Editing Course in General Linguistics (section)

{{short description|1916 book on linguistics}}
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{{Infobox book
| italic title   = Course in General Linguistics
| name           = Course in General Linguistics
| image          = Cours de linguistique générale.jpg
| image_size     = 200px
| alt            = 
| caption        = 
| author         = [[Ferdinand de Saussure]]
| editor         = [[Charles Bally]]<br>[[Albert Sechehaye]]
| audio_read_by  = 
| title_orig     = Cours de linguistique générale
| orig_lang_code = fr
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| country        = 
| language       = French
| series         = 
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| subject        = Linguistics
| set_in         = 
| published      = 1916
| media_type     = Print
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}}
'''''Course in General Linguistics''''' ({{langx|fr|Cours de linguistique générale}}) is a book compiled by [[Charles Bally]] and [[Albert Sechehaye]] from notes on lectures given by [[Historical-comparative linguistics|historical-comparative linguist]] [[Ferdinand de Saussure]] at the [[University of Geneva]] between 1906 and 1911. It was published in 1916, after Saussure's death, and is generally regarded as the starting point of [[structural linguistics]], an approach to linguistics that was established in the first half of the 20th century by the [[Prague linguistic circle]]. One of Saussure's translators, [[Roy Harris (linguist)|Roy Harris]], summarized Saussure's contribution to linguistics and the study of language in the following way:

{{blockquote|Language is no longer regarded as peripheral to our grasp of the world we live in, but as central to it. Words are not mere vocal labels or communicational adjuncts superimposed upon an already given order of things. They are collective products of social interaction, essential instruments through which human beings constitute and articulate their world. This typically twentieth-century view of language has profoundly influenced developments throughout the whole range of human sciences. It is particularly marked in [[linguistics]], [[philosophy]], [[psychology]], [[sociology]] and [[anthropology]].<ref>Harris, Roy. 1988. ''Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein''. Routledge. p. ix.</ref>}}

Although Saussure's perspective was in [[historical linguistics]], the ''Course'' develops a theory of [[semiotics]] that is generally applicable. A manuscript containing Saussure's original notes was found in 1996, and later published as ''Writings in General Linguistics''.