Parutions

Geoffrey Sampson, Structural Linguistics in the 21^st Century, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2024, 262 p., ISBN 978-1-0364-1259-3, 67.99 £
Notice de l’Éditeur
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This book is written to bring up to date a story which I began in a book I
wrote in 1980, Schools of Linguistics. That book seemed to meet a need — it was translated into several foreign languages — and I have often been asked whether I was going to produce a new edition to cover the period, approaching half a century now, since it appeared. But when I looked into this, I realized that an extended Schools, discussing recent developments in the same style as that book, was not going to be possible. Linguistics, and the academic world more widely, have changed too much.
For most of the twentieth century, new ideas in humanities subjects such as linguistics emerged in particular places and were developed largely by their inventor and his colleagues in those places. Geography mattered. Academics would read publications from distant places in journals and books, and occasionally they might travel to a conference overseas; but there was nothing like the modern density of communication created first by cheap air travel and later, and more importantly, by e-mail and the World Wide Web. Hence, in the world as it was before 1980, it made good sense to describe linguistic developments under headings like “the Prague School”, “the London School”, and others.
That world is no more. Plenty of new things are happening in linguistics, but they are not happening within neatly-separated geographic silos. New work is popping up here, there, and everywhere. Academic collaborations are no longer heavily constrained by geography. (One of my own recent articles was co-authored with an academic I have never met and who lives on the far side of the Earth. Nowadays that is routine; fifty years ago it would barely have been possible.) All this is good, but it means that a picture of the linguistics of recent decades must be painted in a different style from that of Schools of Linguistics. What is needed now is a sampler, illustrating the diversity of the present-day discipline through miniature portraits of a wide variety of recent work (together with a few glances back at the twentieth century for contrast).

Extrait de l’introduction, p. 1

John E. Joseph, Saussure, traduzido para o português brasileiro do inglês (RU) por Bruno Turra. Apresentação para a edição brasileira por John E. Joseph. Campinas (SP), Editora da Unicamp, 2023, 904 p., ISBN 978-85-268-1621-3, R$ 198,00
Notice de l’Éditeur

La publication du Cours de linguistique générale de Ferdinand de Saussure (1916) marqua une étape décisive dans le destin de la linguistique moderne. Son influence dans les milieux (d’abord) européens, (puis) américains et (plus tard, à travers la caisse de résonance qu’a été le structuralisme français dans les années 1960) mondiaux, a été (elle l’est toujours) remarquable. A tel point qu’il est impossible de comprendre la configuration actuelle de la linguistique théorique sans se référer à ce livre – que Saussure n’avait pourtant pas entreprit de publier : il était décédé en 1913. Une histoire singulière, comme toutes les histoires, mais qui a donné naissance à un courant de pensée et d’étude hors pair, et qui ne cesse de croître.

Le XX^e siècle a eu ses quatre ou cinq grands événements philologiques par rapport à ce qu’on a de bonne heure baptisé « linguistique saussurienne » : la publication des Sources Manuscrites de Robert Godel en 1957, l’édition critique de Rudolf Engler en 1967-1974, l’édition italienne de Tullio De Mauro en 1967, la découverte de manuscrits inédits en 1996, publiés en 2002 par Engler et Bouquet (conjointement avec d’autres manuscrits) dans les Écrits. En ce siècle déjà, la série des événements majeurs s’est poursuivi en 2012 avec la publication de la exceptionnelle biographie de John Joseph, discrètement intitulée Saussure, mais qui mérite d’être décorée d’un adjectif qui avait été traditionnellement réservé à l’édition critique d’Engler : la biographie de John Joseph est, autant ou plus que l’édition critique de 1967-74, « monumentale ».

Le livre, cela va de soit, ne se contente pas de recenser les aspects biographiques de Ferdinand de Saussure, mais, en les incluant, reconstruit, en clé historiographique, le (complexe) contexte académique dans lequel Saussure s’est formé, comment ses premières idées scientifiques sont nées et ont évolué et, enfin, comment ces idées ont modifié l’horizon théorique de la linguistique de son époque. Il s’agit d’un ouvrage essentiel et, en même temps, d’une forme fort intéressante de revisiter les vicissitudes inhérentes au changement de paradigme que, dans les dernières décennies du XIX^e siècle, a signifié le passage entre la grammaire comparée et la linguistique générale, synchronique et structurale, à travers la purge théorico-méthodologique menée par les néogrammairiens et la consolidation de la dialectologie. Un processus que la pensée de Saussure, ébauchée dès 1878 dans le Mémoire, consolidée dans ses cours universitaires à Paris (1881-1891) puis à Genève (1891-1912) et couronnée par la publication (posthume) du CLG (1916), a largement contribué à élaborer. C’est ce parcours, précisément, que John Joseph retrace dans son ouvrage de 2012.

Par ce que j’appellerais un miracle à l’envers (fait curieux, surprenant et malheureux), la première traduction de cette œuvre a dû attendre dix ans pour paraître dans le monde. Ce n’est qu’en 2022 que la traduction de Nathalie Vincent-Arnaud a été publiée en français (Lambert-Lucas, 2022). Deux ans plus tard, la biographie de John Joseph paraît de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique, traduite cette fois en portugais brésilien par Bruno Turra.

