ABSTRACT
This article takes into account the astonishing verification that the fundamental concept, introduced by “the father of Linguistics”, was fruitless within the field it appeared and was elaborated. Saussure is mentioned as the organizer of ideas about language, as the formulator of famous dichotomies, but the idea of la langue as the “object of Linguistics” and its possible consequences were not the focus of interest. Exceptions were, no doubt, Benveniste and Jakobson. On the whole, la langue, as “symbolic functioning”, neither reducible to any particular language nor with grammar, did not guide the approach to Saussure. It should be pointed out that Saussure’s destiny was quite different outside de field of Linguistics: Lévi- Strauss and Lacan are glaring examples of the impact of Saussure’s ideas in Anthropology and in Psychoanalysis. Two conflicting definitions of la langue can be found in the Cours de Linguistique Générale. This article puts forth and explores the argument that one of them is at the bases of the devitalizing reading, mentioned above, and the other, that one which sustains the negative reasoning which relates la langue to the notion of “value” , is responsible for the fructiferous effects of that concept in other realms.
Key-words:
the object of Linguistics; two definitions of la langue; Saussure and Linguistics; Saussure and the Human Sciences