A questão da influência de Hermann Paul sobre Ferdinand de Saussure: um estudo historiográfico (1880-1946).

Abstract

The historical developments of Linguistics as a socially organized field of knowledge are constituted from complex dynamics between subjects in contexts that allow the production of a specific type of linguistic knowledge. From these connections located in different temporalities, some ideas about language and languages can have different fortunes. Indeed, theories and approaches can be validated, ignored or even perceived as a result of a subject's influence process or with a fruitful intellectual environment for the construction of an idea. The theme of influence on the history of linguistic thought was investigated by Koerner (1971), who recognized, in the Fundamental Principles of the History of Language (1880), by Hermann Paul, the source of inspiration for the formulation of concepts and notions of general Linguistics, by Ferdinand de Saussure. This dissertation was guided by the hypothesis that the Climate of opinion profoundly affected the scientific community at the end of the 19th century and influenced the elaboration of the theoretical methodological approaches of Hermann Paul and Ferdinand de Saussure under two distinct lines of investigation of General Linguistics. To confront the hypothesis, we proposed the general objective: to interpret the question of Hermann Paul's influence on Ferdinand de Saussure. And the following specific objectives: a. establish relationships between the climate of opinion (social, historical context and intellectual atmosphere) and the emergence of general linguistics and b. to assess to what extent the theoretical-methodological approaches of Paul and Saussure fit into two lines of investigation in general linguistics. The framework that anchored this research was provided by the theoretical and methodological foundations of Linguistic Historiography, which defines the writing of the history of Linguistics as a scientific and methodologically oriented process based on investigation procedures and guidelines. The documentary base of this research comprises four historical sources: the General Linguistics Course; the fundamental principles of the history of language; a correspondence and a handwritten text produced by Saussure. We interpret the issue of Paul's influence on Saussure understanding that there is no effective influence of Paul on Saussure because profound influences stem from the Climate of opinion, mainly, with the emergence of general Linguistics and end up affecting the global linguistic community. We understand that the issue of Paul's influence on Saussure involves, in reality, a complex set of events that leaves questions open if we only consider the plan of social actors divorced from the contexts of production of their linguistic ideas.