Interviews – coseriu.ch

Remembering Eugenio Coseriu: Interviews on the linguist and his work

As part of the SNF project entitled “Beyond Structuralism. Letters to Eugenio Coseriu and the history of linguistics in the 20th century“, 91 interviews about Eugenio Coseriu and his work were conducted in 2021, the year of the celebration of his centenary. They consist of conversations with linguists – direct and indirect disciples – from different countries (Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Peru, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, USA, and Uruguay) and in different languages (Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Italian).

These testimonies are essential because they speak about Coseriu and the validity of his ideas. All the interviewees were asked to elaborate on three crucial aspects:

1) The influence that Eugenio Coseriu had on them.

2) The topicality of Coseriu’s ideas.

3) To conclude the interview, those who knew him were asked to share some anecdotes about their relationship with the Romanian linguist.

However, the interest of such a project lies not only in its testimonial value but also in making known how some of today’s linguists see and saw Coseriu and his work. Their testimony represents first-hand data that can constitute an indispensable source for the history of linguistics, allowing us to acquire a vision “from the inside” but at the same time from the outside.

This project was carried out thanks to numerous collaborators who conducted, edited and published the interviews: Cristina Bleorțu, Manuela Crivelli, Charlotte Defrance, Bárbara Garrido Sánchez, Yoselin Henriques Pestana, Johannes Kabatek, Dominik Martínez, Senta Zeugin, Olivier Winistörfer.

You can find all the videos on our SWITCHcast channel “Coseriu100”.