Saussure

Summary

Dominique Pagani sees Saussure as the starting point of contemporary linguistics, founded as a structural and synchronic linguistics. He borrows from him the notion of synchrony, which he uses as early as a session on Rousseau1, and notes that Saussure restores this dimension of language, which philology had neglected. He takes up several theses of the Course in General Linguistics: the arbitrariness of the sign, the double articulation specific to human language2, the independence of signifier and signified, the distinction between language, langue and parole, and a linguistic relevance based on opposition between terms. He notes that this distinction between langue and parole leaves aside continuous variables3, which matters for his thinking about music. His position on structuralism differs from one session to another. He makes Saussure's structural linguistics the root of structuralism4. Elsewhere, he presents him as a scientist rather than an ideologue, and even as "not a structuralist". He also cites glossematics as an extension of his thought and links Nerval to phonological problems approached through him.

1. 1#2 Rousseau, a world that begins20 Sept 2014 · 29:10
2. 2Clouscard and the problem of Socrates14 Oct 2022 · 56:50
3. 3#7 The Greeks, myth and music17 Dec 2020 · 37:01
4. 4Calves and Things (2): ecologism, the highest stage of capitalism?5 Oct 2020 · 8:48

Summary produced automatically from 15 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.