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El marxismo y la filosofía del lenguaje
El marxismo y la filosofía del lenguaje representa la obra cumbre del pensamiento de Valentín Volóshinov, discípulo e hijo dilecto de Mijaíl Bajtín. Esta edición, con estudio preliminar y traducción de la especialista en estudios bajtinianos Tatiana Bubnova, ofrece al lector la posibilidad de reencontrarse con un texto clásico que provee de un estudio sistemático y metodológico para analizar el fenómeno del lenguaje a partir de los conceptos clave del marxismo. La primera edición de El marxismo y la filosofía del lenguaje, en ruso, es de 1929. La primera traducción al castellano, proveniente de una traducción previa al inglés, es de 1977. En esta edición de El marxismo y la filosofía del lenguaje incluimos la traducción directa del ruso realizada por Tatiana Bubnova.
Acerca de Valentín Nikoláievich Volóshinov
Valentín Nikoláievich Volóshinov nació en San Petersburgo, Rusia, en 1895 y perteneció a la elite intelectual que se agrupó bajo el nombre de Círculo de Bajtín. Discípulo de Mijaíl Bajtín en la década del '20, Volóshinov dejó un legado intelectual que desnuda una cuestión que muchas veces pasa desapercibida: las palabras tienen una carga ideoógica y como tales forman parte de un sistema mayor, el lenguaje, que lejos de ser inocente está también atravesado por las desigualdades de la sociedad. Valentín Nikoláievich Volóshinov murió de tuberculosis en 1936. Otros libros publicados por Volóshinov son Freudismo: un bosquejo crítico y El discurso en la vida y el discurso en la poesía.
ÍNDICE:
Prólogo.
Valentín Nikoláevich Volóshinov (1894-1936).
El Marxismo y la filosofía del lenguaje y el Círculo de Bajtín. Por Tatiana Bubnova.
PRIMERA PARTE
La importancia de la filosofía del lenguaje para el marxismo.
Capítulo I. El estudio de las ideologías y la filosofía del lenguaje
Capítulo II. El problema de la relación entre las bases y las superestructuras.
Capítulo III. La filosofía del lenguaje y la psicología objetiva.
SEGUNDA PARTE
Hacia una filosofía del lenguaje
Capítulo I. Dos corrientes del pensamiento filosófico lingüístico
Capítulo II. Lengua, lenguaje, enunciado
Capítulo III. Interacción discursiva
Capítulo IV. Tema y significación en el lenguaje
TERCERA PARTE
Hacia una historia de las formas de enunciado en las construcciones lingüísticas (ensayo de aplicación del método sociológico a problemas de sintaxis).
Capítulo I. Teoría del enunciado y problemas de sintaxis.
Capítulo II. Planteamiento del problema del “discurso ajeno”
Capítulo III.
254 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1929
About the author
Valentin Voloshinov
9 books11 followersValentin Nikolaevich Voloshinov was a Russian Soviet linguist, whose work has been influential in the field of literary theory and Marxist theory of ideology.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 16, 2010
Very interesting! Here are some points which I enjoyed reading:
Part I, Chapter 1: "The Study of Ideologies and Philosophies of Language
He makes the point that ideologies are expressed in signs.
-- "Everything ideological possesses 'meaning': it represents, depicts, or stands for something lying outside itself. In other words, it is a sign. Without signs, there is no ideology" (9).
-- An example of the above: "A physical body equals itself, so to speak: it does not signify anything but wholly coincides with its particular, given nature. In this case there is no question of ideology" (9).
-- Signs are objects that take on more meaning: "Signs are also particular, material things. Any item of nature, technology, or consumption can become a sign, acquiring in the process a meaning that goes beyond its given particularity. A sign does not simply exist as a part of a reality - it reflects and refracts another reality" (10).
-- Everything ideological possesses semiotic value. Therefore, the domain of ideology coincides with the domain of signs (10).
-- "The ideoogical chain stretches from individual consciousness to individual consciousness, connecting them together. Signs emerge, after all, only in the process of interaction between one individual consciousness and another" (11) A beautiful image, of ideology stretching from one mind to the other, and somehow connecting those minds, and how two or more minds can share the same signs.
-- Consciousness becomes consciousness once it is filled with something (semiotic content) and this happens mostly in the process of (some kind of) social interaction" (11). I'm not sure if I completely agree with this, but it's an interesting thought
-- "Signs arise when individuals are organized socially. They do not arise between any two members of the species homo sapiens" (12). I see what he is getting at, but Jung would disagree, and here I side with Jung. We all have certain signs in common, certain archetypes.
