<TITLE: Space vs. Time: Geography and Geometry in Roman Jakobson's Eurasian Phonology
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: humanities
DISCIPLINE: Slavonic philology
EVENT TYPE: lecture
FILE ID: ULEC040
NOTES: continued in ULECD050

RECORDING DURATION: 62 min 25 sec

RECORDING DATE: 6.4.2004

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: unknown

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 3

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: French; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: male; AGE: unknown

S3: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: unknown; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: female; AGE: unknown

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S2> i think we can we can start we can start </S2>
<S1> (xx) signal </S1>
<S2> yeah er you you can you can er . go to the topic er without without <S1> [okay] </S1> [my] my interruptions </S2>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<S1> @@ okay so first i'd like to introduce myself a little <S2> [yeah yeah] </S2> [bit] so er i am erm a linguist , i am from france i live in switzerland and er my speciality is slavonic languages , er needless to say that the english language is not my speciality at all , so er little by little i have been impressed by the fact that er slavic studies and especially russian studies are reduced to pure literature and to pure russian soul and i got fed up with the idea that the russian soul is a is a topic of knowledge and fortunately i work with er philosophers , so i could have er er another attitude towards what is russian studies , so erm i would like to show you a few examples of what could be done in the in the field of what we call (in lausanne) compared epistemology , compared and historical epistemology of the discourse in language in , eastern and western europe , you see epistemology is a word which in english means something like er general theory of knowledge but <FOREIGN> épistémologie  </FOREIGN> in french is rather the way how the object of science is built how , er what is the difference between an empirical object of knowledge and the object which is built inside the theory , all that is the line of er erm <NAME> <NAME> michel foucault et cetera , and what is really interesting , when instead of reading translations you read the originals , it is (for that) full er scholars , who seem to be as well known as jakobson , as a matter of fact the- erm reading his original texts in russian or czech for instance , you give possibility to discover a huge erm universe a huge world of the very poorly known erm er sources so i would like to introduce you to er an aspect of roman jakobson which is extremely poorly known i mean the emergence of his ideas in ph- er phonology , which cannot be understood if you don't know the so-called eurasian and eurasanists erm ideology so <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD, P:10> i don't know exactly who you are so i suppose that at least roman jakobson is well-known <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD, P:11> we'll have to speak of another scholar who is nikolai sergeevich trubetskoy <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD, P:11> and finally <COUGH> another very interesting and original scholar who is absolutely unknown who is a geographer and he's petr nikolaevich savitsky <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD, P:09> so . jakobson is well-known in the west , mainly as being an american scholar he has been known i- e- mainly after the second world war when he went when he flew from er sweden to erm to new york in 1943 and there he became known as mhm one of the greatest linguists in the second half of the 20th century but it is not very well known that , first of all , you see he was (on) at the end of the 19th century he's of the same generation of what is called er the generation of er erm the 90s and of er the 19th century , er he was a jew but his families were erm well off enough to enable him to live in moscow when jews were well er reduced to a small portion of the russian territory before the revolution but er erm his parents er er belonged to the so-called seventh guild which enabled them to to in- to live in erm in the capital , moscow and st petersburg erm a- just after the revolution jakobson used to know all the avant-gardists er poets like <NAME> <NAME> et cetera but er he was also a student of slavic languages his first erm speciality was the czech language and as he knew the czech language he was allowed to leave the russia in 1922 and to go to er prague where he would work in the russia in the soviet's erm e- they had no embassy there at the time but it was a soviet delegation and he worked as an interpreter , as a translator for er russian war prisoners after the first world war so <COUGH> erm what is interesting in this trip of jakobson going to to prague in 1920 is that he took a boat from riga to gdansk in poland and on that the erm er that erm boat , he , sort of discovered phonology through prosody and poetics so perhaps er i'll show you how phonology <COUGH> was born on a boat e- na- he that's the way he explained all all that perhaps you know that er <NAME>'s book on er erm the relationship between jakobson and poetry <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD, P:05> i'm afraid little by little nothing will be readable here but . so on that er boat jakobson er met er czech people and they began to compare