The spread of saussurean thought in Brazil

Abstract

The ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) still stimulate keen interest among language scholars today, be it complementary or contradictory. Saussurean thought has become widespread, in a more or less explicit manner, in undergraduate and graduate education in the humanities. Since the mid-1950s, Saussure’s ideas have been introduced and debated as part of the training of first-language and foreign-language teachers, communicators, anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists. In the majority of undergraduate and graduate disciplines in the areas of Linguistics and Communication, from the moment academics begin to address the nature of human signification and communication, it is impossible to ignore Saussure’s reflections on language and parole. The aim of this study is to reflect on the transmission of the general lines of Saussurean thought in Brazil. For this purpose, an inventory and analysis are carried out of Linguistics manuals originally published in Brazil since the 1970s, with the aim of reflecting on their construction in terms of programming and persuasion, categories of analysis of didactic speech proposed by A. J. Greimas.