Publications Received / Ouvrages Reçus / Eingegangene Schriften

ed. 2004 . Homenagem a Mattoso Câmara (1904–1970) . (= Special Issue of Revista de Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada ( D. E. L. T. A. ) 20/2004 . São Paulo : EDUC , 164 pp. ISSN 0102-4450 . R$ 30 ( PB ). [The Brazilian journal D. E. L. T. A., which usually publishes two issues per year, is concerned with all areas of theoretical and applied linguistics. This special issue, organized and edited by Cristina Altman, is dedicated to the hundredth birthday of the Brazilian linguist Joaquim Mattoso Câmara Junior, who was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1904 and died in 1970. He was influenced by the teachings of Georges Millardet (1876–1953), Louis Herbert Gray (1875–1955) and especially Roman Jakobson (1896–1982), but also by the work of Edward Sapir (1884–1939). He was a member of the “New York Linguistic Circle”, created in 1943 as an extension of the “École Libre des Hautes Études” (see Cristina Altman, “The ‘Brazilian Connection’ in the History of North American Linguistics: The notebook of Joaquim Mattoso Câmara (1943–1944)”, Historiographia Linguistica 26.355–382 [1999]), and played a key role in the establishment of modern linguistics as an academic discipline in Brazil in the 1950s and 1960s. After serving as a lecturer of linguistics at the National Faculty of Arts in Rio de Janeiro, he was appointed to the Catholic University of Petrópolis (near Rio de Janeiro) in 1957. During the 1960s, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle (1962), Georgetown University in Washington, D. C. (1963/64, 1966), Universidad de la República in Montevideo (1965) and Universidad Autónoma do México in Mexico City (1968). American descriptive linguistics, in particular Jakobson’s work, had a strong impact on Mattoso Câmara’s linguistic description of Brazilian Portuguese and also of Brazilian indigenous languages. Among the books for which he is known are Princípios de lingüística geral como fundamento para os estudos superiores da língua portuguesa (Rio de Janeiro: Briguiet, 1941), Para o estudo da fonêmica portuguesa (Rio de Janeiro: Organização Simões, 1953; this publication, a phonemic description of Brazilian Portuguese, is based upon Mattoso Câmara’s doctoral thesis, which he submitted to the Faculdade Nacional de Filosofia in Rio de Janeiro in 1949), Contribuição à estilística portuguesa (Rio de Janeiro: Organização Simões, 1953), Dicionário de fatos gramaticais (Rio de Janeiro: Ministério da educação e cultura, 1956), Introdução às línguas indígenas brasileiras (Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional, 1965), Problemas de lingüística descritiva (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1969) and Estrutura da língua portuguesa (ibid., 1970), which two years later was translated into English and supplemented by Anthony J. Naro and John Reighard with an analytical bibliography of Mattoso Câmara’s writings (The Portuguese Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972). He also contributed the article “Brazilian Linguistics” to the fourth volume of Thomas A. Sebeok’s Current Trends in Linguistics series, devoted to ‘Ibero-American and Caribbean Linguistics’ (The Hague: Mouton, 1972, pp. 229–247). His História da lingüística, a translation of an English manuscript by Maria do Amparo Barbosa de Azevedo (Rio de Janeiro: Vozes, 1975), appeared posthumously. – The contributions in this volume are all written in Portuguese, but, apart from the preface and postscript, each one is introduced by a very short summary in English. For the sake of simplicity, only the English titles of the papers are given here. There is a two-page preface by Aryon Dall’Igna Rodrigues entitled “In honour of Mattoso Câmara (1904–1970)” (xi-xii), followed by eight articles: “Mattoso Câmara: A new discourse about language study in Brazil” by Carlos Eduardo Falcão Uchôa (1–8), “Joaquim Mattoso Câmara Jr.: Innovator” by Yonne Leite (9–31), “Problems in the tense variant of Carioca speech” by Angela França (33–58), “Mattoso Câmara Jr. and the prosodic word” by Leda Bisol (59–70), “The concept of word in Mattoso Câmara” by Margarida Basílio (71–84), “Noun inflection in Mattoso Câmara and other analyses” by Geraldo Cintra (85–104), “Syntax in Mattoso Câmara” by Válter Kehdi (105–127) and finally “The American connection: Mattoso Câmara and the New York Linguistic Circle” by Cristina Altman (129–158). The volume concludes with a short postscript on “The dictionary of linguistics and grammar: Notes from a reader and a postface writer” (159–164) by Francisco Gomes de Matos. There is no index. – Thorsten Fögen (Humboldt-Universität Berlin).]