-- "Word is present in each and every act of understanding and in each and every act of interpretation" (14). Yes! that's why I love words.
Part I, Chapter 2: Concerning the Relationship of the Basis and Superstructures
-- Beautiful idea, that I very much agree with. Words themselves express ideologies before those ideologies even arise. "The word is the medium in which occur the slow quantitative accretions of those changes which have not yet achieved the status of a new ideological quality, not yet produced a new and fully-fledged ideological form. the words has the capacity to register all the transitory, delicate, momentary phases of social change." (19)
-- A group's ideology is always related to that group's material life. O
-- He has a whole theory I disagree with about how the sign becomes "an arena of class struggle" and that a sign "that does not participate in class struggle dies away" (23)
-- The dominant ideology tries to distort the sign. This sounds complicated but it's the same as the phrase "history is told by the winners."
Part I Chapter 3: Philosophy of Language and Objective Psychology
-- "The reality of the inner psyche is the same reality as that of the sign... the subjective psyche is to be localized somewhere between the organism and the outside world, on the borderline separating these two spheres of reality" (26)
-- THIS ONE IS BRILLIANT: "Experience exists, even for the person undergoing it only in the material of signs... this factor of expressivity cannot be argued away from experience without foreeiting the very nature of experience." (28)
-- The opposite of "social" is not "individual". The opposite of "social" is actually "natural"!!! (34) (very true)
-- "The sign and its social situation are inextricably fused together" (36) In other words, you cannot understand a sign without first understanding its context.
-- "Psychic experience is something inner that becomes outer and the ideological sign, something outer that becomes inner" (39).
-- "The psyche effaces itself, or is obliterated, in the process of becoming ideology, and ideology effaces itself in the process of becoming psyche" (39). !!! In other words, here is a constant dialectical interplay between inner and outer signs, between psyche and ideoogy, but both are, in fact, composed of signs. So, from that it flows that:
-- "The birth of an objectvie cultural value entails the death of the subjective soul" (40)
To understand this better, it is helpful to read Saussure's and Chomsky's theories first.
Part II, Chapter 1: 2 Trends of Thought in Philosophy of Language (i.e. Saussure and Chomsky)
--"Each grammatical form was originally a free stylistic form"
-- "The logic of language is not at all a matter or reproducing a normatively identical form via the stylistically unreproducible utterance. The reality of language is, in fact, its generation" (56). This sounds exactly like Chomsky's theory.
-- "Language is an ever-flowing stream of speech acts in which nothing remains fixed and identical to itself"(52)
-- "Linguistics, as Saussure conceives it, cannot have the utterance as its object of study...Language stands in opposition to utterance in the same way as does that which is social to that which is individual.. The individual act of speaking, the utterance (parole), so decisively cast aside from linguistics, does return, however, as an essential factor in the history of language... History is dominated by 'utterance' with its individuality and randomness" (59-60). History comes out of the utterance, from spoken language as it changes. Language is not individual, it is social, so parole will always be an important object of study, even if a more difficult one.
The work sounds a lot like the style and writing of Bakhtin, and many believe that Bakhtin actually wrote this essay.
It doesn't really have anything to do with Marxism, outside of claiming that language is in itself ideological.
Part I, Chapter 1: "The Study of Ideologies and Philosophies of Language
He makes the point that ideologies are expressed in signs.
-- "Everything ideological possesses 'meaning': it represents, depicts, or stands for something lying outside itself. In other words, it is a sign. Without signs, there is no ideology" (9).
-- An example of the above: "A physical body equals itself, so to speak: it does not signify anything but wholly coincides with its particular, given nature. In this case there is no question of ideology" (9).
-- Signs are objects that take on more meaning: "Signs are also particular, material things. Any item of nature, technology, or consumption can become a sign, acquiring in the process a meaning that goes beyond its given particularity. A sign does not simply exist as a part of a reality - it reflects and refracts another reality" (10).
-- Everything ideological possesses semiotic value. Therefore, the domain of ideology coincides with the domain of signs (10).
-- "The ideoogical chain stretches from individual consciousness to individual consciousness, connecting them together. Signs emerge, after all, only in the process of interaction between one individual consciousness and another" (11) A beautiful image, of ideology stretching from one mind to the other, and somehow connecting those minds, and how two or more minds can share the same signs.
