91, 93, 101, 111, 113, 114, 118, 121, 122 U The Unconscious, 83, 84, 104 W Weber, Samuel, 71 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 38 Writings in General Linguistics, 11, 110