eds. 2004 . Language and Revolution / Language and Time . (= Antwerp Papers in Linguistics, 106. ) Antwerpen : Departement Taalkunde, Campus Drie Eiken, Universitet Antwerpen , xiv, 245 pp. No ISBN and price details supplied; for information, see [URL] . [The volume brings together papers first presented at the Second and Third Annual Meetings organized by the Interfacultaire Onderzoeksgroep Taalkunde of the University of Antwerp on 17 April 2002 and 4 April 2003, respectively, the first devoted to ‘Language and Revolution’, the second to ‘Language and Time’. The first part of the book contains papers of possible interest to HL readers, in the order of arrangement in the volume: “Linguistics and Revolution, with particular reference to the ‘Chomskyan Revolution’” by the present writer (3–62); “How the Cognitive Revolution Passed Linguistics by” by Pieter A. M. Seuren (63–77). (Seuren is wrong when he states, on the authority of Hans Aarsleff’s claims first made in 1977 [p.65]: “Ferdinand de Saussure was a personal friend of [Hippolyte] Taine’s [(1828–1893)] during his Paris years [(1881–1891)], and was profoundly influenced by him”. Even Aarsleff, intent on cementing his rather far-fetched claims in favour of such ‘influence’ – cf. his recent piece in TLS of 20 Aug. 2004, pp.12–13 – does not claim that the two ever met. The other two papers of this section are: “Linguistic Conservatism as the Basis for Political Revolution? The fushâ-câmmîyah debate in nineteenth-century Ottoman-Arab Middle Eastern society” by Helge Daniëls (79–92) and “Why Do so Many People Search so Desperately for a Universal Language (and fortunately fail to find it)?” by Jean Paul Van Bendegem (93–113). (The author is mistaken when he refers to Wittgenstein as “Ludwig, the aristocrat” [p.103]; there is an Austrian aristocratic family by the name of Wittgenstein, but the philosopher was unrelated to this family, but the son of a wealthy Jewish Viennese engineer.) No index.]

. 2003 . Dichotomische Verfahren der linguistischen Semantik . (= Studium Sprachwissenschaft, 37. ) Münster : Nodus Publikationen , 202 pp. ISBN 3-89323-137-4 , ISSN 0721-7129 . € 35,50 ( PB ) [This is a study of how binary relations have been used in the analysis of language generally and semantics in particular. The first chapter surveys developments from ancient to modern times, while the second focusses specifically on the powerful form of binary analysis developed by Trubetzkoy for phonology. The third chapter looks at interpretative semantics in the early generative paradigm (especially Katz and Fodor), the fourth at cognitive semantics as practised in Germany from the mid-1980s through the 1990s, and the fifth at the structural semantics of Eugenio Coseriu (1921–2002) and Horst Geckeler (b.1935). A brief concluding chapter summarising key points is followed by indexes of concepts and of names. – John E. Joseph (University of Edinburgh).]

ed. 2003 . Später Mittag: Vermischte Anmerkungen zur Metahistoriographie: Festgabe für Peter Schmitter zum 60. Geburtstag . Münster : Nodus Publikationen , 237 pp. ISBN 3-89323-218-4 . € 38,50 ( PB ) [The ‘mixed notes’ of the first subtitle gives fair warning to readers that no one is likely to find sustained inspiration in these pages, but the 15 brief pieces have been penned by leading figures of contemporary linguistic historiography, and there is something in them to interest just about everyone. A few of the authors have taken the opportunity to offer something lighter in spirit than their usual work, often with good results. Among the more substantial contributions are: “Im ‘Land ohne Strukturalismus’ – Fachgeschichte als Mythenbildung” by Klaas-Hinrich Ehlers (47–64), “Neuere Diskussionen um ein sprachliches Relativitätsprinzip: Innovation und Retrospektionshorizont” by Gerda Haßler (81–93), “Rassesemantik in der deutschen Sprachwissenschaft um 1933” by Clemens Knobloch (143–160), and “Die Praxis in der Metahistoriographie: Alasdair MacIntyres Tugendbegriff und die Rekonstruktion in der Historiographie” by Frank Vonk (213–224). That only the last of these is about ‘metahistoriography’ probably reflects my own tastes, for in fact several of the papers in the volume address the topic in interesting ways, but in Vonk’s I found the ideas really worth chewing over. – John E. Joseph (University of Edinburgh).]

