Marxism and the Philosophy of Language

by V. N. Volosinov, Ladislav Matejka (Translator), I. R. Titunik (Translator)

Overview

V. N. Vološinov’s important work, first published in Russian in 1929, had to wait a generation for recognition. This first paperback edition of the English translation will be capital for literary theorists, philosophers, linguists, psychologists, and many others.

Vološinov is out to undo the old disciplinary boundaries between linguistics, rhetoric, and poetics in order to construct a new kind of field: semiotics or textual theory. Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik have provided a new preface to discuss Vološinov in relation to the great resurgence of interest in all the writing of the circle of Mikhail Bakhtin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674550988
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	07/21/1986
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.88(h) x 0.50(d)

Table of Contents

Translators' Preface, 1986

Author's Introduction, 1929

Guide to Translation

Translators' Introduction

PART 1: THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR MARXISM

1. The Study of Ideologies and Philosophy of Language

2. Concerning the Relation of the Basis and Superstructures

3. Philosophy of Language and Objective Psychology

PART 2: TOWARD A MARXIST PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

1. Two Trends of Thought in Philosophy of Language

2. Language, Speech. And Utterance

3. Verbal Interaction

4. Theme and Meaning in Language

PART 3: TOWARD A HISTORY OF FORMS OF UTTERANCE IN LANGUAGE CONSTRUCTORS (Study in the Application of the Sociological Method to Problems of Syntax)

1. Theory of Utterance and the Problems of Syntax

2. Exposition of the Problems of Reported Speech

3. Indirect Discourse, Direct Discourse, and Their Modification

4. Quasi-Direct Discourse in French, German, and Russian

Appendix 1. On the First Russian Prolegomena to Semiotics

Ladislav Matejka

Appendix 2. The Formal Method and the Sociological Method (M.M. Baxtin, P.N. Medvedev, (V.N. Volosinov) in Russian Theory and Study of Literature

I. R Titunik

Index

What People are Saying About This

In this one book a reader can discover the ideas of Bakhtin and his circle about language, not as a conceptual metaphor, but as that aspect of human life which is in fact the subject matter of a cumulative science. Its critical account of the state of linguistic thought in the first decades of the century is all that a sociological or Marxist critique can and should be: not a stereotyped application of received categories, but an attempt to think through from the foundation the consequence of taking social interaction; not the abstract individual speaker, as starting point…Brilliant.

Editorial Reviews

In this one book a reader can discover the ideas of Bakhtin and his circle about language, not as a conceptual metaphor, but as that aspect of human life which is in fact the subject matter of a cumulative science. Its critical account of the state of linguistic thought in the first decades of the century is all that a sociological or Marxist critique can and should be: not a stereotyped application of received categories, but an attempt to think through from the foundation the consequence of taking social interaction; not the abstract individual speaker, as starting point… The empirical consequences developed in the course of the book…are just as valuable today as ever… Brilliant.

Dell Hymes

This is, in my opinion, the central corpus in the work of the Russian semiotic tradition attributed to Bakhtin’s circle.

Michael Cole

Quite simply one of the best general introductions to linguistics study as a whole.

Style - Fredric Jameson

This book is a masterpiece of theoretical thought. It anticipates the actual achievements of much of what we now call sociolinguistics. The ‘dialectic of the sign’ and of the verbal sign in particular as it is presented in the book acquires great suggestive value in the light of today’s debates about semiotics.

Roman Jakobson

Quite simply one of the best general introductions to linguistics study as a whole.--Fredric Jameson "Style"

In this one book a reader can discover the ideas of Bakhtin and his circle about language, not as a conceptual metaphor, but as that aspect of human life which is in fact the subject matter of a cumulative science. Its critical account of the state of linguistic thought in the first decades of the century is all that a sociological or Marxist critique can and should be: not a stereotyped application of received categories, but an attempt to think through from the foundation the consequence of taking social interaction; not the abstract individual speaker, as starting point... The empirical consequences developed in the course of the book...are just as valuable today as ever... Brilliant.--Dell Hymes

This is, in my opinion, the central corpus in the work of the Russian semiotic tradition attributed to Bakhtin's circle.--Michael Cole

This book is a masterpiece of theoretical thought. It anticipates the actual achievements of much of what we now call sociolinguistics. The 'dialectic of the sign' and of the verbal sign in particular as it is presented in the book acquires great suggestive value in the light of today's debates about semiotics.--Roman Jakobson

From the Publisher

Quite simply one of the best general introductions to linguistics study as a whole.

Style - Freric Jameson