Ricerc@Sapienza

The last decades have seen an increasing work of reconstruction of the theoretical thought of Ferdinand de Saussure, a huge work in which the Italian linguist and philosopher Tullio De Mauro played an important role, leading to the «authentic voice» of Saussure. This paper investigates a central issue of Saussurean theory of language, the conception of language as an autonomous system of signs, which contains a puzzling antinomy: if the langue is an autonomous system of «pure values», speakers could not use it to communicate among them. De Mauro offers a way out of the system antinomy introducing
a third implicit principle of Saussurean linguistics: in the theory of the Swiss linguist the conception of language as an autonomous system coexists with the theorization of the intrinsic connection between langue, time, and linguistic community. Each act of parole is a sort of «linguistic game» inwhich the meaning of the sign, fixed in the linguistic system, fluctuates from
the determinacy of the system to the indeterminacy of linguistic practises. The contribution of De Mauro is precious not only to reach a more detailed reading of Saussurean thought, but also to integrate the paradigm of cognitive linguistics and semantics, which often loses sight of the social and cultural essence of language and of his rooting in the real life of speakers.