International journal

Speech Genres

ISSN 2311-0759 (Online)
ISSN 2311-0740 (Print)

For citation:

Sériot P. Is language a system of signs? (Lenin, Saussure and the theory of hieroglyphics). Speech Genres, 2023, vol. 18, iss. 4 (40), pp. 394-405. DOI: 10.18500/2311-0740-2023-18-4-40-394-405, EDN: HMJOYA

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Russian
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Article
UDC: 
УДК 81’22+14
DOI: 
10.18500/2311-0740-2023-18-4-40-394-405
EDN: 
HMJOYA

Is language a system of signs? (Lenin, Saussure and the theory of hieroglyphics)

Autors: 
Sériot Patrick, University of Lausanne
Abstract: 

This paper strives to pursue two goals at the same time: – how can one get to know in depth the intellectual life of the Soviet Union in the 1930s–50s? – what can the virulent anti-Saussurean criticism in Russia at that time tell us about the specificity of the Marxist-Leninist theory of sign? We will propose here an apparently narrow angle of attack: the recurring theme of this criticism, namely that Saussure’s Cours presents a ”theory of hieroglyphics” (or symbols), therefore a type of bourgeois idealist theory that Lenin assailed in his 1909 book Materialism and Empiriocriticism about E. Mach, and which was upheld for a time by Plekhanov. But thinking about hieroglyphics is based on much older controversies, dating back to the 17th century about the deciphering of Egyptian writing. The issue which arises here is semiotic in nature: it is the scalar opposition between transparency and opacity of the sign that is at stake. Does the sign hide or reveal? The Soviet discourse on language and signs in the 1930s–50s seems entirely to be based on an interrogation of the sign/referent, language/thought, form/content relationship. A part of the history of semiotics can thus be discovered from the critique of the “hieroglyphic theory”, a little-known episode in a debate on the interpretation of Saussurism.

Key words: 
epistemology
hieroglyphics
Kant
Lenin
Soviet linguistics
Marxism
ontology
Saussure
theory of knowledge
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Received: 
05.02.2022
Accepted: 
01.12.2022
Published: 
30.11.2023