erm what is poetic and what is not poetic in russian and in czech and er jakobson explains that it is by comparing poems in russian and czech that he came to the idea of er relevance , of what are relevant features inside er er phonological system so they took er the verse by lermontov er <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD, P:13> <FOREIGN> burja mgloju nebo kroet </FOREIGN> erm the the tempests erm covers the the sky , with erm er with mist and you see all that is a typical er rigan regular verse <FOREIGN> burja mgloju nebo kroet </FOREIGN> you have the stress on the first syllable of the (xx) <IMITATING STRESS> ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta </IMITATING STRESS> if you translate it pres- er directly , etymologically , from russian to czech you , get <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD, P:16> <FOREIGN> boure mlhou nebe kryje </FOREIGN> and the result will be totally different because it won't be poetical anymore so you have er <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD, P:06> you have long short short long short short short short so you you lose the er erm regularities of the poem you see that etymologically all those words are to- er very transparently er connected with each other but what is poetic in o- one language is not anymore in another language , of course all that has been very well-known for thousands of years from erm antique prosody but what is new in er in this discovery of jakobson is , that what is relevant in one language is not relevant anymore in another one it means that you see , if you erm you tape erm those two languages with a tape recorder or any sound recorder er at the time <COUGH> a stressed er er syllable is the long in russian as long as long syllable is long in czech but the stress is free in in russian and it's not free in czech because in czech the stress is always on the first syllable on the other hand what is free in czech is er short and long vowels i mean the syllable quantities but it's not free in russian so what was important for him was to figure out what is relevant in one language and what is not and what was important is that er erm the pure er physical taping of a sound is not enough to get the answer so you can register sound you can register sound with very very precise er machines but you won't get to the what is essential in er in the language and that led to a fantastic crisis of linguistics and the first third of er 20th century er many people had fantastic illusions that the erm this those engines or recording sounds will be very helpful to get to what is essential in a language where at as a matter of fact the more precise the engines were and the more catastrophic the crisis was so <COUGH> jakobson and trubetzkoy are well-known for having er discovered and worked in phonology pho- phonology is , er difference between phonetics and phonology is that er in phonology each language is a system and in each of those systems you get a special set of relevant features which belong only to that system so phonetics is er a part of physics or of physiology it is a universal science but phonology or what is called in in english phonemics is what belongs to one and the same system of er one language <P:08> so after the second world war in the west or in what is called west in brackets erm er general linguistics was a sort of mixture between ferdinand de saussure jakobson and trubetzkoy they were the three main er well-known names of general er er linguistics , but it is , to my opinion very important to , underscore the fact that jakobson and trubetzkoy came from another part of europe , they didn't come from another planet they came from er another part of europe i mean you see it is obvious that china and japan are really really different from what we have in europe but to what extent is russia different from western europe and there's the word western and eastern europe erm do those words have a meaning if you have eastern and western europe now where there's the border pass between all them and is there something like a central europe or you know that for instance the czech writer milan kundera thought that er russia is not at all in eastern europe as in western asia for instance so you see that er concepts like east and west are extremely related it is very difficult to even imagine that , those words have a meaning none the less for many russian intellectuals thi- this was an important topic , for many of them the difference between er the so-called russia and the so-called west didn't have a meaning and er int- intellectual history of er russian in er russian and culture it is something er important so i'll show you <USES OVERHEAD PROJECTOR> two lines two borderlines in in europe , you see <COUGH> the first line line a is the border the imagined border between the russia and the west for the so-called er slavophiles the slavophiles were those intellectuals in russia in the middle of the 19th century after the victory on napoleon russia had won the er the war but the the russian officers went er er came to in the western europe were amazed by the difference between russia and what they saw in the west and when they came back they had to to think of the reasons of that the er difference and two possible models now (had emerged) , there was <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> the so-called , slavophile model model and so-called westernisers' model for the westernisers <FOREIGN> zapadniki </FOREIGN> they