A noção de relação na teoria linguística de Ferdinand de Saussure

Our work aims at investigating the notion of relation in Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistic reflections. As we observe his theoretical production, we see this notion was amply worked in the elaboration of other concepts of his, for example, language, signe, value, arbitrariness, among others. However, beyond the capacity of the notion of relation to produce other concepts, the way it was conceived and the theoretical space it was placed allowed Saussure to break through the essentially historical-comparative studies of the epoch, what made a new way of thinking language to have its starting point. Taking it into account, firstly, by reading the work of Herman Paul, the one who represents the neogrammarians in our text, we examine in which way Saussure is distant from his contemporary linguistics when he distinguishes the linguistic relations and give them a new status in his investigation. Secondly, we study how the notion of relation has it own place in Saussure’s theoretical process of thinking the fundamentals which later would be considered the milestone for Modern Linguistics. For that, we analyse one of his manuscripts, Notes pour un livre sur la linguistique générale, and the Course in General Linguistics. The first is composed by sketches which would become a book, as Saussure promised in a letter to Meillet; and the latter contains the principals for the science of Linguistics. So we aim at researching how the notion of relation is treated in this corpus in order to see the way it is conceived both in the particular production of a manuscript written by Saussure itself and the book which was published and considered the turning point for Linguistics.

Restrição externa, dependência estrutural de commodities primárias e o investimento direto externo no Brasil

As the beginning of the discussion about the reprimarization process of the Brazilian exportations, or about a deindustrialization process of the country foreign sales, this study purpose that the discussion, actually, should be about the existence of the commodities structural dependence as a way to face the foreign restrictions. Therefore the intention is to show that, historically, the way that the Brazilian economy has crossed for its development depends of the foreign capital, mainly in its way of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and in the balance generated by the primary products, which make us try to understand the impact of this capital for the equilibrium of the Brazilian Payment Balance and also for the economy. These points were discussed not only based on the Brazilian classic writers as Francisco Oliveira, Caio Prado Jr. and Celso Furtado, but also using the newest studies which contributes to point the causes and consequences of the external capital dependence in the actual scenario. The conclusions acquired in the end of the study, indicates the fact that the Brazilian specialization in products of low aggregated value is not recent. Brazil is, historically, a competitive country in primary products. At the same time, the country importation always was a pressure factor of the National Payments Balance, being composed by products with more aggregated value. According to some authors, this characteristic of the Brazilian Economy will be surpassed with the economic opening process, which will attract external capital making possible the modernization of the Brazilian productive sector. Therefore, we can claim that the FDI, in the way it has been inserted in the country, does not offer the opportunity to get out of the commodities dependence, as generators of the payment balances, because the country international competitive standard didn t get any important changes, keeping itself out of the step related to the global standard which has been intensified in products with more aggregated value. The changes in the national insertion standard directed to more technological products is really important to surpass the historical scenario of commodities dependence, making the country less vulnerable to external crisis.

A noção de sistema na fundação da linguística moderna

This work is intended to investigate the saussurian notion of system. Such a notion is fundamental to Ferdinand de Saussure's theorization, since it composes the definition of "langue", as he thought it. This definition was crucial to the delimitation of linguistics' specific object of study, which granted its place among modern sciences. However, the notion of system was not created by Saussure. Not only in Linguistics, but also in other areas, this notion appeared in very ancient studies, mingling with the establishment of man in society and the development of their economic and organizational activities. Specifically, in the context of language studies, the system consists in a notion that composed the work of the first grammarians in the West, in ancient Greece. Moreover, this notion was also used afterwards, in the synonymy studies and in the comparative analysis of languages, developed by scholars of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, although Saussure had had his formation in Leipzig and Berlim, amid comparatists studies, his notion of system is an innovation, while is also continuing. In light of this, we aim to highlight the aspects of the saussurian notion of system that allow the establishment of a relationship of continuity and rupture with other conceptions of system. For that, we will investigate four Saussure authored documents: the « Cours de linguistique générale », the « Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes », and the two sets of manuscripts « De l'essence double du langage » and « Notes pour le cours III ».