The unconscious and the social in Saussure

Saussure stood between two figures, Whitney and Meillet, each of whom was r elentlessly opposed to the dominant psychological establishment of his time . Saussure himself was much more ambivalent about psychology, never portray ing it as standing in clear opposition to the interests of linguistics or s ociology as the others did. Yet among the many changes that took place in h is general linguistics courses between the First in 1907 and the Second in 19081909 was a withdrawal from the topic that was at the heart of the Neogr ammarian psychology of language, analogy. With it came withdrawal from all but a few psychological considerations, and a proportionate increase in the number of sociological ones. In particular, the role of the unconscious mi nd in insulating language from deliberate change was taken over by the forc e of the social group. The timing of this shift coincides with that of the publication of Sechehaye (1908), inspired by Saussure and dedicated to him by his colleague and former student, and the abrupt dismissal of the book b y Saussures friend and confidante Meillet as being entirely psychological w ith no interest in or for sociology. Saussure shared many of Meillets conce rns about the autonomy of linguistic science, and his shift from the psycho logical to the social may have been more directly motivated by Meillets rea ctions than has been generally recognised not least because Meillet would l ater portray the direction of influence as flowing unilaterally from Saussu re to himself, as a way of securing Saussures posthumous authority for his ongoing programmatic calls for a sociologically-based linguistics.