felt that er there is the time lag between russia and the west , er it mean that russia is just late and just give some time and erm russia will erm how do you say erm . <FOREIGN> (otstavanie) </FOREIGN> put up with this er with er being late you see on the other side the slavophiles thought that russia is not late at all this is 1836 this is chadaaev first philosophical letter and on the other side you had aksakov family for instance all those people who think that no it's not true russia is not late russia is different essentially different totally different so that er it is not even possible to compare russia and the west because they are like two different planets it would be ridiculous to try to compare jupiter and er saturn for instance it has nothing to do you see they are two different universes so the main topic of the slavophiles is that every kind of comparison is not only impossible but should not be made at all comparison is impossible whereas for the westernisers it is enough to put up the er er erm the <FOREIGN> (otstavanie) </FOREIGN> how could i say that in <FOREIGN> (xx) </FOREIGN> in english <S3> er </S3> <SS> @@ </SS> anyway i hope you see what i mean , okay so you see that we have here two kind two different kinds of ideology and two different ways of er erm imagining this the er this extreme suffering of being different from the west for instance like let's take the the diary of a writer by dostoevsky the main topic of this book by dostoevsky is now he went to rome he went to the sistine chapel and he said oh that's so beautiful so fantastic but they don't like us they don't love us so as we cannot be like them so let's be different , now , the , for people for er philosophers and geographers like <NAME> or <NAME> in the middle of the 19th century they draw a line which is (so-called) supposed to be the real border between two different worlds and more or less it is supposed to be the very ancient border between the roman catholic church and the orthodox be- byzantine church <COUGH> you see that finland is on the er er russian side of the border and er even hungary is on the russian side on the orthodox side of the border that means that all that is the west and you see that the border includes let's say for instance croatia slovenia er a part of austria and a part of hungary but not not poland of course but finland is on the on the eastern side of the border , so this is the more or less the middle 19th century border between the east and west now after the revolution many russian emigrants went to central europe mainly to prague some went to berlin some went to belgrade or paris but there was a very important group of russian intellectual emigrants to er central europe and especially to prague , why prague because er the czechoslovak government of <NAME> had was extremely generous for the russian emigrants and er er gave a lot of money to to organise er er russian university the russian er gymnasium because <NAME> er though that er the bolshevik regime could not last very er very long and should be replaced by er new people who would be er democratically oriented , so those people , called themselves <FOREIGN> (xx) </FOREIGN> <COUGH> the eurasianists <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD, P:05> and those eurasianists i i'll erm introduce them to you had another , the what is important is this fascination towards limits and borders and towards very precisely clear-cut limits this new line is here you see and the main , what is quite important to see is how much the border moved eastwards now finland is on the west side of the border and all central europe is on the west side of the border er even greece er is outside the border and you see that the the main erm er points are murmansk brest galatsi and the baltic states are also on the west side of the border this is the new limit of erm er russia , and more exactly what those people call eurasia . now why eurasia <P:11> generally among geographers eurasia is known as the europe and asia altogether from the atlantic ocean to the er pacific ocean but for those people eurasia was something different . this rectangle is eurasia , and what was important for them , is to show that , eurasia which is more or less the same as the former russian empire and the new soviet union that eurasia is something natural , not artificial not political but totally natural , little by little we get to this er (xx) now er jakobson worked in prague trubetzkoy worked in vienna and savicky also was in prague and all those people tried to , er prove scientifically that eurasia is something natural something organical something alive , and all those vitalistic metaphors are very important because they all er always rely on organic metaphors the image of the body of the human body is very important you see all of those people were high intellectuals and they flew from russia and at the beginning of an er the 20s they were afraid that the former russian empire would split up in different parts and for them , for instance the the mere idea of independence of ukraine or er caucasus et cetera was not only unimaginable but it was a crime it was a crime especially as it would be er er stupid to cut off a a part of your body er because every organ in a body is er indispensable so erm cutting away er ukraine or georgia or armenia et cetera et cetera it is a crime because er er it could er er lead to the death of this living body which is eurasia <COUGH> , so , i'm going to present you how , jakobson trubetzkoy and savicky represented the what they called eurasia , so , what is important in this way of er er proving facts , is that , reality , precedes scientific investigation what is real exists before the scientists discover it exactly as for plato for plato for instance , a triangle exists independently on the length of all of its sides , the mere idea of a triangle does not need er any mathematicians to to think about it you don't invent a triangle you just discover it because the idea of a triangle precedes investigation exactly the same way , eurasia pre-exists you have to discover it so you have to see it it's a matter of er er ocular pedagogy just <COUGH> open your eyes , stop being blind to what is real stop imagining that for instance the , ural mountains are a border between europe and asia this is not true this has been invented by er european scholars the you see that the what is important in er the the way all those people worked is that there is apparent reality and there is real reality apparently you can think that , mhm , (xx) okay that you can think that , you see <DRAWING ON THE BLACKBOARD> for instance this would be europe and this would be asia but it is not true the ural mountains are not a border you have to open your eyes and see what is real <P:07> and what is real is that , everything which belongs to this huge territory is organic alive harmonious that nothing is er erm made by chance there is no chaos everything is ordered and harmonious , let's take let's think of savicky , savicky is a an important person in that his intellectual history he was jakobson's godfather when jakobson was a jew er got baptised into the orthodox religion in 1936 in prague and the godfather is important in orthodox religion so they were very closely linked together , er savicky explains that if you er if you take for instance er botanic er borders then you get extremely regular stripes , there you get the semi-desertic tundra then you get the forest which is the taiga then you get steppe then the desert then the mountains and what is fascinating for savicky is that all that is not only regular but even periodical exactly as in the erm mendeleev table of er er chemical elements <COUGH> for instance you will see that this is only one aspect of this fantastic harmonious regularity of the erm eurasian territory let's take for instance temperature it's obvious that when you g- go from north to the south the temperature will get higher but if you go from south to the erm north then humidity will get smaller but that's not enough , you see , you have those er er five stripes of vegetation here but as you get to the periphery then those five stripes get smaller er , they get smaller and when (there are) five stripes here little by little you have only three stripes in the periphery and finally you have only two i mean here for instance you will get taiga and the steppe here you will have the er er the tundra taiga and the steppe and only in the centre you have all those five stripes so , the idea is that , when you are in the centre of this territory then you don't only have the centre you ha- have the kernel the kernel is the most dense erm number of relevant features on this territory , now it's not all , that goes for jakobson for instance , this , botanic study of eurasia and climatic study , corresponds to what is relevant in difference between all languages so now , let's take the same eurasian territory and let's study what's at stake with the study of languages , now , you probably know that in russian there is er er a relevant feature which is the different between hard and soft consonants for instance in russian you will have <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> <FOREIGN> tok tëk </FOREIGN> which means that whereas here you have a hard consonant and here you have the soft consonant <FOREIGN> tok tëk </FOREIGN> so for jakobson what is common to all the languages of the soviet union or of eurasia is precisely this relevant feature of the difference between hard and soft consonants , <COUGH> but you have er er hardness of consonants also in languages like er japanese for instance which obviously are not eurasian languages so jakobson takes another relevant feature which is polytony polytony is the difference of pitch between syllables like in swedish for instance , and the result is that , you see on the north west there is er er polytonic union of languages which includes er er lithuanian for instance on the south east you also have the union polytonic languages like the chinese er erm vietnamese et cetera and he says wherever you have erm languages with the er positive feature of hard and soft consonant and the negative feature of absence of polytony then <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> what you get is the eurasian union of languages for instance he thinks that turkic languages have this erm , er hard soft consonant er opposition which as a matter of fact is not so obvious but let's admit that it's like that , and erm all around those languages this language union of eurasia you have another territory where languages have neither hard soft consonant opposition nor polytony these are all the rest of the er known languages you see that now for jakobson says that all those languages are typically er central , he means that the others are typically peripheric what first the the the terminology is important typical or a type is extremely frequently used by jakobson trubetzkoy and all