eds. 2004 . Die Aktualität des Verdrängten: Studien zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft im 20. Jahrhundert . (= Studien zur Wissenschaftsund Universitätsgeschichte, 4. ) Heidelberg : Synchron Wissenschaftsverlag der Autoren , 496 pp. ; portraits. ISBN 3-935025-39-4 . € 44,80 ( PB ). [As the editors’ “Vergegenwärtigungen” (9–20) recount, this volume has had a long ‘incubation period’, going back as far as Spring 1991, when a successor-conference to an earlier meeting between East and West German linguists was held in Brandenburg barely six months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. This background explains at least in part the diversity of the contributors (many of which also or centrally work in psychology or literary analysis) and that a number of the articles are now somewhat dated as far as recent scholarship is concerned. This time, however, both German slavisants and Russian scholars are particularly in evidence, both as authors and as subjects of analysis: Central figures in this volume are (in alphabetical order, not necessarily in order of importance): Mixail Mixajlovič Baxtin (1895–1975), Karl Bühler (1879–1964), Lev Petrovič Jakubinskij (1892–1945), Aleksej Nikolaevič Leont’ev (1903–1979), Nikolaj Jakovlevič (in Georgian: Nik’o) Marr (1865–1934), Evgenij Dmitri’evič Polivanov (1891–1938), Valentin Nikola’evič Vološinov (1895–1936), and Lev Semenovič Vygockij [usually spelt Vygotski in Western translations] (1896–1934), with lesser roles assigned to Erich Drach (1885–1935), Aleksej Alekseevič Leont’ev (b.1936) – the older and younger psycholinguists are evidently mixed up at times – Aleksandr Romanovič Lurija (1902–1977), Pavel Nikolajevič Medvedev (1891–1938), Aleksandr Afanas’evič (in Ukrainian: Oleksandr Opanasovyč) Potebnja (1835–1891), or Leo Weisgerber (1899–1985). The following list of contents demonstrates unity in diversity but also the breadth of the ‘offerings’. Section A, “‘Linguistics goes East’: Wider den Eurozentrismus der Indogermanistik” contains: Helmut Glück, “[Jan] Baudouin de Courtenay [(1845–1929)] und die Kritik und Verfolgung der ‘Boduenščina’ in der Sowjetunion” (23–38); Katerina Clark, “Promethean Linguistics as a Moment in the Prehistory of Stalinist Culture” (39–58); Ronald Lötzsch “Die Praktiken des Marrismus: Mechanismen des Verdrängens” (59–70). Section B, “Kategorien im Schnittfeld von Philosophie, Psychologie und Sprachwissenschaft: Wahrnehmung – Vorstellung – Innere Rede – Verstehen – Bewußtsein” consists of: Clemens Knobloch, “Was die moderne Sprachpsychologie von Otto Selz [(1881–1943)] lernen könnte” (73–90); Tat’jana V. Axutina, “Vygotskijs ‘Innere Rede’: Zum Schicksal eines Konzepts” (93–108); Janette Friedrich, “Vygotskij – Vološinov – K[onstantin] R[omanovič] Megrelidze [(1900–1944)]: Der Versuch einer metalinguistischen Zeichentheorie” (109–123); Werner Nothdurft, “‘Wahrnehmung’ als Denkmuster für Verstehen in der Sprachtheorie Karl Bühlers” (125–136); Margita Pätzold, “Bühlers Prinzip der abstraktiven Relevanz im Vergleich zu Relevanzkonzepten der 70er und 80er Jahre” (137–149), where one regrests the absence of a reference to Frank Vonk’s important 377-page work Gestaltprinzip und abstraktive Relevanz: Eine wissenschaftshistorische Untersuchung zur Sprachaxiomatik Karl Bühlers (Münster: Nodus, 1992). Section C, “Für eine andere Theorie von Sprache: Äußerung – Satz – Dialog – Kommunikation – Kultur” carries: Katharina Meng, “Das Konzept der Äußerung bei Bachtin und Vološinov (153–190) – I welcome in particular the author’s stand against the popular, but untenable view, propagated in particular by V. V. Ivanov (b.1929) and copied by others, according to which Baxtin was essentially the author of Vološinov’s (and Medvedev’s [cf. this volume, pp. 220–221, 264–265]) works, notably Vološinov’s famous essay of 1929 on ‘Marxism and the philosophy of language’ (pp. 154–155 and notes); Norbert Gutenberg, “Erich Drachs ‘Grundgedanken der deutschen Satzlehre’ [1937] und ihr Verschwinden in Leo Weisgerbers ‘Tor zur Muttersprache’ [1954]” (191–209); Tat’jana N. Naumova, “Das Problem des Dialogs: A. A. Potebnja, L. P. Jakubinskij, L. S. Vygotskij, M. M. Bachtin [translated from the Russian by Kerstin Hommel]” (211–225); Martin Hildebrand-Nilshon, “Zum Kontext von Sprache