Approcci funzionalisti attuali alla luce delle categorie saussuriane

On the background of three major pairs of Saussurean categories, namely arbitrariness and motivation, langue and parole, synchrony and diachrony, the impact of the seminal Cours de linguistique générale on the functional approaches to the study of language is evaluated in the 100th anniversary of its publication. The functionalist approaches are shown to have privileged the study of the motivation of linguistic signs, of the phenomena observable in the speakers’ speech acts (parole) and of the developments they trigger in the course of time. The concentration on these three poles in the consideration of language phenomena has resulted in the neglecting of the aim of linguistic research mentioned in the last statement of the Cours, namely the study of language in se and per se.