Re-Reading Saussure: The Dynamics of Signs in Social Life

ISBN-13: 9780415104111 / Angielski / Miękka / 1996 / 384 str.

Paul Thibault; J. Thibault Paul

Opis

Through a re-reading of Saussure's work in the light of contemporary developments in the human, life and physical sciences, Paul Thibault presents a means to redefine and refocus theories of social meaning-making. Saussure's theory of language is generally considered to be a formal theory of abstract sign-types and sign-systems, separate from our individual and social practices of making meaning. In this text, Thibault presents a different view of Saussure. Paying attention to the original texts, including the Cours de Linguistic Generale, he demonstrates that Saussure was centrally concerned with trying to formulate a theory of how meanings are made.

Spis treści

Part I: Constructing a science of signs; Chapter 1: Defining the object of study; Chapter 2: Saussure's social-semiological metatheory; Part II: Langue as social-semiological system; Chapter 3: Saussure's three conceptions of the language system; Chapter 4: The time-dependent nature of langue; Part III: Langue and parole: re-articulating the links; Chapter 5: Parole and the individual; Chapter 6: The speech circuit; Part IV: Linguistic value; Chapter 7: Linguistic value and how language construes the world; Chapter 8: Linguistic and economic value; Part V: Sign and signification; Chapter 9: The linguistic sign; Chapter 10: The symbolic character of the sign; Part VI: Sign, discourse and social meaning-making; Chapter 11: Dimensions of contextualization; Chapter 12: Arbitrariness and motivation in the sign; Chapter 13: Making and motivating signs in discourse; Postscript

O autorze

Paul J. Thibault