Le travail de Turra est – j’ose répéter le qualificatif – monumental, basé sur l’original anglais mais en consultation constante avec l’édition française qui avait été relue par Joseph lui-même. L’édition portugaise ayant également bénéficié de la relecture de l’auteur, c’est cette édition qu’il faut considérer, et que John Joseph lui-même considère, comme « définitive ».

La publication de ce livre au Brésil est un événement qui ne passera pas inaperçu. Aucun pays (pas même la France, la Suisse ou l’Italie) ne rivalise actuellement avec le Brésil en termes de vitalité et de nombre de chercheurs et de groupes d’étude consacrés à l’œuvre de Saussure. La traduction de l’œuvre de John Joseph par Bruno Turra fera beaucoup de bien à la communauté. Elle doit être saluée comme un nouvel événement éditorial majeur pour le saussurianisme.

Estanislao SOFÌA
Universidad de Buenos Aires / CONICET

Ce texte, dans son original en portugais brésilien, vient d’être publié dans le dernier numéro de la revue Fragmentum.

Luiza Milano, Aline Vargas Stawinski, O rastro do som em Saussure. Prefácio por Carlos Alberto Faraco. São Leopoldo (RS), Editora Oikos, 2024, 129 p., ISBN 978-65-5974-185-4
Volume entièrement disponible sur le site de l’Éditeur.

Este livro é o resultado de um percurso de pesquisas, reflexões e publicações que brotaram no interior do grupo de pesquisa intitulado O rastrodo som em Saussure no ano de 2013, junto ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.
Ao longo desses últimos dez anos, portanto, na tentativa de investigar o estatuto do aspecto fônico das línguas no pensamento de Ferdinand de Saussure, percebemos que essa tarefa não seria fácil. Afinal, apesar devárias pistas nos indicarem que o mestre genebrino de fato tenha dado destaque à face significante do signo linguístico em seus estudos, eram poucosos materiais a que tínhamos acesso, seja em português ou em língua estrangeira. […]
Para além do reconhecimento do interesse de Saussure pela materialidade fônica, o mergulho feito por nosso grupo de pesquisa nesses primeiros tempos trouxe também uma série de constatações não imaginadas em um primeiro momento de nossas investigações. Dentre essas constatações, listamos: a reflexão sobre o contraste entre concreto e abstrato, ao se lidar com entidades linguísticas; a profundidade da reflexão sobre o princípio do caráter arbitrário do signo linguístico; a discussão sobre a abrangência da noção de unidade linguística; as decisivas considerações sobre objeto e método no terreno da linguística sincrônica. Ou seja, conforme fomos, como grupo, avançando em nossas investigações, foram se apresentando a nós outras tantas questões no interior da própria teoria saussuriana, tal como deslocamentos a partir dela.
O aspecto fônico das línguas foi a porta de entrada que buscamos ao reler temáticas nada novas, quando se trata do campo dos estudos da linguagem. No entanto, o fônico produziu desvios e avanços inesperados. Emmeio a esses movimentos, vimos surgir inquietações acerca de outras materialidades que não a fônica. Assim, tudo que se disse sobre o som precisou, então, nas pesquisas sobre materialidades não fônicas, ser deslocado e pensado sobre a grafia, no caso da escrita e sobre o gesto, no caso de línguas de sinais.

Extrait de l’introduction, p. 9, 10.

La double articulation, on en crève ! Repenser le signifiant, sous la direction de Federico Bravo, Limoges, Lambert-Lucas (Linguistique et sociolinguistique), 2023, 320 p. ISBN 978-2-35935-417-1, € 35
Notice de l’Éditeur, avec Table des matières.

Dans la quête des constituants ultimes du langage, l’hypothèse de la double articulation se veut une réponse économique à la question de la compositionalité du signe  : le morphème serait la plus petite unité signifiante de la chaîne parlée. Contre les pièges de l’ethnocentrisme linguistique, Lacan invoque le cas du mandarin, puis satirise   : «  Alors la double articulation, elle est marrante, là  ». Au-delà du ton ouvertement polémique des propos du psychanalyste, qui finira par déclarer «   … la double articulation, on en crève  !  », la question mérite d’être posée  : peut-on postuler un autre modèle sémiotique et, partant, une autre concevabilité du signe  ?
Penser / repenser la segmentation de la chaîne signifiante, telle est la problématique que ce volume entend soumettre au questionnement scientifique en mettant la double articulation du langage à l’épreuve de la linguistique, mais aussi de la sémiotique, de la poétique, de la psychanalyse, de la textométrie, de la didactique, de la cognition, des disciplines informatiques et des sciences de la communication.

