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Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 21:1/2 (1994) ► pp.123–136

Bridging Saussurean structuralism and British linguistic thought

| Dalhousie University
British linguistic thought in the first half of the 20th century reacted against the Saussurean oppositions signifiant/signifié, langue/parole, and signification/valeur. Ogden & Richards (1923) reject them on epistemological, orthological, and terminological grounds. For Bronislaw Malinowski meaning in a pre-literate language cannot be described by the dyadic sign. Alan H. Gardiner too rejects this concept of the sign, but he modifies langue/parole and synchronie/diachronie to make them complementary. J. R. Firth rejects most of the Saussurean canon, but the starting point of his own line of analysis proves to be indistinguishable from the same brand of functionalism. The connection between the British linguistic tradition and Saussure therefore displays a full range of positions from incompatibility to unwilling and unwitting compatibility.
Published online: 1 January 1994
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.21.1-2.07gor
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Gordon, W. Terrence
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Gordon, W. Terrence
2011.  Saussure: A Guide for the Perplexed. By Paul Bouissac. Historiographia Linguistica 38:1-2 ► pp. 221 ff. DOI logo
Nerlich, Brigitte
1995. The 1930s – at the birth of a Pragmatic Conception of Language. Historiographia Linguistica 22:3 ► pp. 311 ff. DOI logo

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