Session 1 - Frederick J. Newmeyer: Saussure and his legacy

This session commemorates the 100th anniversary of the death of Ferdinand de Saussure, who is regarded by many as the inspiration for the principal developments in modern synchronic linguistics. Contributions are solicited on all aspects of Saussure’s linguistic thought (as regards both synchrony and diachrony) and its influence on developments in 20th and 21st century theorizing about grammars and grammatical change. It is hoped that among the questions to be addressed in the session will be the following:

1. To what extent can Saussure’s approach to synchronic grammatical structure be seen as following naturally from his approach to diachrony, as expressed, for example, in his Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes?

2. To what extent can a coherent theory of grammar and grammatical analysis be read into the Cours de linguistique générale (as opposed to merely a summary conception of the nature of language)?

3. To what extent is current Indo-European linguistics indebted to Saussure’s Mémoire and his other diachronic work?

4. To what extent did the structuralist approaches from the 1920s onward draw from and/or reject the principal ideas of Saussure?

5. To what extent do the ideas inherent in generative grammar represent an affirmation of Saussure’s basic tenets and to what extent do they represent a repudiation of those tenets?

6. To what extent is modern functional linguistics indebted to Saussure’s thinking and to what extent does it represent a rejection of his thinking?

7. To what extent is modern sociolinguistics indebted to Saussure’s thinking and to what extent does it represent a rejection of his thinking?

8. To what extent are approaches to psychilinguistics and discourse theory indebted to Saussure's ideas?

As the above indicates, the session will focus primarily on the linguistic aspects of Saussure and his legacy. In other words, its principal objective is to investigate the implications of Saussure's thinking for different approaches to linguistic theory (structuralist, functionalist, formalist, cognitivist and diachronic), and in particular with respect to the relation between language and cognition, for example, social cognition.

22.07.2013 10:30-12:30

Chair: Raúl ARANOVICH

 10:30 - 11:30 Frederick J. NEWMEYER
Some Remarks on Chomsky's Reading of Saussure
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11:30 - 12:00 Raúl ARANOVICH
Langue as a complex algebra: theories of inflectional morphology in the Cours
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22.07.2013 16:00-18:30

Chair: Frederick J. NEWMEYER

 16:00 - 16:30 Svitlana ZHABOTYNSKA
Saussure's Theory Of The Linguistic Sign: A Cognitive Perspective
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16:30 - 17:00 David BOE
Saussure, Plato, and Arbitrariness
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17:00 - 17:30 Anne-Gaëlle TOUTAIN
Système, structure et langage
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17:30 - 18:00 Estanislao SOFIA et al.
Examen critique du rôle de Charles Bally et Albert Sechehaye dans la composition du Cours de linguistique générale
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23.07.2013 10:30-12:30

Chair: Frederick J. NEWMEYER

 10:30 - 11:00 Valery KOUZNETSOV
L'Ecole de Paris et L'Ecole de Genève: dans la continuité de l'oeuvre de Saussure
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11:00 - 11:30 Gerda HASSLER
L'essence double et triple du langage: réception et transformation des idées saussuriennes dans la pensée de Coseriu
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11:30 - 12:00 Cécile MATHIEU
L'héritage saussurien au sein de la théorie fonctionnaliste martinetienne
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12:00 - 12:30 Valery KOUZNETSOV
Recherches Saussuriennes en Russie
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23.07.2013 14:00-16:00

Chair: Frederick J. NEWMEYER

 14:00 - 14:30 Marc TSIRLIN
Toujours tant de bruit pour rien?
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14:30 - 15:00 Klaas WILLEMS
The reception of Saussure's theory of the linguistic sign in Cognitive Grammar
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15:00 - 15:30 Lars Erik ZEIGE
From Saussure to sociology and back to linguistics. Langue/parole and signifiant/signifié in Niklas Luhmann's theory as basis for a model of language change
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15:30 - 16:00 Thayanne LIMA
Saussure and Labov: congruencies and divergences
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23.07.2013 16:30-18:30

Chair: Frederick J. NEWMEYER

 16:30 - 17:00 Elitzur BAR-ASHER SIEGAL
Applying Saussure's dichotomy between langue and parole to a theory of argument realization
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17:00 - 17:30 Pierre-Yves TESTENOIRE
Ce que les théories du discours doivent à Saussure
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18:00 - 18:30 Thomas BEARTH
Thématisation, focalisation et l'école de Ferdinand de Saussure
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25.07.2013 10:30-13:00

Chair: Frederick J. NEWMEYER

 10:30 - 11:00 Reinier SALVERDA
De Saussure and Language play
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11:00 - 11:30 Michelle BRAZÃO
The importance of foreign languages in Saussure's studies
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11:30 - 12:00 Antonio DOMÍNGUEZ REY
The Notional a priori of the Ontological and Predicative Correlation of Language
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12:00 - 12:30 Zdzisław WĄSIK
Epistemological perspectives on the bilateral sign and the duality of language exhibited in Ferdinand de Saussure's Cours de linguistique générale
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12:30 - 13:00 Christian PUECH
Comment évaluer l'héritage saussurien? Linguistique et historiographie de la linguistique
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