und Kommunikation in den Arbeiten von L. S. Vygotskij und A. N. Leont’ev: Anmerkungen zur Debatte um Kontinuität oder Diskontinuität beider Positionen” (227–253); Michael Holquist , Peeter Tulviste & James Wertsch, “The Concept of Culture in Vygotsky and Bakhtin” (255–269). Section D, “Grundfragen der allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft: Zeichen – Tätigkeit – Handlung?”, has only two articles: Konrad Ehlich’s appraisal of “Karl Bühler – zwischen Zeichen und Handlung oder: von den Mühen des Entdeckens und seinen Folgen” (273–291) and David Bakhurst’s rehabilitation effort of the “‘sociohistorical’ school of Soviet psychology”, represented by Aleksej Leont’iev, Aleksandr Luria, and others in “Activity, Consciousness and Communication” (293–306). Section E, “Wie kommt der Mensch zur Sprache? Modelle der Sprachaneignung”, which has three contributions, though only two devoted to first language acquisition: Peter Keiler, “Die beiden Konzeptionen L. S. Vygotskijs vom kindlichen Spracherwerb und ihr theoretisches Umfeld” (309–328) and Bernd Reimann, “Der ‘Ur-Wir’-Gedanke bei Vygotskij und seine Beziehungen zur Sprachentwicklungstheorie in der Auseinandersetzung mit C[lara] und W[illiam] Stern [(1871–1938)]” (329–338), but not Angelika Redder, “Vorstellung – Begriff – Symbol: zu Konzeption und Konsequenzen bei Vygotskij und Bühler” (339–367). The final section offers German translations of historically important Russian texts, notably the one by Polivanov (which, sadly enough, was the beginning of the end of his life; as Lötsch’s article above has made clear). These are introduced by the co-editor of the volume, Katharina Meng, who either translated or co-translated them (with Kerstin Hommel or Jeannette Dittmar) and provided introductions to each of the texts. Lev Jakubinskij, “Über die dialogische Rede (1923)” (383–433); Evgenij Polivanov, “Das Problem der ‘marxistischen Sprachwissenschaft’ und die japhetitische Theorie: Thesen eines Vortrags (1929)”, his first severe critique of Marr (437–439), and Mixail Baxtin, “Das Problem der sprachlichen Gattungen [from the early 1950s]” (447–484). The back matter consists of a list of locations (p. 485) of the seven portraits included which, apart from an artist’s etching of Baxtin of 1972, unfortunately are all of poor quality, an index of authors (487–491) without biographical dates of major figures, and short notices on the contributors (493–496), in which only James Wertsch’s vintage is missing.]

. 2003 . The Invention of Cuneiform: Writing in Sumer . Translated and edited by Zainab Bahrani & Marc Van De Mieroop . Baltimore & London : The Johns Hopkins University Press , xvii, 266 pp. ISBN 0-8018-7389-4 . $42.00 [Originally published as Écrire à Sumer: L’invention du cunéiforme (Paris: Seuil, 2000), this is an engrossing read, deeply engaged in its subject and the controversies surrounding it, and rich in nostalgia for the legacy of theories it invokes, from Saussure and Peirce to Derrida and Foucault, plus all the great figures of the modern anthropology of writing. Glassner (b.1944) mounts a detailed and sustained critique of Denise Schmandt-Besserat’s (b.1933) account of the origin of cuneiform in the graphic signs impressed on clay tokens and later – according to a part of her theory which Glassner (p. 64) comes close to accusing her of stealing from Mark A. Brandes – on the envelopes which contained the tokens. Glassner situates his critique within the broader one that has been made of ‘evolutionary’ theories of writing, particularly of the notion of a continuity between drawing and writing via supposed ‘pictographs’. He follows the early structuralists in his belief that a system of writing cannot be said to exist until it is a full, complete system, and the later structuralists in his conviction that writing does not come about piecemeal, but both demands and instantiates a sea change in how a society conceives of its internal relations and the ontology of things in the world. Specialists will relish picking holes in Glassner’s arguments quite as much as the rest of us will enjoy watching both sides go at it. The book has a general index which unfortunately does not cover the rich endnotes, where the bulk of the citations occur. – John E. Joseph (University of Edinburgh).]

