The Third Course began with Geographical Linguistics, The Third Course, that was not in fact the order of presentation they adopted. Komatsu points out that although the editors said their text was based mainly on (1908–1909), d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger et Charles Patois, edited and translatedīy Eisuke Komatsu and George Wolf, 1997, and (iii) Troisième Cours de linguistique générale,ĭ’après les cahiers d’Émile Constantin, edited and translated by Eisuke Komatsu and Roy Harris, Générale (1907), d’après les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger, edited and translated byĮisuke Komatsu and George Wolf, 1996 (ii) Deuxième Cours de linguistique générale

These are now available as (i) Premier Cours de linguistique Was far from being the case, as can 237be seenīy anyone who reads separately and then compares the three sets of notes which Saussure’s first editors had amalgamated The three courses of lectures been merely viva voce variants of a single text.

But is there not ab initio a conflict between synthesis and reconstitution? It might not have been a serious conflict had They also describe their text as an attempt at ‘synthesis and reconstitution’. This was certainly more than Saussure himself had achieved. The editors say in their Preface that their main aim was to present ‘an organic Bally and Sechehaye,įor their part, were handicapped by working at one remove from the original Saussurean material, for neither of them had attended But his terminology and his exposition were not always ideally suited to the printed page.

To sections of the lectures as ‘chapters’, thus validating the notion that they could be treated as parts of aįorthcoming book. Received by those who attended Saussure’s lectures? Or was their editorial ambition to produce the book that SaussureĮvidently had in mind, but never managed to write? These are two very different aims. Did they think of themselves as mere academic secretaries, supplying a tidied-up version of the oral teaching Little progress has been made with the problem of how Saussure’s editors conceived New has come to light which affects the way we should read the Cours de linguistique générale But the question may reasonably be asked whether anything

That makes it impossible to offer even a readable digest of it here. The bibliography of Saussureana has swollen to an extent Studies have not only flourished, but flourished as never before. In the thirty years since this translation first appeared, Saussurean

Course in general linguistics 1916