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Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 41:1 (2014) ► pp.79–108

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L’hypothèse de Firth

Wittgenstein, héritier de Malinowski?

 | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris

Article language: French

Published online: 10 June 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.41.1.03god
Résumé
Le but de cet article est d’évaluer l’hypothèse de John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) énonçant que l’article de l’anthropologue Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages” (1923), constituerait une des sources d’inspiration ayant conduit Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) à élaborer une nouvelle conception de la signification en termes d’‘usage’. S’appuyant sur certains passages des Philosophical Investigations (1953), Firth établit ainsi une filiation entre les deux grandes idées phares de Malinowski, à savoir l’importance de la notion de ‘contexte de situation’ et l’idée que le langage serait un ‘mode d’action’ et les principales thèses (la signification comme usage, l’acquisition du langage, le langage comme un ensemble de jeux) que développera Wittgenstein. L’examen du bien fondé de cette hypothèse conduira à préciser la synergie des idées qui eut lieu en matière de pragmatique dans l’Angleterre de la première moitié du XXe siècle.
Summary
The aim of this paper is to study the grounds for John Rupert Firth’s (1890–1960) assumption that the 1923 paper, “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages” by the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), would be a source of inspiration that would lead Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) to develop a new conception of meaning in terms of ‘use’. Based on certain excerpts of Philosophical Investigations (1953), Firth established a filiation between ­Malinowski’s two key ideas, namely the importance of the notion of ‘context of situation’ and the idea that language is a ‘mode of action’) and the main theses that Wittgenstein promoted (meaning as use, language acquisition, language as a set of games). Assessing the force of that claim will lead to clarifying the synergy of ideas that took place in the matter of pragmatics in Great Britain of the first half of the 20th century.
Zusammenfassung
Der Artikel befasst sich kritisch mit der Hypothese von John Rupert Firth (1890–1960), derzufolge der Beitrag von Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages” (1923), Anregung für Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) geboten habe, eine neue Auffassung von der Bedeutung als ‘Gebrauch’ zu formulieren. Indem Firth sich auf Passagen aus den Philosophical Investigations (1953) stützt, stellt er einen Zusammenhang zwischen den beiden Leitideen Malinowskis, der Vorstellung von ‘situationellem Kontext’ und der Idee, Sprache sei ein ‘Handlungsmodus’ und den Hauptthesen Wittgensteins (Bedeutung als Gebrauch, Spracherwerb, Sprache als Spiel) her. Die Untersuchung der Wohlfundiertheit dieser Hypothese erlaubt es, die Synergie der Ideen klarer hervortreten zu lassen, welche die Pragmatik im England der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhundert auszeichnete.
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