From the system to the discourse:

conceptions of language in Ferdinand de Saussure and Mikhail Bakhtin

Abstract

Based in Bakhtin and his Circle (1997, 1998, 2003, 2009), in the classic Course of General Linguistics of Saussure (2006) and authors discussing these theories (NORMAND, 2009; FARACO, 2003, inter alia), this article is a theoretical, reflexive and contrastive study between the visions of language in the formalist and dialogical aproaches. The central figures are, respectively, Saussure and Bakhtin, for whom the object-language is focused under a different look by each one of them.A Swiss linguist and a Russian philosopher, the system and the discourse: these are only clues to a discussion about the language, whose elucidation hinges on other underlying concepts such as the notion of sign, the principle of the arbitrary, the idea of ​​social in each of the trends, among other categories.We intend, however, to assume a posture of ethical reflection, without overcoming theories, recognizing the scientific validity of each one of them. In other words, we aim to discuss two views of the same object.