Saussure for Beginners (Writers and Readers Beginners Documentary Comic Book) [Paperback]

W. Terrence Gordon (Author), Abbe Lubell (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Writers and Readers Beginners Documentary Comic Book | Publication Date: July 1996

A concise, accessible introduction to the great linguist who shaped the study of language for the 20th century, Saussure for Beginners puts the challenging ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure into clear and illuminating terms, focusing on the unifying principles of his teachings and showing how his thoughts on linguistics migrated to anthropology. Cartoons & photos throughout.

Product Details

• Paperback: 122 pages
• Publisher: Writers & Readers (July 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0863161952
• ISBN-13: 978-0863161957
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #765,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great way to come quickly up to speed on Saussure, March 10, 2000

By A Customer

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This review is from: Saussure for Beginners (Writers and Readers Beginners Documentary Comic Book) (Paperback)

If you have not read Saussure before, this is a great advance organizer on his thinking. If you have read him, it is a fine review. You finish the book with a good practical knowledge of Saussure's language and concepts, grounded in the confidence to leap into Structuralism and Deconstruction.

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Comic Book Format Flops, July 1, 2000

By 

Renee Thorpe (Karangasem, Bali) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saussure for Beginners (Writers and Readers Beginners Documentary Comic Book) (Paperback)

Thinking this would help me better understand Saussure and the roots of modern linguistics, I bought and read this book.

It is not helpful at all, and definitely not a Cliff's Notes to Saussure.

I got this book because I was having so much trouble getting behind Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (available here in amazon), a required text for my college course in Linguistics.

The illustrations usually do not illuminate the text, and seldom offer concrete examples of Saussure's theories. A few times, there is a huge hunk of text, illustrated only with a line drawing of Saussure! Saussure's work is a lot to digest, and the sort of reader (like me) who is attracted to a book like this is in need of some simple explanations and illustrations that really make the text come alive. The book actually makes matters more complex. There is little attempt to meaningfully place Saussure in history, and no mention of how differing modern liguistic theories evolved from either illumination of or dissent from Saussure. This sort of historical context, which I now understand, would be a really helpful feature in an illustrated guide to Saussure. This book is actually a great little example of how NOT to write an idiot's guide.

The Gordon/Lubell book only made my confusion worse, and I ended up slogging on through Course in General Linguistics, pestering my professors after every lecture, and so on. My final "A" owes nothing to Saussure For Beginners.

I would be most grateful to any scholar of Linguistics who can visit this review site and post a comparison of the Gordon book to a more simple writing on Saussure. Future first-year Linguistics students will appreciate it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent -- Though Not Far-Sighted, March 8, 2006

By 

Rev. Thomas Scarborough (Cape Town, South Africa) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Saussure for Beginners (Writers and Readers Beginners Documentary Comic Book) (Paperback)

From the point of view of teaching Saussure's famous (and obscure) Course in General Linguistics, this is a good book. It is particularly well developed, even for the "For Beginners" series. With a little concentration, one should emerge from this book with a basic grasp of Saussure's linguistics. Further, the book briefly touches on Saussure's influence on later thinkers such as Levi-Strauss or Derrida.

The book disappointed, however, in answering (or failing to answer) the question, "What is it all FOR?" I shall try to expand briefly on this:

Saussure defines a "sign" as "anything that tells us something other than itself". For instance, "the jagged line on a graph isn't there to make you think about jagged lines; it's there to show sales going up and down". It was Saussure's view that such signs derive their meaning from their relationships to other signs. He gave the example of a chess game. All the pieces (the signs) form a system, and it is the interaction between the pieces, or their relationships, that creates their value.

Supposing, then, that we should apply this to a philosophy of life. Saussure's system of signs could show how people make sense of their world by the value they attribute to various signs. Further, all of these signs would hold meaning only insofar as they related to the whole system. Or supposing that one should desacralise religion, and reinterpret it all in terms of signs -- one would have a whole new way of looking at religion.

This is an excellent book, yet the relationships between Saussure's linguistics and various other systems of meaning are not brought out well. This is arguably what Saussure has become most famous for.