Research Catalog

Title

Saussure for beginners / by W. Terrence Gordon ; illustrated by Abbe Lubell.

Author

Saussure, Ferdinand de, 1857-1913

Publication

New York, NY : Writers and Readers, c1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Lubell, Abbe.

Description

122 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

"It is difficult to imagine an important thinker more ideally suited to Writers & Readers' long-running For Beginners series than Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure's work is so powerful that it not only redefined modern linguistics, it also opened our minds to new ways of "doing" anthropology, literary criticism, and psychoanalysis. Genius like Saussure's is meant to be shared; it is shameful to confine it to the "experts." Unfortunately, unless you were a linguist, Saussure was virtually unreadable. Until now. Saussure For Beginners is a clear, accessible guide to one of the most influential and difficult thinkers of the 20th century. It is designed, both in look and language, to introduce the lay reader to the brilliant, mystifying Saussure."--Page 4 of cover.

Series Statement

A Writers and Readers documentary comic book ; 73

Uniform Title

A Writers and Readers documentary comic book ; 73.

Subject

• Saussure, Ferdinand de, 1857-1913 > Comic books, strips, etc
• Linguistics

Genre/Form

Comics (Graphic works)

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 120) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Was there linguistics before Saussure? -- Definition of the linguistic sign -- How did Saussure break with earlier ways of analyzing language and why? -- most important lessons in the Course in General Linguistics -- linguistic sign -- Synchronic and diachronic analysis -- elements of language -- Context and contrast create synchronic identity -- Synchronic identity is separable from synchronic value -- Language is a system of values -- link between sound and thought in the linguistic sign -- Meaning is distinct from linguistic value -- Linguistic forms -- Differences in the language system -- Oppositions among signs -- Linear and nonlinear relations -- Diachronic linguistics -- Phonetic changes -- Analogy -- Agglutination -- European structuralism -- Gustave Guillaume (1883-1960) -- Pierre Guiraud (1912-1982) -- Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) -- Noam Chomsky (1928- ) -- Claude Levi Strauss (1906- ) -- Roland Barthes (1915-1980) -- Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) -- Jacques Derrida (1930- ) -- Anagrams -- Saussure at a glance.

ISBN

0863161952 (pbk.) :

OCLC

• 35632267
• SCSB-11702129

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library