those people we if we have time we'll speak of the idea of ty- of type and typology now <COUGH> you see that for jakobson there are typically central features and typically peripheric er features which is quite different from erm the work of the so-called for instance neolinguists in italy at the same time there were <NAME> <NAME> er <NAME> all those people who also studied linguistic geography , but for the italian neolinguists , they think that for instance you have on a certain point you have er linguistic innovation and little by little it spreads out as you know when you throw the stone into the water you have concentric erm waves , but what is important is that for the neolinguists any point can be a centre , so any point can be periphery , which was not true at all for jakobson and the eurasianist because for jakobson a centre is in the middle e- it's not a joke you see you have to understand what he means that the centre in the middle because a centre may not be in the middle let's sa- let's take for instance st petersburg it's obvious that st petersburg is er er was the administrative and political centre of russia but it was not at all in the centre now moscow is the centre but it's not in the middle so you see what is really strange i think and quite fascinating is it is that er geography is (governed) by geometry and geometry is a way of explaining what is true on the surface of the earth , now the idea that geography is (governed) by geometry is not new you have for instance er er erm romantic geographers like carl ritter <COUGH> <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> carl ritter who erm worked in the first third of the 19th century he was very highly inspirited by hegel and he also thought that it is enough to look at the the shape the form of the continents to figure out what is their real essence you just have to see once again it's a metaphor (opening your eyes) no it's a more or less like er st paul on the way to (damascus) when er he was er first blinded and little by little he discovered god i think god , is indispensable to explain all that it means that er er we pure poor mortals we can see only the surface of things and that a real scientist is he who can er er open his eyes and see what is hidden behind the surface of thing it is he who can go to (what) essence of things , now if you can go to the essence of things it presupposes that this essence exists before your scientific investigation , now what did trubetzkoy do , trubetzkoy worked more or less in the same direction , trubetzkoy of course is well-known as a linguist but first of all he was very interested in ethno-psychology , and in folklore studies , erm for instance trubetzkoy also thinks thinks that you have to study all the relevant features on this territory for instance he takes folk dances now he says that , from this point which is you know the main fantastic border this is the real border because they were not interested between the bo- by the border between russia and china for instance they had they were not interested in china they were interested precisely here what is here the difference between (the) and the other the other western europe so er he says let's take for instance folk dances in folk dances on the west european part of the of the border people dance in couples whereas on the eastern side of this border people s- dance is groups this is not big prob- from from the western part we have er three times er erm folk dan- er folk music for instance er waltz but on this side you don't have three times folk music you have only er er two times and and four times folk music let's take the pentatonic game it begins here precisely in the (<NAME>) marshes and it goes to in the china but it's not known on this part of the border so , the idea of jakobson and trubetzkoy was that every scientists has to work in his own specialty to draw all the lines er where er you can be a geographer you can be a specialist of er er erm soil morphology you can be a specialist of erm er let's say er ethnic psychology and then you see all these lines on the transparency and oh miracle all those line correspond , you see it is a huge theory of correspondences a huge theory of coincidence it means that r- what is real is already structured before any investigation , now we can little by little go on of this demonstration and please remember that the the er centre is in the middle and er so you see that for instance for savicky there is then <DRAWING ON THE BLACKBOARD> axis of symmetry which crosses here in the kernel and of course for er jakobson axis of symmetry is like that but it does not matter the what is important is that precisely , er precisely this ax- er er those different axes cross here in the middle w- once again we get er er geometric way of er accessing reality , geometry harmony symmetry are relevant for all those people because they have the idea that there cannot there there must be order symmetry harmony in what is real and what is real is hidden er er behind er surface of things <P:12> there are many different ways of proving the same , this for instance is a map er which has been er done by savicky in 1933 you see it's the the map of the zones of equidistance if you take the the the coasts as er the criterion then </S1>
<S2> (xx) </S2>
<S1> sorry </S1>
<S2> czech language </S2>