. 2004 . Biographisches Lexikon zur nationalistischen Wissenschaftspolitik . (= Studien zur Wissenschaftsund Universitätsgeschichte, 6. ) Heidelberg : Synchron Wissenschaftsverlag der Autoren , 215 pp. ; 10 portraits on cover . ISBN 3-935025-68-8 . € 34,80 ( HB ). [As the English summary (p. 215) promises, this book “presents [some 570] biographical summaries of personalities prominent in German policies on science and scholarship between 1933 and 1945, such as leading officials in the Reich Ministry of Education, National Socialist Union of University Instructors (NS-Dozentenbund) and National Socialist Student Union (NS-Studentenbund […]), as well as related personnel in Alfred Rosenberg’s Office and the SS.” In addition, it offers, inter alia, entries on “a number of Nazi scholars who played a leading role in the politics of their fields or institutions” in order to “allow one to form an accurate portrait of the Nazi activists who were involved in science and scholarship” at the universities and outside of traditional academic instititions one would presume, since – as we have learned from Christopher M. Hutton’s Linguistics and the Third Reich (London: Routledge, 1999) and other recent studies in this area of interest – the Nazis not only tried to control all established institutions but created various new ones to serve their purposes. The data compiled in this volume will serve as an important resource for historians of science and many other fields, such as medicine, the social sciences, notably anthropology, even theology and, to a lesser degree, philology (literature and linguistics). While the sheer mass of information is impressive, it is (despite the compiler’s “Einführung” [9–12]) less than clear why certain persons who actually were not even members of the Nazi Party – which appears to have been an important criterion of selection (though in a number of instances wrongly so as can be gathered from various entries) – were in fact included, for instance the art historian Hans Achelis (1865–1937), the psychologist Felix Krueger (1874–1948), who obviously was a victim of Nazi policies, or the physicist Max Planck (1858–1947), who ‘until 1933’ was a member the Deutsche Volkspartei but no Nazi organization. The biographical directory does include persons – apart from ‘small fish’ like dialectologist Bernhard Martin (1889–1983), philologist Hans Naumann (1886–1951), Germanist Friedrich Neumann (1889–1978) – who indeed were beholden to the NS regime and harmed the lives of others like historian Ernst Anrich (1906–2001), literary historian Karl Justus Obenauer (1888–1973), Germanist Hans Rößner (1910–1997), or Indo-Europeanist Walther Wüst (1901–1993), many of whom had a successful post-1945 career and enjoyed a long life. However, one looks in vain for entries to others who were rather active supporters of Nazi ideology and political undertakings, including spying on colleagues if seen advantageous to their own careers, like Hennig Brinkmann (1901–2000), Heinz Kloss (1904–1987), Lutz Mackensen (1901–1994), or Franz Thierfelder (1896–1962). It should also have included an entry on the Keltologist and general linguist Leo Weisgerber (1899–1984), who, though not a member of the NSDAP, lent his skills to the Third Reich in many ways (cf. Hutton, pp. 106–143), but who has been successfully protected from being identified as a Nazi-supporter in publications like the Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), where no other than his son Bernhard (b.1929) was charged with supplying the entry. Indeed, the authorities at the University of Bonn, where Weisgerber was a full professor from 1942 until his retirement in 1963, which shows up frequently in the present work as a locale of many Nazi sympathizers and activists (and thus probably deserves of monograph study in its own right), successfully kept most of his personal files closed. It was the University of Bonn that stripped Thomas Mann of his honorary degree in 1936, when Obenauer had become dean of the faculty of arts. The back matter supplies a rich bibliography of primary and secondary sources (191–207), an acknowledgment of assistance received from individuals and institutions (209–210), a list of abbreviations (211–212), and a note on the author (p. 213). What is sorely missing in the present book is a general index that would include a list the various institutions, the family backgrounds, the academic subjects studied and/or taught by the biographees, and any similar information that could have given users a better idea of where these personages had come from (such as Protestant homes, university professors, monied bourgeoisie, former WW I officers, etc.). A CD-ROM produced on the basis of this volume and a search engine could remedy this lack and increase the value of this research tool significantly.]