-- Consciousness becomes consciousness once it is filled with something (semiotic content) and this happens mostly in the process of (some kind of) social interaction" (11). I'm not sure if I completely agree with this, but it's an interesting thought
-- "Signs arise when individuals are organized socially. They do not arise between any two members of the species homo sapiens" (12). I see what he is getting at, but Jung would disagree, and here I side with Jung. We all have certain signs in common, certain archetypes.
-- "Word is present in each and every act of understanding and in each and every act of interpretation" (14). Yes! that's why I love words.
Part I, Chapter 2: Concerning the Relationship of the Basis and Superstructures
-- Beautiful idea, that I very much agree with. Words themselves express ideologies before those ideologies even arise. "The word is the medium in which occur the slow quantitative accretions of those changes which have not yet achieved the status of a new ideological quality, not yet produced a new and fully-fledged ideological form. the words has the capacity to register all the transitory, delicate, momentary phases of social change." (19)
-- A group's ideology is always related to that group's material life. O
-- He has a whole theory I disagree with about how the sign becomes "an arena of class struggle" and that a sign "that does not participate in class struggle dies away" (23)
-- The dominant ideology tries to distort the sign. This sounds complicated but it's the same as the phrase "history is told by the winners."
Part I Chapter 3: Philosophy of Language and Objective Psychology
-- "The reality of the inner psyche is the same reality as that of the sign... the subjective psyche is to be localized somewhere between the organism and the outside world, on the borderline separating these two spheres of reality" (26)
-- THIS ONE IS BRILLIANT: "Experience exists, even for the person undergoing it only in the material of signs... this factor of expressivity cannot be argued away from experience without foreeiting the very nature of experience." (28)
-- The opposite of "social" is not "individual". The opposite of "social" is actually "natural"!!! (34) (very true)
-- "The sign and its social situation are inextricably fused together" (36) In other words, you cannot understand a sign without first understanding its context.
-- "Psychic experience is something inner that becomes outer and the ideological sign, something outer that becomes inner" (39).
-- "The psyche effaces itself, or is obliterated, in the process of becoming ideology, and ideology effaces itself in the process of becoming psyche" (39). !!! In other words, here is a constant dialectical interplay between inner and outer signs, between psyche and ideoogy, but both are, in fact, composed of signs. So, from that it flows that:
-- "The birth of an objectvie cultural value entails the death of the subjective soul" (40)
To understand this better, it is helpful to read Saussure's and Chomsky's theories first.
Part II, Chapter 1: 2 Trends of Thought in Philosophy of Language (i.e. Saussure and Chomsky)
--"Each grammatical form was originally a free stylistic form"
-- "The logic of language is not at all a matter or reproducing a normatively identical form via the stylistically unreproducible utterance. The reality of language is, in fact, its generation" (56). This sounds exactly like Chomsky's theory.
-- "Language is an ever-flowing stream of speech acts in which nothing remains fixed and identical to itself"(52)
-- "Linguistics, as Saussure conceives it, cannot have the utterance as its object of study...Language stands in opposition to utterance in the same way as does that which is social to that which is individual.. The individual act of speaking, the utterance (parole), so decisively cast aside from linguistics, does return, however, as an essential factor in the history of language... History is dominated by 'utterance' with its individuality and randomness" (59-60). History comes out of the utterance, from spoken language as it changes. Language is not individual, it is social, so parole will always be an important object of study, even if a more difficult one.
The work sounds a lot like the style and writing of Bakhtin, and many believe that Bakhtin actually wrote this essay.
It doesn't really have anything to do with Marxism, outside of claiming that language is in itself ideological.
February 4, 2012
As its title suggests, Volosinov’s book lays the foundations for a Marxist philosophy of language—one that functions at the levels of the social and sociology rather than romantic individualism or philological abstraction. He argues that “consciousness itself can arise and become a viable fact only in the material embodiment of signs” and that signs only arise when individuals are “organized socially” (11-12). Signs and consciousness are thus ideological effects rather than causes of social organization. Volosinov subsequently considers “how sign reflects and refracts existence in its process of generation” (19). In doing so, he positions sign as prior to psychology and as emerging in dialogic utterances rather than an individual’s language or fixed linguistic forms. He thus challenges both “individualistic subjectivism” and “abstract objectivism” (48), instead placing the two in a dialectical relationship. Language “emerges as a continuous process of becoming,” always in response—not as the monumental “alien word” of the philologist (81). Volosinov ends by examining “syntactic categories” (109), drawing heavily on examples from Dostoevsky’s novels to illustrate such categories as direct, indirect, and quasi-direct discourse in modern languages—categories that have developed parallel to the chronological sequence of “authoritarian dogmatism,” “rationalistic dogmatism,” “realistic and critical individualism,” and “relativistic individualism” (123).
