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Linguistics 421
of natural sciences but seem to be missing among the sciences of man (I37, p.
2). Apparently, this uncertainty goes back to those early classificatory attempts
which did not take into account the science of language. If, however, precisely
linguistics is chosen and used as the point of departure for a tentative ordering
of the sciences of man, such a system based ‘on the principal affinities of the
objects classified’ proves to find its solid theoretical grounds.
The internal logic inherent in the sciences of man, in turn, demands their
serial arrangement paralleling the linkage and concatenation of the natural
sciences. Language as one of the sign systems, and linguistics as the science of
verbal signs is but a part of semiotic, the general science of signs which was
foreseen, named, and delineated in John Locke’s Essay: ‘arpiwtrxrj or the
“doctrine of signs”, the most usual whereof being words’ (108, Book IV, Ch.
XXI, $4). Charles Sanders Peirce, convinced that many passages of the Essay
Concerning Humane Understanding ‘make the first steps in profound analyses
which are not further developed’, took over Locke’s term ‘semiotic (orpm~tmrj)’
which he redefined again as the ‘doctrine of signs’ (136,11, $3 649, 227). This
pioneer and ‘backwoodsman’ in the work of clearing and opening up ‘the new
discipline’ issued the first of his numerous attempts towards a classification of
signs in 1867 (I, $3 545ff.) and devoted a ‘life-long study’ to ‘the doctrine of the
essential nature and fundamental varieties of possible semiosis’ (v, $ 488).
Since his drafts of the nineties, where the name ‘semiotic’ was first introduced
for the new branch of knowledge, were published only in the posthumous
edition of Peirce’s legacy, they could hardly have been known to Ferdinand de
Saussure when, like his American precursor, the Swiss linguist in turn conceived
the need for a general science of signs which he tentatively labeled ‘skmiologie’
and which he considered indispensable €or the interpretation of language and
all other systems of signs in their interrelation with language: ‘Puisqu’elle
n’existe pas encore, on ne peut dire ce qu’elle sera; mais elle a droit 8 l’existence,
sa place est dkterminke d’avance ... Par 18, non seulement on Cclairera le problkme
linguistique, mais nous pensions qu’en considkrant les rites, les coutumes,
etc., comme des signes, ces faits apparaitront sous un autre jour, et on sentira
le besoin de les grouper dans la skmiologie et de les expliquer par les lois de cette
science’ (156, p. 33).
The first, highly interesting version of Saussure’s views on the prospective
science of signs was recorded by his Geneva colleague A. Naville: ‘M. Ferdinand
de Saussure insiste sur l’importance d‘une science trbs gknkrale, qu’il appelle
skmiologie et dont I’objet serait les lois de la crkation et de la transformation des
signes et de leur sens. La skmiologie est une partie essentielle de la sociologie
[since social life, as Naville comments, is not conceivable without the existence
of communicative signs]. Comme le plus important des systkmes de signes
c’est le langage conventionnel des hommes, la science skmiologique la plus
avancke c’est la linguistique ou science des lois de la vie du langage. La linguistique
est, ou du moins tend 8 devenir de plus en plus, une science des lois’
(1.27).
We have witnessed a spontaneous and rapid international development of the
new discipline which encompasses a general theory of signs, a description of