. 2005 . Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity: A study of Priscian’s sources . (= Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 107. ) Amsterdam & Philadelphia : John Benjamins , x, 171 pp. ISBN 90 272 4598 3 . € 99,– ( HB ). [Following the regular front matter, this work carries the following chapters, each subdivided into smaller sections too many to enumerate. As a result, only a selection of these headings will be mentioned. For instance, Chap. 1 (“Introduction”) has these short sections: “Pre-Apollonian Grammar”, “Apollonius Dyscolus”, “Post-Apollonian, Platonist Influence”, “Traditional Model”, “Standard Philosophical Apparatus”, “Working Hypothesis”; Chap. 2 (“Philosophical Tradition”) carries “Plato and the Old Academy, “The Sophist”, Aristotle’s Categories”, Peri Hermeneias”, “Ambiguity”, “Stoic Logic”, “The Components of σημαίνοντα (“that which signifies”) and σημαινόμενα (“that which is signified”)”, Parts of Speech”, “Stoic Categories”, “Corporeality”, “Amphibolia”, “Concluding Remarks”. Chap. 3, “The Alexandrian Grammarians [Aristophanes, Aristarchus, Dionysius Thrax]”; Chap. 4, “Hellenistic Syncretism”; Chap. 5, “Latin Grammarians” with altogether 16 sections and subsections, including “Qualitas in Latin Grammar, “Epitheton in Rhetoric and Stylistics”, “Techne and the Scholiasts”, “Philosophical Commentary in Late Antiquity”, and “A Note on Apollonius Dyscolus”, until we come to the centre piece of the monograph, Chap. 6 entitled “Priscian” (79–128) with its 22 sections and subsections such as “Apollonius Dyscolus: Orderliness of language”, “Non-Apollonian Philosophy in Priscian”, “Proper Nouns, Common Nouns and Adjectives”, “Interrogative Nouns and Adverbs, “Quale, Quantum, Quot, etc: Accidents or properties”, and “An Excursus into the Method of Definitions”. The short Chap. 7, “The Status of the Eight Parts of Speech” (129–137) is followed the last chapter devoted to an analysis of the works of St Augustine, such as De doctrina christiana, De magistro, and De dialectica. After “General Conclusions” (151–155) follows the back matter consisting of “References”, an “Index Auctorum” (165–167), and an “Index Rerum” (168–171).]

. 2004 . Eine “weltbürgerliche Wissenschaft” – Die deutsche Orientalistik im 19. Jahrhundert . (= Pallas Athene: Beiträge zur Universitätsund Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 11. ) Stuttgart : Franz Steiner Verlag , 330 pp. ISBN 3-515-08515-7 ( HB ). €60,– . [Since Theodor Benfey’s (1809–1881) 836-page Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft und orientalischen Philologie in Deutschland seit dem Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts, mit einem Rückblick auf die früheren Zeiten (Munich: J. G. Cotta, 1869; repr., New York: Johnson, 1965) nothing comparable has been on the market with regard to Oriental Studies in Germany. Enno Littmann’s (1875–1958) 43-page essay Der deutsche Beitrag zur Wissenschaft vom Vorderen Orient (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1942) may be regarded as an essay going into the direction of the present work because of its emphasis on institutional developments. By contrast, Johann Fück’s (1894–1974) 355-page Die arabischen Studien in Europa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1955), albeit a ‘classic’, was almost exclusively devoted to Arabic studies, though it will remain an important source book because of its many biographies of scholars, and also because Fück was an arabisant, not a historian. The present book, a slightly revised version of the author’s 2003 doctoral dissertation submitted at the University of the Saarland (thesis director: Elisabeth Fehrenbach) in the field of history, shows the signs of a dissertation that took a number of years to write: there are many repetitions of pieces of detail throughout and life-dates of scholars in many instances are not supplied when they are first mentioned and (parts of) their careers discussed, but often at a later, not predictable moment. In the case of Hans Conon (not: Canon) von der Gabelentz (1807–1874), who is mentioned several times (pp. 181, 193, 195–196), they are never supplied; the Sinologist Carl Arendt (mentioned on p.242) lived 1838–1902; in other instances, they are incomplete (e.g., Siegfried Goldschmidt [referred to on pp. 159 and 213] was born in 1844; Friedrich Althoff, the all-powerful Prussian administrator, who is also regarded as ‘the father of the modern Charité’ [whose work is discussed in conjunction with the founding of the ‘Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen’ in Berlin, pp. 226–229, 238–241] was born in 1839). Still others are not even listed in the “Personenund Ortsregister” [327–330], e.g., Johann Matthias Gesner (1691–1761); cf. p.168. Indeed, for a book like the present one would have expected a detailed Index rerum, listing names of institutions, organizations, and journals. (To some extent this lacuna is made up by the structure of Chap. 3 and the table [p.301] listing the oriental seminars in chronological order.) Dr Mangold is evidently a historian, with a focus on institutional developments and academic politics, not a linguist/philologist like Benfey, for example. (This may explain the mix-up [p.220] between the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung [Berlin, 1852–present] and the short-lived Beiträge für vergleichende Sprachforschung (1856–1876, 8 vols.].) However, the disciplinary advantage that Benfey had (apart from free access to one of the best libraries in Germany of the day, namely, the one of Göttingen University), M. makes up by her stupendous reading of the available literature and of the many archival documents she managed to lay her hands on (cf. the list, pp. 302–304). The result of her impressive efforts is a volume that will remain a – complementary – reference work for many years to come in the history of oriental studies in Germany from 1800 to 1914, with significant accounts of pre-19th century work, including the work (pp. 32–34) of Johann Jacob Reiske (1716–1774), who is frequently ignored in the annals of the discipline, in