Le volume recueille les actes du colloque organisé à l’Université Bordeaux-Montaigne (31 mars-1er avril 2022).
Parmi les contributions : J. E. Joseph, « Le dernier signifiant de Ferdinand de Saussure » ; Ph. Willemart, « Repenser le signifiant selon le Saussure de 1891 » ; Cl. Mejía Quijano, « Aposème et signifiants, l’étude de la parole chez Ferdinand de Saussure ».

Language and Semiotic Studies, vol. 8, n. 1 (2022), ISSN 2751-7160. Special Issue: Ferdinand de Saussure in Contemporary Semiotics. Guest Editors: Bent Sørensen & Torkild Thellefsen.
Ce numéro est désormais disponible en ligne sur le site de l’Éditeur.

 

In Cours(e) we find, a goldmine of abstract ideas and (research) principles, and, seen from the perspective of the twentieth century, a novel approach to linguistic studies, concerning the distinction between langue and parole, language as a system of signs, the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign, value by difference, associative and syntagmatic axes, and, of course, sémiologie, as a science which studies the life (and laws) of signs in society.
Even though Saussure himself did not further develop any concrete or direct guidelines concerning the study and understanding of other sign systems than language, his abstract ideas and principles have influenced and still do influence, not only linguistic studies, but also fields of study concerning, for example, semiotics.
Therefore, with this volume we not only wish to honour the memory of the great linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, but also to contribute to the advancement of the understanding of his indeed excellent work in relation to semiotics.
The thirteen articles in this special issue on Saussure testify, in very different ways, his relevance for contemporary semiotics; and, the articles are organized into three main groups, namely (1) articles offering a fresh look on Saussurian concepts, such as language system (De Angelis, Danesi, Jungk), sign (Bulea Bronckart), arbitrariness, (Gvoždiak), structure, opposition and markedness (Danesi II), value (Bédouret-Larraburu), and linguistic innovation (Stawaska), (2) articles with a focus on mind, thought processes from the perspective of Saussure (Brandt, Bronckart), and, finally, (3) articles in which Saussurian concepts are applied in order to analyse and understand phenomena such as money (Bankov) and visual communication (Rudloff and Kjærboe, Chandler).

Extrait de l’introduction par Bent Sørensen et Torkild Thellefsen, p. 1-2.

[Contributions de Kristian Bankov, Sandrine Bédouret-Larraburu, Per Aage Brandt, Ecaterina Bulea Bronckart, Jean-Paul Bronckart, Daniel Chandler, Marcel Danesi, Rossana De Angelis, Isabel Victoria Galleguillos Jungk, Vít Gvoždiak, Rasmus Kjærboe, Maja Rudloff, Beata Stawarska]

Johannes Kabatek, Eugenio Coseriu. Beyond Structuralism. Berlin, Walter De Gruyter, 2023, 338 p.
ISBN 9783110716153, € 99.95
DOI: doi.org/10.1515/9783110716573
Notice de l’Éditeur avec table des matières ; le volume est entièrement disponible en Open Access sur le site de l’Éditeur.

This is the first comprehensive monograph on Eugenio Coseriu. Its aim is to serve as an introduction to the vast Coserian oeuvre, an overview that will offer, chapter by chapter, basic insights into his work and thought. This is not an easy task: we live in a world of experts, and due to today’s high degree of disciplinary specialisation, no linguist in the 21^st century is likely to have a thorough grasp of all the fields in which Coseriu was active throughout his life. The general programme of what he himself used to call “Integral Linguistics” from the 1980s onwards is not only extremely ambitious, but is also something to which Coseriu himself contributed from a wide variety of scholarly fields. Not only did he work within a number of areas of general and Romance linguistics, he was also an expert on the history of linguistics and the philosophy of language, as well as on the theory of aesthetics. To produce an adequate and satisfying monograph on the whole range of Coseriu’s thinking would ideally presuppose expert knowledge in all these areas, something beyond the reach of a single author, and thus in what follows it is possible that scholars from one or another specific field might feel that their own area of expertise has not been dealt with in the kind of depth which ideally they would like. This may be the reason why such a work has never been attempted before. Be that as it may, it was on the centenary of Coseriu’s birth that I was reminded that such an endeavour was indeed necessary, and I felt it almost a duty to write this overview. I apologise, however, for any shortcomings herein; I am perfectly aware that each of the chapters is imperfect, and that much more could be said. On the other hand, a compact overview also has advantages, and the aims of this book will have been fulfilled if it contributes to the knowledge of Coseriu’s thought and makes the read- er curious to explore Coseriu’s own texts; from personal experience I know that reading him can be enormously enriching. Perhaps this is also the right moment to look at his work afresh. The Japanese linguist Takashi Kamei, in comparing the reception of Coseriu’s writings with those of Saussure and Jakobson and observing that a true reception only comes after a certain time, claimed that Coseriu would in fact become “a linguist of the 21^st century”.

Extrait de l’Introduction, p. 1

I won’t thank ChatGPT because it still knows little about Coseriu’s linguistics (for fun I asked it to produce a text about Coseriu’s semantics and it made a cognitivist out of him); I am sure that the online version of this book will contribute to improvements here.

Extrait des Remerciements, p. VII