Ferdinand de Saussure and the World Linguistics (to the 100th Anniversary
of the First Publication of «Course of General Linguistics»)

F. de Saussure is considered the founder of the structuralism.
On the other hand some scholars expressed ideas that were similar to structural
ones before de Saussure; first of all we can mention N. Kruszewski and
J. Baudouin de Courtenay; A. Séchehaye, a pupil of Saussure published some
similar ideas in 1908. However the conception of Saussure was the clearest
and the simplest, it determined the strict borders of linguistic branches: linguists investigate language but not speech, synchronic linguistics but not diachronic
one and so on. It was useful for some time: such restrictions gave opportunities
to concentrate on the detailed study of a restricted sphere of phenomena. The
structural period was undoubtedly important in the history of the world linguistics.
There were significant differences between the old and new paradigms, the
new paradigm gave the main consideration of synchronous studies and not
of history of languages but it was not the only difference. F. de Saussure did not
only enlarge the borders of the primary tasks of linguistics but narrowed them.
He divided the spheres of language and speech, separated the internal linguistics
from the external one and concentrated all the attention on the internal linguistics
of language. He ignored problems of the connections of language with
thought and culture. He fixed the new borders of linguistics that appeared to be
too rigid. Some linguists (V. N. Voloshinov, V. I. Abaev and others) criticized
the ideas of the structural linguistics but the new stage of the development
of linguistics began from 1957 when N. Chomsky criticized F. de Saussure’s
very strictly. However the modern linguistics does not come to the generative
one. The functional (cognitive and communicative) linguistics considers the
descriptive approach to language inadequate and searches ways to building
of the explanatory linguistics. It does not restrict its object and includes all phenomena
connected with the processes of speech and audition in its sphere
of research. The linguists of this type suppose that the adequate linguistic model
must explain the real organization of language including the processes in the
brain. Many linguistic branches are developed nowadays: neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
sociolinguistics, pragmatics, discourse linguistics, linguisticcultural
studies and so on. All these branches exceed the borders established
by F. de Saussure. The means of linguistics increased. The main fields of the
structural studies were phonology and morphology but syntax, typology and
especially semantics were not developed but nowadays linguistics got the resources
to develop them too.