June 11, 2011
solid. many noteworthy things here, but the pithy summation is in the line "the sign is an arena of class struggle." proponents of the view that bakhtin wrote this pseudonymously might regard that line as a parody of Stalinist orthodoxy, but I am inclined to believe that voloshinov is a real guy who really authored this text, and perhaps authored it in earnestness.
that somewhat obsolete line of inquiry aside, the notion that the sign itself is a locus of class struggle (through its material deployments and material interpretations, say) is pregnant.
that somewhat obsolete line of inquiry aside, the notion that the sign itself is a locus of class struggle (through its material deployments and material interpretations, say) is pregnant.
July 8, 2021
Dale dale puta que pariu
July 14, 2023
Voloshinov uses Marx’s historical materialism to expose the silliness of Saussure’s formalist structuralism.
January 12, 2021
3.8/5
repetitivo mas valeu a pena
repetitivo mas valeu a pena
August 21, 2010
Wow. Difficult, but this is full of ideas that will radically challenge and open up how you think about language, literature and society, and I found it supremely useful in thinking through some of my ideas of popular education, social change, and struggles over hegemony. Some of the things that I liked most were often simple asides from his main points and I wish they had been developed, and so I am even angrier with Stalin (now that I know he disappeared Volosinov) than I was before.
December 1, 2007
Wait a minute - goodreads has this listed as being by Bakhtin under a pseudonym, but that is a very controversial attribution. Not good scholarship, goodreads! Tsk tsk...
June 13, 2023
De esos que cómo lingüista te llegan al cora
January 19, 2025
"But there is still another route: the reflection of the social generation of the word in word itself, with its two branches: the history of the philosophy of the word and the history of word in word. It is precisely in this latter direction that our own study lies. We are perfectly well aware of the shortcomings of our study and can only hope that the very posing of the problem of the word in word has crucial importance. The history of truth, the history of artistic veracity, and the history of language can benefit considerably from a study of the refractions of their basic phenomena--the concrete utterance--in constructions of language itself." (Volosinov, 158)
So ends the at times turgid, at times eloquent, always relevant, tome "Marxism and the Philosophy of Language" by V.N. Volosinov, a follower of Mikhail Bakhtin from the early twentieth century Soviet Union. Consisting of three discrete 'parts,' entitled "The Philosophy of Language and Its Significance for Marxism," "Toward a Marxist Philosophy of Language," and "Toward a History of Forms of Utterance in Language Constructions," this book easily suggests the parameters of linguistic theory, even going so far as to outline the two disparate schools of thought in the field ('Romantic' Individualistic Psychology and 'Rational' Abstract Objectivism). The author subsequently explores, in great detail, the developments, in French, German, and Russian, of the 'indirect discourse,' 'quasi-indirect discourse,' and 'direct discourse' modes of communication, identifying these evolutions as presaging a new era of doubt in the European discursive modes. And all through this enthralling discussion is the constant reinforcement of the idea that it is the 'social' not rules or individual idiosyncrasy, that creates and sustains the development of language. I hesitate what a disciple of Chomsky, whose work in 'generative grammar' occurred years after the publication of this slim volume (which was published in 1929), would make of these assertions, but I feel as if this effort, marred perhaps by a too strict adherence to Marxist thought, is still a reminder that man, and his language, is a creature surrounded, and influenced, by his/her community. He/She/They are influenced, from birth, by their community of language speakers, and to ignore this is to be blind to an essential factor in the development of language, in any of its forms. The important author Fredric Jameson offered a blurb for my edition, and if his opinion is worth anything (and in all likelihood it is), this book is one of the 'best.' And this humble writer agrees with such well-stated sentiments!
