NearbySaussure

Type:	Dataset
Number of words:	424.811
Unique words:	24.651
Source(s):	aaaaarg.fail
Developed by:	Ferdinand de Saussure, Carol Sanders (editor), Beata Stawarska, Robert M. Strozier, Algolit

nearbySaussure is a compiled dataset that arose out of an interest in structuralist linguistics and the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). Saussure's interest manifested in what he called semiology: “a science which would study the life of signs within society” and most of his thoughts are published in the book Course in General Linguistics in 1916.

The choise for this dataset was induced by a great text by Johanna Drucker on performative interfaces, where she emphasizes in various ways how important it is to see reading as an active, interpretative and creating act. When she refers to Saussure with these intentions, she points out that Classic structuralism, as exemplified by Saussurean linguistics, de-essentialized and systematized the understanding of meaning as value, and performative materiality builds on that basic shift into the post-structuralist engagement with readerly production of texts, and beyond, to a probabilistic perspective that synthesizes these critical traditions with those of user experience.

The performative reader, readerly production of text, and probabilistic user experiences seem to connect in an interesting way to the numerical and statistical techniques that are applied to human language in a machine learning practise.

The dataset consist of the following three books that are secondary literature. The texts are not written by Saussure himself but are rather reflections on- and responses to his thinking:

• The Cambridge Companion to Saussure, by Carol Sanders (editor), Anna Morpurgo Davies, Rudolf Engler, John E. Joseph, W. Terrence Gordon, Claudine Normand, Julia S. Falk, Christian Puech, Stephen C. Hutchings, Steven Ungar, Peter Wunderli, Geoffrey Bennington, Simon Bouquet, Christopher Norris, Paul Bouissac
• Saussure's Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology: Undoing the Doctrine of the Course in General Linguistics, by Beata Stawarska
• Saussure, Derrida, and the Metaphysics of Subjectivity, by Robert M. Strozier