«Beyond Structuralism» – Letters to Eugenio Coseriu and the history of linguistics in the 20th century (DiLeCos)
Project description
Project (2019-2023) founded by the Swiss National Science Foundation
Eugenio Coseriu (1921-2002) was one of the most important and influential Romanists and linguists of the 20th century. He left hundreds of unpublished manuscripts and a collection of around 20,000 letters from linguists and other intellectuals. The aim of the project is to publish part of the correspondence online and to contextualize it within the history of linguistics (especially Romance linguistics).
On the one hand, a selection of the letters to Coseriu (and some letters written by Coseriu) will be transcribed and published online. On the other hand, four thematic areas related to the letters and manuscripts will be examined in depth and discussed within the context of the history of linguistics in the 20th century:
- The conception of Norm as presented in Sistema, norma y habla in 1952, including the issue of the standard language and its teaching as discussed in the unpublished manuscript La corrección idiomática.
- The question of pragmatics and text linguistics in the context of an “integral linguistics” that points beyond structuralism and was presented partly in the study “Determinación y entorno” in 1955-56.
- The question of language change outlined in the book Sincronía, diacronía e historia (1958).
- The question of the linguistic variation and language varieties presented in La geografía lingüística and further elaborated in later works.
In addition to the access to the enormous material of the letters, the project promises new historical insights into a particularly formative phase in the history of Romance and General linguistics.
Project lead:
Prof. Dr. Johannes Kabatek
Collaborators:
Dr. Cristina Bleorțu
Yoselin Nathali Henriques Pestana M.A.
Assistants:
Larissa Klose
Dominik Daniel Martínez
Manuela Crivelli (1.01.2020-31.08.2022)