Basic concepts
Linguistic varieties
From his earliest writings, Coseriu addressed linguistic variation alongside questions about functional language and the functioning of linguistic systems. In his essay “La geografía lingüística” (Linguistic Geography), published in 1956, Coseriu argues that variety linguistics should consider varieties in space, i.e., dialectal varieties… [read more]
Synchrony, Diachrony and History
The perhaps most important work of Coseriu’s linguistic theory is Sincronía, Diacronía e historia (“Synchrony, Diachrony and History”), which combines the theoretical foundations to describe linguistic change with the central concepts of Coseriu’s theory of language. As in other treatises of this period, Coseriu… [read more]
System, Norm and Speech
In 1952, Coseriu published the essay Sistema, norma y habla (“System, Norm and Speech”), and soon this distinction entered canonical knowledge of linguistics. In the essay, Coseriu deals with Saussure’s pair of terms, langue and parole, and comes to the conclusion that these are insufficient to cover the entire reality of language… [read more]
Determination and surrounding fields
In 1955/56, the essay “Determinación y entorno”, an extract from the unpublished book Teoría lingüística del nombre propio, was published in the review Romanistisches Jahrbuch. It outlines a linguistic theory of speech which starts by reversing Saussure’s rule that all linguistic questions must proceed from the point of view of the langue. Coseriu… [read more]
The correct and the Exemplary
JK: You have consistently stated that if the terminology is consistent with the common usage, it should not deviate much from its meaning. In your work on “Corrección idiomática” (idiomatic correctness) and various other writings, you differentiate between the concepts “correct” and “exemplary.” However, in ordinary language, “correct” is not usually used in your sense but rather in the sense of “exemplary.” Is it possible to defend this type of terminology against the general tradition?
C: First of all, it is not a matter of language usage per se but of specialized technical usage: in this case, the naive speaker also acts “as a linguist.” The speaker talks about language (rather than only using it) and evaluates it. Secondly, the naive speaker uses the term “correct” for the “correct” [read more]