part because, it seems, he was regarded as a self-trained author, not a bona fide scholar, by no other than Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791) of Göttingen and apparently others. – Following a concise Introduction (11–28), in which the author announces the three steps she identifies in the disciplinary development of Oriental Studies, she treats them in the subsequent Chapters 2–4: ‘Between new beginnings and tradition: From an ancillary science to theology to an autonomous discipline’ (29–77); ‘Oriental philology: Consolidation and conflicts (1835–1880)’ (78–116), and ‘The institutionalization of oriental philology at German universities’ – from the beginnings in Jena and Bonn in 1817 and 1818, respectively, to the founding of seminars at ten German universities, 1894–1914 (117–175). The 50-page Chap. 5 is devoted to the origin and development of the ‘Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft’, launched in 1845, whose journal (siglum: ZDMG) still exists today (176–225); Chap. 6 details the history of the ‘Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen’ (SOS) founded in Berlin in 1887 as a free-standing institute with essentially nominal ties to the University – through the cross-appointment of Eduard Sachau (1845–1930) as its director – at the height of Germany’s colonial aspirations as a place for the teaching of living oriental, including African and Asian, languages to diplomats, high-ranking military officers, other governmental officials as well as merchants (226–250). In this chapter at least a number of languages are mentioned which would whet the appetite for more, but which is never satisfied in the entire book. One is surprised, however, that while the Kolonialinstitut established in Hamburg in 1908 for very similar purposes as the SOS is mentioned only in passing (pp. 249, 257, 264, 271) and twice in conjunction with Carl Heinrich Becker’s (1876–1933) appointment as an Islamist (pp. 259, 268), whereas the much more important Africanist Carl Meinhof (1857–1944) is passed over in silence (on him, see African Studies 5.73–77 [1946]). Chap. 7 traces the development of ‘Islamkunde’ outside of – and partly against – the traditional philology-oriented discipline during the 1890–1914 period (251–288). Here (and indeed elsewhere throughout the book) one looks in vain for a bit of the intellectual atmosphere of the times, which one would have expected from the main title of the book: Eine “weltbürgerliche Wissenschaft”. For instance, Georg Ebers (1837–1898) is only mentioned only once as the “Leipziger Ägyptologe” (p.276) where at least his huge – and hugely popular – two-volume Ägypten in Wort und Bild. Dargestellt von unseren ersten Künstlern (Stuttgart & Leipzig: Eduard Hallberger, 1879–1880) could have been used as an illustration of the intellectual scene and the public enthusiasm for the Orient that surely explains part of the success story of oriental studies in Germany of the last third of the 19th century, especially where Turkey, the Levant and especially Egypt are concerned.* The concluding Chap. 8 summarizes the subject of the investigation (289–298). It must appear unfair to criticize a work that has accomplished so much, especially when the blame should be placed at the door of what I would regard as a bad German tradition in handling citations, which leads to an excess of footnotes (in the present instance 1550 [sic] in number) where their number could easily be reduced by at least half through a system of references to frequently cited secondary sources. One may also regret the absence of names of publishers from the otherwise very full bibliography (305–326).]

ed. 2004 . The Cambridge Companion to Saussure . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , xii, 316 pp. ISBN : 0-521-80051-X ( HB ), 0-521-80486-8 ( PB ). GBP 45.00 . [According to the publisher’s ‘blurb’, “[t]his Companion brings together a team of leading scholars to offer a fresh new account of Saussure’s work. As well as looking at his pioneering and renowned Course in General Linguistics of 1916, they consider his lesser-known early work, his more recently-discovered manuscripts, and his influence on a range of other disciplines, such as cultural studies, philosophy, literature and semiotics. With contributions by specialists in each field, this comprehensive and accessible guide creates a unique picture of the lasting importance of Saussure’s thought.” As the table of contents suggests, the editor has brought together a wide range of topics treated in most instances by the best scholars available: Part I, entitled “Out of the Nineteenth Century”, offers “Saussure and Indo-European linguistics” by Anna Murpurgo Davies; “The Paris years [1882–1891]” by the editor; “The making of the ‘Cours de linguistique générale’ by the late Rudolf Engler (1930–2003), the scholar most intimately familiar with the primary sources there ever was; “The linguistic sign” – a perennial topic like the two following ones – by John E. Joseph; “‘Langue’ and ‘parole’” by W. Terrence Gordon, and “System, arbitrariness, value” by Claudine Normand. Part II (“After the ‘Cours’”) deals with the diverse reception of the Cours, “Saussure and American linguistics” by Julia S. Falk; “Saussure and structuralist linguistics in Europe” by Christian Puech; “The Russian critique of Saussure” by Stephen Hutchings, and “Saussure, [Roland] Barthes [(1915–1980)] and structuralism” by Steven Ungar; outside linguistics are “Saussure’s anagrams” by Peter Wunderli and “Saussure and [Jacques] Derrida [(1930–2004)] by Geoffrey Bennington; Part IV[?] (“New Debates and Directions” carries “Saussure’s unfinished semantics” by Simon Bouquet, author of Introduction à la lecture de Saussure (Paris: Payot & Rivages, 1997), which makes much use of manuscript materials not known by the editors of the ‘vulgata’ text of the Cours; “Saussure, linguistic theory and philosophy of science”, by Christopher Norris, a most welcome contribution, and “Saussure and semiotics” by Paul Boissac. – A full-fledged review is to appear in one of the next issues of HL.]

