Benedetto Croce et la linguistique By Marcel Deneckere (review)

BOOK NOTICES 207 cation and linguistic typology. His book Les classifications, l'objet, les méthodes, les conclusions de la linguistique (1882) is still worth reading, not only because of its refutation of Darwinism, but also because of its pre-Boasian defense of the autonomy of linguistics. The longest article is that by Chevalier & Encrevé: 'La création de revues dans les ann ées 60: Matériaux pour l'histoire récente de la linguistique en France' (57-102). It is based on a series of interviews (with G. Antoine, A. Culioli, J. Dubois, A. Greimas, M. Gross, J. Kristeva , A. Martinet, J. Perrot, B. Pottier, B. Quemada , N. Ruwet, J. Stéfanini, and G. Straka), from which C&E have distilled an extremely interesting account of French linguistics since the 1930's. We learn here how linguistics was taught by people such as Vendryes, Meillet, Brunot, Roques, Millardet, Fouché, Guillaume, Dauzat, Bruneau, Marouzeau, Wagner, Cohen, Gougenheim , and many others; how they attracted young students; and how they (especially Meillet ) organized the field. The interview materials are highly valuable, and open to further study. The various careers of the scholars interviewed are clearly outlined, and some of their projects are thoroughly discussed—e.g. Straka's foundation -laying work at Strasbourg, together with P. Imbs; and Quemada's enterprises in Besan- çon, Saint-Cloud, and Paris; these brought about a radical transformation of French linguistics , partly because of the journals founded by these scholars. The final part of the article deals with 'la relance parisienne'—the growing success of groups around Culioli, Dubois, and Pottier, with the foundation of Langages and Languefrançaise—and with the fascination exerted by American structuralism and transformational grammar (which have perhaps not been properly digested by French linguists, apart from a few rare exceptions such as M. Gross). B. Laks, 'Le champ de la sociolinguistique française de 1968 à 1983: Production et fonctionnement ' (103-28), provides a welcome survey of French sociolinguistics, divided into a number of orientations (functional sociolinguistics , study of spoken language, ethnography of communication, ethnolinguistics, applied sociolinguistics etc.; see pp. 108-10), and classified into four 'stocks': 'travaux sociolinguistiques à orientation linguistique', 'travaux sociolinguistiques à orientation descriptive', 'les analyses discursives et textuelles', and 'travaux sociolinguistiques à orientation critique, théorique ou idéologique'. L analyses the structure of the field of French sociolinguistics—in which theoretical and ideological studies constitute a major part—and its relation to the global field of linguistics; he then explains the respective success of each orientation, and describes its position within the market of publications (books, journals, series, ...) All in all, this is a fine and highly readable social history ofFrench modern linguistics. The social viewpoint in historiography is less important when we want to know what previous generations of linguists have said (besides, for more remote periods we do not have the materials to reconstruct the full social context); but it is crucially important when we want to know howand why some things were said and written. [P. Swiggers, Belgian National Science Foundation.] Benedetto Croce et la linguistique. By Marcel Deneckere. 2 vols. (Ling üistica Antwerpiensia, 1:1-2.) Antwerp: Universiteit Antwerpen —Universitaire Centrum, 1983 [1985]. Pp. x, 315; 337. In 1902, the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce published his Estética come scienza dell'espressione e lingüistica generale—a work which was destined to have an extensive influence on linguistics in Italy and Spanish-speaking countries, somewhat less in Germany and Austria , and relatively little elsewhere. What were the reasons for this disparity in Cs influence, and how justified was it? Was C a great but unfairly neglected thinker on language? Should he be rehabilitated in those regions where he has not been influential? To expound Cs doctrines and to answer questions such as these was the late M. Deneckere's aim in this extensive and solid study of Cs thinking on linguistics. Although C was not a linguist in any sense of the term, and was acquainted with only a small sector of contemporary linguistics, he set himself up as an authority in the field, on the basis ofaprioristic speculation on the nature ofhuman language. He regarded language as not only linked with art, poetry, and history, but...