“Albert” de Saussure and the Course in General Linguistics: a hundred years after Ferdinand's death

Abstract

Albert Sechehaye is almost exclusively known as one of the two editors of the Course in General Linguistics. Nevertheless, he did have view of his own about language and Linguistics, which he organized in several works. This paper focuses in one of such works, Programme et méthodes de la linguistique théorique, which was published in 1908 and includes disquisitions that foresee and precede notions like synchrony/ diachrony, value, and system, commonly regarded as saussurian in nature. In order to adequately gauge Sechehaye´s ideas and his ties with Saussure´s thought, the historical background in which both linguists were educated will be considered along with some biographical facts. Given the discrepancies between the Course in General Linguistics and Saussure´s writings, inspecting Sechehaye´s ideas might prove useful to read one of modern Linguistics’ most important books from a new angle