Fionn Bennett – « Saussure’s “anagrams”: A case of acousmatic mistaken identity? », in Semiotica 2021/238, pp. 181-198 (November 2020).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2019-0009
Published Online: 2020-11-18.
Published in Print: 2021-01-27.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2019-0009/html

Abstract

In the course of his painstaking study of ancient verse, Ferdinand de Saussure came up with an intriguing theory about the phonetics of the poetry he scrutinised. He postulated that the “jeux phoniques” he detected in the texts he analysed was proof that their authors were attempting to “parasite” the surface level meaning of their verse with a “hypotexte.” This hypotexte consisted of “anagrams” of “mots thèmes” whose phonetic properties were “isosyllabically diffracted” throughout the rest of the host text. Today it is generally accepted that Saussure was wrong about this. Few however maintain that what he discerned in the phonetic depths of the verse he auscultated was no more than the figment of a fertile imagination. But if this be so, what exactly had he detected? This paper maintains that what Saussure stumbled upon was the trace of a contribution made to ancient verse by melodically and metrically organised sounds. This was inevitable. Virtually all the texts he probed were “carmina sacra” that were composed to be sung and accompanied by music. This musical accompaniment had a decisive impact on the phonetics of the “lexemic” words in the Poetry that has survived. This is so because sung verse cannot “euphoniously” accommodate a musical accompaniment unless its phonetics constituents are selected, concatenated and intoned in such a way as to follow the melodic contours and rhythm patterns that modulate their articulation. In addition, the point of making verse consist both of melodically organised arrangements of sound and of organisations of sound in which one can recognise ordinary words was not simply ornamental. The real point was to bi-nature what one was hearing. In other words, the goal was to “over-signify” the usual meanings of the “logocentric” words in the verse with a separate but complementary meaning and narrative encoded in melodised tones and metered rhythms. Why qualify the accompanying music as “acousmatic voices”? Because the music in question was added to song to give a voice to whichever tutelary divinity the song was performed to honour. That’s what makes “acousmatic voices” an especially apt epithet for characterising the melodically and rhythmically structured bodies of sound Saussure so presciently discerned in the phonetic depths of the poésie phonisante he probed. The point of their being in poetry was to give a voice to the agencies to whom the object or occasion of verse is beholden for its Being-in-the-world.

Keywords: Ferdinand de Sausssure; anagrams; musical meaning; acousmatic voices; comparative poetics; hieroglossia

Dustin S Stoltz – « Becoming a dominant misinterpreted source: The case of Ferdinand de Saussure in cultural sociology », Journal of Classical Sociology 21/1 (2021), p. 92–113 (February 2021)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X19896056
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1468795X19896056

Cultural analysts in sociology typically cite the work of Ferdinand de Saussure to motivate a narrow theory of meaning. In so doing, sociologists incorrectly attribute to Saussure (1) the postulate that meaning is arbitrary; (2) the idea that signs gain meaning only through relations of opposition to other signs; (3) the view that there is an isomorphic correspondence between linguistic signs and all cultural units of analysis, ergo culture is fundamentally arbitrary; and finally (4) the idea that he offers a Durkheimian theory of culture (i.e. Saussure was a follower of Durkheim). Saussure’s project, rather, was specific to linguistics, and mainly one of theoretical and methodological clarification regarding phonology. Saussure never intended his analytical model of phonology to apply to the real operation of meaning in general, as done by contemporary interpreters and, furthermore, never argued that meaning is arbitrary.

Author’s note

This paper was awarded the 2018 Graduate Student Paper Award from the History of Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association.

Stefania Montes Henriques, O caso mais grosseiro da semiologia. O que Saussure pode nos dizer sobre os nomes próprios? Prafácio Eliane Silveira. Campinas (SP), Editora da Abralin (Altos Estudos em Linguística), 2021, 147 p., ISBN 978-85-68990-09-4
DOI : 10.25189/9788568990094
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Présentation de l’ouvrage, 23.09.2021 (min. 00:37)

Este livro se propõe a investigar como o nome próprio é considerado nas elaborações de Ferdinand de Saussure. Essa categoria linguística é considerada como um dos problemas mais espinhosos nos estudos da linguagem, em virtude de ser heterogênea e não possuir uma regra geral que seja aplicável a todas as línguas naturais e por envolver em sua constituição a arbitrariedade e a fala. Assim, efetuamos um percurso teórico pelos estudos da linguagem do século XIX, enfatizando teorias no âmbito da Filosofia e da Linguística, o que nos proporcionou elementos para questionar a posição de Saussure sobre essa categoria linguística. Considerando que a produção saussuriana não se restringiu ao CLG, detivemo-nos em seus estudos comparatistas, nos manuscritos sobre linguística e sobre as Lendas Germânicas. Mediante a análise desses materiais, percebemos que o nome próprio participa do movimento de fundação da linguística moderna, na medida em que é um ponto nevrálgico nas elaborações saussurianas.

(Re)leituras em Ferdinand de Saussure e Émile Benveniste, organizador Jomson Teixeira da Silva Filho. São Carlos : Pedro & João Editores, 2021, 276 pages, ISBN 978-65-5869-482-3 [Papier] / 978-65-5869-483-0 [Numérique].
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Version numérique disponible en accès libre.

Esta obra, que agora vem a público, busca reunir textos de diferentes pesquisadores brasileiros que têm se debruçado sobre as teorias da linguagem ligadas epistemologicamente aos nomes de dois linguistas cujas reputações dispensariam qualquer tipo de apresentação.

Se aqui o fazemos, é mais pela formalidade editorial e pelo prazer de falar sobre eles e menos pela necessidade de apresentá- los. Afinal, temos total ciência de que, ao menos minimamente, todos aqueles que, de alguma forma, interessam-se por questões da linguagem, seja para deles partir, seja para deles sugerir um afastamento ou até mesmo para ignorá-los, já se depararam com os conhecidos pelos epítetos de “pai da linguística moderna” e de “pai da linguística da enunciação”, a saber, Ferdinand de Saussure e Émile Benveniste, respectivamente.

Dois linguistas que têm em comum muito mais do que atribuições de “paternidades”. Dois linguistas complexos, enigmáticos até! Diante da leitura de seus textos, deparamo-nos com situações que, ao primeiro contato de um leitor desavisado – flutuação terminológica, complexidade conceitual, teorizações atribuídas, textos inacabados e lacunais – seriam suficientes para “justificar” a recusa de suas leituras, como o fazem muitos, aliás, lendo-os apenas de segunda mão, geralmente através de manuais de introdução. Normand (2009, p. 17) chega a afirmar, em relação a Saussure, que “uma leitura do conjunto do Curso, se é que é possível, nunca foi encorajada; contenta-se, o mais frequentemente, com extratos que ilustram uma apresentação comentada”.

Extrait de l’introduction