It is well known that Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) gave the Course in general linguistics at the University of Geneva three times, and that the book entitled Cours de linguistique générale, published three years after his death, was assembled from his students’ notes of these courses and, where they existed, his own preparatory notes. The assemblers, Albert Sechehaye and Charles Bally, faced a different challenge from the evangelists writing the New Testament, who had a basic biographical plot to structure their narratives. The book which Bally and Sechehaye set out to create was instead to be structured as was the course Saussure gave. But the three runs of the course differed considerably in structure and content, and neither of the editors had attended them.

References

Joseph, John E.

2012 Saussure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (French transl., by Nathalie Vincent-Arnaud, Limoges: Lambert-Lucas, in press.)

Komatsu, Eisuke

(ed.) 1993 Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale, premier et troisième cours d’après les notes de Riedlinger et Constantin. Tokyo: Collection Recherches Université Gakushuin.

Komatsu, Eisuke

(ed.) & George Wolf (trans.) 1996 F. de Saussure, 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. Oxford: Pergamon.

Mejía Quijano, Claudia

2016 “Lingüística general de Ferdinand de Saussure, el primer curso: Introducción”. Entornos 29.2.153–182, online at https://​journalusco​.edu​.co​/index​.php​/entornos​/article​/view​/1270​/2410.

Saussure, Ferdinand de

1916 Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. by Charles Bally & Albert Sechehaye, with the assistance of Albert Riedlinger. Lausanne & Paris: Payot. (2nd ed. 1922; further eds essentially unchanged). Critical edition by Rudolf Engler, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1968–1974. (English transl., Course in General Linguistics, by Wade Baskin, New York: Philosophical Library 1959; another by Roy Harris, London: Duckworth; La Salle, Ill.: Open Court 1983.)

Vincent, François

2014 “Le premier cours de linguistique générale professé par Ferdinand de Saussure à Genève, Cours I et sténographie Caille: Transcription et commentaire”. Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 67.175–190.