Ricerc@Sapienza

The notion of field has been very productive in twentieth-century language theory in its various forms and varieties: it is an important epistemological notion, originally developed in physics, in the psychology of perception and in Gestalt psychology, and later introduced in language theories. In this transition, an important step was the notion of field elaborated by Bühler, in his studies on perception and Gestalt, as well as on animal languages, along the lines of the ones also carried out by Köhler.

Introduzione e curatela di un numero monografico dedicato: "Field theories. Psychology, linguistics, biology"(ed. by Marina De Palo).

An important development of the notion of “field” in linguistics is found in Karl Bühler’s Sprachtheorie (1934), and in particular in his theory of the two fields (symbolical and deictical), through which he provides a perceptual, pragmatic and social anchoring of language. In Bühler’s work, situation and context jointly determine the material space for the play of linguistic forms (Spielraum). The idea of action is the key to his notion of “field”.

This paper aims to propose some considerations about the European Saussurean tradition focusing on the relation between man and language. It will be argued that, against the current interpretation of Saussure as a promoter of the linguistique de la langue, his notes on the speaker’s judgement about the language and on metalanguage, show a very complex thought. This fact finds important developments in Karl Bühler’s and Émile Benveniste’s theories and in their connections with Hendrik J. Pos’ and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology.