Definir e exemplificar: estratégias didáticas no Curso de Linguística Geral (1907)

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the teaching activity of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) as to General Linguistics, in 1907, when the experient professor first started a course on the subject. Our work assumes that one way of perpetrating the canon consists of repeating some metaphors and examples accredited to him, as it goes to the famous saussurian chess game metaphor which illustrates the concept of langue. Our theoretical background lies on the Historiography of Linguistics, as professed by Auroux (1994), Koerner (1996) and Swiggers (2004), and the same applies for our methodological assumptions (Rey, 1995). Having established three separate domains within the first course (Saussure, 1996[1907]), Phonology, Phonetics and Analogy, we have then settled three main goals [1 to 3] and one secondary objective [4]: [1] to describe the definitions given in the three domains; [2] to describe and assess the language examples provided by the three domains; [3] relate the uses of definitions to those of language examples; [4] to relate [3] to the immediate context of emergence of the first course, the institutional background of General Linguistics at the Faculté de Lettres et Sciences Sociales, (Geneva, 1907). In order to accomplish the first step [1], we have adopted the classification of definitio rei, definitio nominis, as far as the definition incidence is concerned, and essencial, formal and functional definition, as to its content (Quijada Van den Berghe e Swiggers, 2009). The language examples [2] were analysed through their démarcation, the way they appear in the text; the way the languages being described are represented in the text, which can assume two forms: either par extension, when the totality of the cases are listed, either par compréhension, when the examples are models from which one can generate new instances (Chevillard et al., 2007). Our corpus comprises 60 (sixty) definitions and over two thousand examples. In general terms, the definitio nominis is enhanced when it comes to define priority terms, such as phonology. As to the examples, four languages appear intensely in the domains: french, german, greek and latin. These languages entertain a kind of representation mainly in comprehension.These instances occur as 'words', in horizontal and parallel series, scarcely in paradigms or declensions. There are definitions which exemplify overtly and directly, with no more material to accomplish a definition, which shows the strict interdependence of these constructions, together with a different mechanism, the rethorical questions. We have gathered, as well, organizing mechanisms (items, topics) and schematization procedures (tables, symboles and strategies that lessen the linearity of the text). Eventually, we have spotted the widespread use of 'negative' strategies, such as defining something by what it is not, or excluding elements from a definition, as well as providing language examples which uncorrectly illustrate what is being said, in order to anticipate possible mistakes. Such procedures seem to b...