5.3. Ferdinand de Saussure’s Main Concepts

Geneva School

The expression Geneva School refers to (1) a group of linguists based in Geneva who pioneered modern structural linguistic and (2) a group of literary theorists and critics working from a phenomenological perspective.

Geneva School of Linguistics

The most prominent figure of the Geneva School of Linguistics school was Ferdinand de Saussure. Other important colleagues and students of Saussure who comprise this school include Albert Sechahave , Albert Riedlinger, Sergej Karcevski and Charles Bally.

The most significant linguistic book connected with this school is 'Cours de languistique générale', the main work of de Saussure, which was published by his students Charles Bally and Albert Sehechaye. The book was based on lectures with this title that de Saussure gave three times in Geneva from 1906 to 1912. Sehechaye and Bally did not themselves take part in these lecture classes, but they used notes from other students. The most important of these students was Albert Riedlinger, who provided them with the most material. Furthermore Bally and Sehechaye continued to develop de Saussure's theories, mainly focusing on the linguistic research of speech. Sehechaye also concentrated on syntactic problems.

Russian formalism

Russian formalism was an influential school of literary criticism in Russia from the 1910s to the 1930s. It includes the work of a number of highly influential Russian and Soviet scholars (Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, Boris Eichenbaum, Roman Jakobson, Grigory Vinokur) who revolutionised literary criticism between 1914 and the 1930s by establishing the specificity and autonomy of poetic language and literature. Russian formalism exerted a major influence on thinkers such as Mikhail Bakhtin and Yuri Lotman, and on structuralism as a whole. The movement's members are widely considered the founders of modern literary criticism. Under Stalin it became a pejorative term for elitist art.

Russian formalism was a diverse movement, producing no unified doctrine, and no consensus amongst its proponents on a central aim to their endeavours. In fact, "Russian formalism" describes two distinct movements: the OPOJAZ (Obscestvo izucenija POeticeskogo JAZyka - Society for the Study of Poetic Language) in St. Petersburg and the Linguistic Circle in Moscow. Therefore, it is more precise to refer to the "Russian Formalists", rather than to use the more encompassing and abstract term of "Formalism".

The term "formalism" was first used by the adversaries of the movement, and as such it conveys a meaning explicitly rejected by the Formalists themselves. In the words of one of the foremost Formalists, Boris Eichenbaum: "It is difficult to recall who coined this name, but it was not a very felicitous coinage. It might have been convenient as a simplified battle cry but it fails, as an objective term, to delimit the activities of the "Society for the Study of Poetic Language.

The Prague Linguistic Circle in 1920s and 1930s

The Prague Linguistic Circle was one of the most influential schools of linguistic thought in pre-war linguistics. Through its former members like Roman Jakobson or René Wellek, it influenced modern American linguistics as well as many other linguists in the world. In the spring of 1996, many renowned linguists came to Prague to pay homage to the heritage of the Prague Linguistic Circle and to Roman Jakobson during a conference to 70 Years of Existence of the Prague Linguistic Circle and 100th Anniversary of Roman Jakobson's Birthday.

Although the 'classical period' of the Circle can be dated between 1926, the year of the first meeting, and the beginning of WWII, its roots are in much of the earlier work of its members, and also it did not completely cease its work with the outbreak of the war.

Among the founding members were such personalities as Vilém Mathesius (President of PLC until his death in 1945), Roman Jakobson, Nikolay Trubetzkoy, Sergei Karcevskiy, Jan Mukarovský, and many others who began to meet in the mid-twenties to discuss issues of common interest.

The, at first, irregular meetings with lectures and discussions gradually developed into regular ones. The first results of the members' cooperative efforts were presented in joint theses prepared for the First International Congress of Slavicists held in Prague in 1929. These were published in the 1st volume of the then started series Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague.

