BRIDGING SAUSSUREAN STRUCTURALISM AND BRITISH LINGUISTIC THOUGHT

British linguistic thought in the first half of the 20th century reacted against the Saussurean oppositions signifiant/signifié, langue/parole, and signification/valeur. Ogden & Richards (1923) reject them on epistemologi­cal, orthological, and terminological grounds. For Bronislaw Malinowski meaning in a pre-literate language cannot be described by the dyadic sign. Alan H. Gardiner too rejects this concept of the sign, but he modifies langue/parole and synchronietdiachronie to make them complementary. J.R. Firth rejects most of the Saussurean canon, but the starting point of his own line of analysis proves to be indistinguishable from the same brand of functionalism. The connection between the British linguistic tradition and Saussure therefore displays a full range of positions from incompatibility to unwilling and unwitting compatibility. © 1994 John Benjamins Publishing Company.