<S1> it's czech yes it's czech <S2> [yeah yeah] </S2> [(xx)] because he was er er he he was (it was painted) in in prague he lived in prague in in erm all his life so you see the idea is that there is something extremely specific in eurasia eurasia here y- it's is there's the only place in the world of the whole planet where you get the territory which is more than two thousand and four hundred kilometres from the sea , it is the only place where that is possible because for instance here the maximum distance is one thousand and six hundred kilometres so once again if you don't see that it means that you are blind and the the aim of the demonstration is to show that yes it's true something is special here now er , this is not original more or less at the same time there was the german er geopolitics like for instance carl von (haushofer) who had more or less the same ideas and in 1904 there was john mackinder in great britain who had the idea that the whole world is divided into two <SIC> imperiums </SIC> the ocean empire which is the british empire and the earth empire which is the russian empire and the er the very begin of 19th century was a time when er , the russian and the british met in near a- afghanistan you see and it was very important to to understand the the whole er geopolitics of er of this er er period and of course the er those ideas are not finished yet th- there is a war in afghanistan it's fought because there is the the the rest of this <SIC> emperious </SIC> war between the russian and the and the british here in afghanistan so you see that , all the reasoning is always the same the reality is hidden but you have to to see it now all that can be erm . we can proceed with this demonstration <COUGH> <P:07> (xx) (some) will of course but i'm sorry it's it's what what's very important for all those people in er the 30s so let's take for instance , two points on the map this is pskov <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> and this is <SPELLING> novocherkassk </SPELLING> pskov is er er near estonia and novocherkassk is on the er north-west of the caucasus , if you draw a line from pskov to novocherkassk you get er an isogloss which is very well known on this part of the isogloss you s- you have the glottal er er velar stop <PRONOUNCES THE SOUND> and on this part you have er velar fricative <PRONOUNCES THE SOUND> <FOREIGN> noga noga </FOREIGN> is very well known everybody every slavist knows that that's not a problem but what is important is once again the theory of correspondence for savicky for instance , on this side of the border of the limit there are more than 110 days of frost every year whereas on this side there are less than 110 of frost , on this side the rivers melt after april the 15th and here they melt before april the 15th on this side erm the peasant er grow mainly er sheep and on this side they grow mainly pork pigs you see so you see what is really fascinating , in this theory of er er of knowledge is that <COUGH> you have to er to teach your eyes to see because er god and er for savicky it's quite obvious god has given order harmony symmetry in the in the world and the er for all those people the so-called romano-germanic er way of thought is that an inferior because the romano-germanic way of thought won't accept this idea of correspondence , for instance for trubetzkoy trubetzkoy was extremely shocked that his colleagues in vienna university , they may have religion they may have er profession they may have political opinions but all those er features were not linked together , you you can er er have religion which is not linked with your political opinions et cetera which was totally intolerable for him because he thought that er er erm erm mind soul were er a harmonious whole and er that er you everything must be linked together for instance he was fascinated by the idea that in byzantium er philosophy religion and politics were the same thing and er er he thought that what is bad in the west is the analytical method <SIC> analytism </SIC> is bad because you you lose the link the er harmonious and organic link between all those elements <COUGH> now we get to erm the vocabulary which is extremely er frequent among all those people is the idea of <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> organic , whole , and what i want to point at is that organic whole is not the same as the structure for structuralism because unfortunately there are misunderstandings about this idea of the whole or wholeness <FOREIGN> tselostnost' </FOREIGN> <FOREIGN> ganzheit </FOREIGN> and the idea of structure , you see for instance in russian it is er er sort of er reflex when in in er russian scientific text you say <FOREIGN> A i B neotryvno svyazany </FOREIGN> A and B are er interconnected then you are supposed to have proven the er mere existence of your object whereas i think if you say that in english or french well it doesn't prove anything , that A and B are er intrinsically connected but for all those people they mostly rely on the knowledge of german culture and i think mostly on the knowledge of the er er german er romantic epistemic world erm before all on the knowledge of er schelling , you see for surprise i've just come to schelling which is who is er not so easy to read i think the idea is that the the subject and the object of knowledge must be altogether mhm the it is the opposite of the cut er er theory of knowledge now <COUGH> if only if there must not be distance between the subject and the object of the knowledge so er er of course you can know only yourself and it was funny no- er er some years ago it was in st petersburg and i proposed to