eds. 2004 . Le discours sur la langue sous les régimes autoritaires . (= Cahiers de l’ILSL, 17. ) Lausanne : Centre de recherches en épistémologie comparée de la linguistique d’Europe centrale et orientale, Université de Lausanne , 338 pp. ISBN 2-9700468-2-2 . 20,00 SFr ( PB ). For information write to: « MariaEugenia. [email protected] » . [Like a number of previous volumes in this series, the volume prints essentially papers typically given at a scholarly meeting held in the area of Lausanne, Switzerland, although the editors’ “Présentation” (1–4) is silent about the precise origin of the present papers. However, the 22 contributions display a certain thematic unity which makes a colloquium-type origin very likely. They deal with what the editors define as the treatment of language (and language problems) in ‘régimes autoritaires’, which does not only include the discourses about the use(s) of language in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union in the Stalin era, but also in modern-day United States, in Albania before the 1990 ‘revolution’, or in communist Moldovia, etc. A list of the individual papers follows: Pierre Caussat, “Langue d’autorité et autorité de langue” (5–17); Jean-Jacques Courtine, “La prohibition des mots: L’écriture des manuels scolaires en Amérique du Nord” (19–32); Michel Dubuisson, “Le pouvoir et la langue: Le cas du latin ‘classique’” (33–43); Alexandra Goujon, “Bilinguisme et populisme en Biélorussie” (45–62); Christopher M. Hutton, “Linguistique et anthropologie raciale en Allemagne nazie: Sciences contradictoires ou sciences complémentaires?” (65–79); John E. Joseph, “Créativité linguistique, interprétation et contrôle de l’esprit selon Orwell et Chomsky” (81–92); Gabriella B. Klein, “De la langue unitaire à la langue autarcique: Le discours sur la langue pendant le fascisme en Italie” (93–100); Pierre Larcher, “Théologie et philologie dans l’islam médiéval: Relecture d’un texte célèbre de Ibn Fâris (Xe siècle)” (101–114); Anatol Lenta, “L’invention de la langue moldave à l’époque soviétique” (115–132); Hélène Merlin-Kajman, “Langue, souveraineté, civilité: L’usage contre l’autorité” (135–153); Sébastien Moret, “D’une contradiction interne: l’espéranto, langue neutre ou langue de l’autre?” (155–170); Carolina Rodríguez-Alcalá, “La construction imaginaire de la nation paraguayenne par le discours sur le guarani langue nationale” (171–190); Miço Samara, “Sur la politique linguistique et le travail des linguistes sous le régime autoritaire en Albanie (1945–1990)” (191–201; map on p.203); Dan Savatovsky, “Philologie d’une nov-langue, la LTI de Victor Klemperer [(1881–1960)]” (205–218); Alexander Schwarz, “La linguistique du roi et du fou du roi [= Frederick the Great and his 1781 essay De la littérature allemande]” (219–230); Patrick Sériot, “La langue, le pouvoir et le corps” (231–259); Ekaterina Simonato-Kokochkina, “Alphabet ‘chauvin’ ou alphabet ‘nationaliste’?” (261–275); André Tabouret-Keller, “Les métaphores multiples de l’expression ‘langue maternelle’: Un projet de travail” (277–288); Noura Tigziri, “Les langues dans les constitutions algériennes” (289–299); Mehmet Uzman, “La Théorie de la Langue-Soleil [of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938)]: Une entreprise désespérée aux marges de la science” (301–314), and Ekaterina Velmezova, “La sémantique idéologique entre Marr et Staline” (315–335). No index.]