The Théses outlined the direction of the work of the Circle's members. Such important concepts as the approach to the study of language as a synchronic system which is, however, dynamic, functionality of elements of language, and the importance of the social function of language were explicitly laid down as the basis for further research.

Ecole Libre des Hautes Etudes in the 1940s

Claude Levi-Strauss relates that the post was offered to him first, but that since Koyre wanted it, "I acquiesced" (Levi-Strauss and Eribon, 1988, p. 62). He also reports that he and the philosopher were friends at the time, and credits Koyre for providing him with an introduction to Roman Jakobson, an encounter that led to his application of linguistic theory to the analysis of kinship systems, and to their undertaking to teach jointly a seminar on Structuralism.

In his capacity as secretary general, Levi-Strauss was recalled to France for consultations in the fall of 1944. The anthropologist, who by his own account had little contact with colleagues other than Koyre and Jakobson, and in his published memoirs expressed contempt for most of his fellow academic exiles, proposed to fold the Ecole into a broadened Alliance Francaise. But his idea failed to gain support, and in the spring of 1945 he returned to NewYork as the cultural counselor to the French Embassy--a clear indication of his political standing, as de Gaulle was then at the peak of his power--with orders to close down the school.

Parisian Structuralism from 1950-1970

Post-structuralism emerged as a response — by Foucault, Derrida, Barthes and others — to Parisian structuralism in the late 1960s. Since then, it has gained many followers worldwide. Its increased popularity is particularly based on translations spreading in Anglo-American academic circles, influencing especially the humanities, in the 1980s and 1990s. Post-structuralism cannot be subsumed under any of the three syntheses we here discuss. Quite often, post-structuralism is included as one variety of social theory, but it is distinct in the sense that it does not aim to provide a new transcendental philosophical foundation for social science. Post-structuralism rather claims that the only role an intellectual can take is to deconstruct any such fundament. Post-structuralism is a program to negate any notion of theory, and especially fundamental ones. It moves from cognitive skepticism into cognitive nihilism. Thus it also differs from interactionism, since it denies the notion of middle range theories. It takes skepticism against the accumulation of knowledge to the bitter end. Scientific knowledge cannot be demarcated in any way, it is not something that accumulates, it is always part of everyday actions. Post-structuralism see only fully discontinous knowledge regimes. It is thus left with a generalized sociology of knowledge in which any alleged social science theory is an interpretation of the present (cf. lower right corner of Figure 1). There is no notion of theory, although one may — critically — claim that post-structuralism “feeds” on transcendental social theory in a “negative” way!

Among followers of Foucault, knowledge regimes are seen as embedded in power relations. A knowledge regime is linked to the way in which institutions of power (the state at the macro level, various institutions as the prison, hospital, etc. at the meso level, and e.g. the family father at the micro-level) interpret their present predicament. “Interpretation” here indicates not primarily a broad picture of the present, but the many classificatory and standardizing schemes by which the state, the firms, and other institutions count, group and thus impose discipline on the members of society.

It is certainly important for social science to be aware of the fact that the data analyzed are often produced by the state. Even many of the categories and classifications they use have been defined by the state for practical purposes that are often related to domination/discipline. Such a view may be highly appealing to social movements on the defensive. The more monolithic and uncompromising the established power structure seems, the more tempting it is to reduce any production of knowledge to the workings of this structure. Taken to the extreme, however, this becomes reductionism on the part of power-relations, denying any autonomy for the research collective. This reduction is not a functionalist one; it rather uses the structure of the language as a model for the impact of power/knowledge on the dominated subjects. The reliance on this one basic analogy often leads post-structuralists to overemphasize the role of cultural codes in history. The danger is that this leads to a sort of “imperialism of the humanities”, incapable of comparative analysis and of interdisciplinary sensitivity. A more detailed assessment of whether post-structuralist studies on historical topics have avoided this danger cannot be given here.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_school

http://praguelinguistics.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/russian_formalism

http://angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/

http://encyclopedia.com