Parole Potentielle in the Theory of Ferdinand de Saussure

Abstract

The article aims at presenting a more complete vision of the langue / parole duality arising from the original writings of Saussure, with a particular emphasis on the concept of parole potentielle, which fills an “intermediate space” between the language system and the material (sound) forms of its use. The extended perspective on the langue / parole division results in the clarification of the Saussure’s concept of epistemology of linguistics, which, as it turns out, is very consistent with the theories proposed in the twentieth century by the interpreters and followers of the thoughts of the Genevan linguist (L. Hjelmslev, G. Guillaume, E. Coseriu, F. Rastier), which by design were meant to go beyond the Saussure’s “dichotomy”.