my russian colleagues to work on the er an international project of comparison between french and russian linguistics and one of my colleagues there er said that yes great that's really good idea you know you're the french you will er study french linguistics and we the russian we will study fre- the russian linguistics and i said no i'm sorry but it's impossible what you propose is not comparison it is juxtaposition , it's so different you see so i think this i- the idea that er the object and the subject of knowledge must be one and the same thing are unfortunately erm very frequent in this way of of er thought now , what is important in all this er biological and vitalistic metaphors is that er , erm eurasia is a living body , and as a living body you cannot tear the organs apart from a whole organism because all the erm erm organs of an organism are linked together they need each other and they cannot be understood er one without the other so you see how er near we are of the idea of structure , in a structure it is it seems to be the same in a structure the parts of the structure have no existence without each other if you take er er a phoneme from erm er phonemic system then the whole system will be changed , but here if you kill an organ inside an organism then you will kill the whole organism it's not exactly the same , the relationship between the parts of a structure are not the same as between the the organs of an organism an organism is not a structure an organism is an organism now er perhaps er what i want to say is that the biological metaphor , is not negative because this metaphor has been the way on the discovery of the idea of structure , because from very different points of departures they came more or less to the same ideas as ferdinand de saussure but with extremely different philosophical and cultural backgrounds , for instance those people have insisted on the idea of function and functionalism you know that for (xx) structuralism (there) er has been er (mold) by the idea of function now where does the idea of function come from once again they take er erm their examples in biology you see let's take for instance the er er front er er members of er ma- <FOREIGN> mammifères </FOREIGN> from er the arms for instance of the human body or the the front legs for the dogs and (cattle) <COUGH> and let's take the , the wings of the birds any birds the origin of the wings of the birds is the same genetically it is the same as our arms for instance but they don't have the same function at all whereas if you take the wings of the insects which have absolutely no connection at all historically er genetically there is no connection between the wings of the insects and the wings of the birds but none the less the wings of the insects and the wings of the birds have exactly the same function they allow you to fly so you see that what is very important is that the function is not linked linked with er er genetics function is in linguistics is not linked with historical er study of languages , whereas er for all the the openness for the neogrammarians for instance and for the whole 19th century linguistics what was at stake in er their study was to reconstruct the ancestor of the languages that you study , now , why is it important for er jakobson and trubetzkoy , to deal with functionalism and not with historical er linguistics it is to show that , let's say for instance let's take the study of languages you have polish er czech slovak er et cetera bulgarian then you have russian so polish , czech slovak er slovenia serbo-croatian bulgarian and russian , in a traditional attitude you will say that this is a language family and trubetzkoy says of course it is true it is the er language family but it is not the most important because what is more important more interesting more real is a language union , and if you you work like jakobson and if you show that there are relevant features in russian which are shared by let's say tatarian chuvash and uzbek and armenian et cetera then , you will get , something which is different which is a language union and in this language union what is important is function and not origin , so you get the new opposition between causality and <WRITING ON BLACKBOARD> tele- teleology , the aim the function what is aimed at is more relevant than the origin and the cause , the scientists who deal with causality are bad scientists and the one who deal with tel- teleology are good scientists and where can you find good scientists in the eurasian science and you get bad scientist in roman in romano-germanic scientists because they deal with er erm erm systematicity with synthesis whereas those deal with er <SIC> analytism </SIC> they are positivists they are bad , ah , you see little by little we get an epistemic world which to my sense , should be read and taken seriously because if you don't take that seriously if you think that what is modern in erm erm general linguistics is what has been done by jakobson and then by chomsky then you you lose all this history you lose all that erm er general intellectual and cultural background which enables you to understand what does the idea of function means mean in (xx) functionalism for instance and i think that unfortunately in the er in er in university books of erm general linguistics it's there is y- you find this explanation very seldom so i'm not perhaps we er i shall er er stop here and then will be er er happy to answer some questions </S1>
<DISCUSSION ULECD050>