So ends the at times turgid, at times eloquent, always relevant, tome "Marxism and the Philosophy of Language" by V.N. Volosinov, a follower of Mikhail Bakhtin from the early twentieth century Soviet Union. Consisting of three discrete 'parts,' entitled "The Philosophy of Language and Its Significance for Marxism," "Toward a Marxist Philosophy of Language," and "Toward a History of Forms of Utterance in Language Constructions," this book easily suggests the parameters of linguistic theory, even going so far as to outline the two disparate schools of thought in the field ('Romantic' Individualistic Psychology and 'Rational' Abstract Objectivism). The author subsequently explores, in great detail, the developments, in French, German, and Russian, of the 'indirect discourse,' 'quasi-indirect discourse,' and 'direct discourse' modes of communication, identifying these evolutions as presaging a new era of doubt in the European discursive modes. And all through this enthralling discussion is the constant reinforcement of the idea that it is the 'social' not rules or individual idiosyncrasy, that creates and sustains the development of language. I hesitate what a disciple of Chomsky, whose work in 'generative grammar' occurred years after the publication of this slim volume (which was published in 1929), would make of these assertions, but I feel as if this effort, marred perhaps by a too strict adherence to Marxist thought, is still a reminder that man, and his language, is a creature surrounded, and influenced, by his/her community. He/She/They are influenced, from birth, by their community of language speakers, and to ignore this is to be blind to an essential factor in the development of language, in any of its forms. The important author Fredric Jameson offered a blurb for my edition, and if his opinion is worth anything (and in all likelihood it is), this book is one of the 'best.' And this humble writer agrees with such well-stated sentiments!
September 11, 2021
Este livro, assinado por Volóchinov mas por vezes atribuído a Bakhtin, é uma espécie de Sgt. Peppers da análise de discurso. Foi publicado nos anos 20 e traz uma visão muito inovadora a respeito da linguagem ao associar o conceito de signo ao de ideologia, e ao difundir a visão da comunicação verbal como diálogo em oposição à ideia de enunciação monológica. O autor se distancia tanto do estruturalismo de Saussure quanto do psicologismo dos linguistas alemães, embora leve em conta a contribuição de ambas as correntes. Muito esquematicamente: para Bakhtin/Volóchinov, os primeiros veem a linguagem como línguas estrangeiras mortas, um objeto para deleite da filologia, enquanto os segundos ignoram a interação social como constituinte da linguagem. A verdadeira substância da língua, diz o autor, está no fenômeno social da interação verbal. Estas reflexões estão concentradas nas duas primeiras partes; na terceira, ele trata das diferenças entre discurso direto, indireto e indireto livre, e das especificidades da língua literária russa. Li a edição da editora Hucitec, traduzida do francês com consultas à edição americana. É um texto fluido, bom de ler, e foi usado por gerações de pesquisadores, professores e estudantes. Mas, hoje, com uma tradução direta do russo no mercado brasileiro, não me parece fazer sentido continuar a usá-la, a não ser como base para consultas e comparações.
July 18, 2025
The refutation of synchrony in favour of the continuous stream of concrete utterances which engage with and contest each other through the formation of dynamic social contexts feels extremely useful and that’s just scratching the surface of what’s packed in here. Will be extremely weird reading a lot of theory contending with the structuralist paradigm now after seeing it get short circuited by this book almost immediately after its inception.
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September 9, 2021A championing of diachronic linguistics that complicates some of Saussure's ideas. While some concepts like the signal, theme, and meaning are interesting, I'm unconvinced that Voloshinov, not Saussure, has found the true object of linguistics. To me, the synchronic system is far more interesting and rigorous.
January 9, 2024
Abstrusely written and quite repetitive. With a better editor, this book could be cut in half. The primary gist is that language cannot be isolated by looking at words alone, but you must also look at the immediate context as well as the broader social context.
This book is hard and unenjoyable to read.
This book is hard and unenjoyable to read.
December 27, 2025
Por fin algo con sangre en las venas.
Peirce es como estudiar la física de una bala (trayectoria, peso, velocidad); leer a Volóshinov es entender por qué se disparó y quién estaba del otro lado del gatillo
Peirce es como estudiar la física de una bala (trayectoria, peso, velocidad); leer a Volóshinov es entender por qué se disparó y quién estaba del otro lado del gatillo
May 12, 2022
Bakhtin o melhor de todos.
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April 12, 2024leitura do mestrado
October 8, 2024
Queria dar 3,5 na vdd. Marxistas sempre são divertidos!
Minha parte preferida foi a recusa de escrever uma conclusão kkkkk
Minha parte preferida foi a recusa de escrever uma conclusão kkkkk
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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January 22, 2025Incomprehensible specialist (of what I don’t know) hogwash
June 18, 2016
An exceptional theorisation of language and communication. Intimately related to pragmatic approaches to the discursive production of societies (e.g. Mead, Wittgenstein), Voloshinov approach offers a philosophy of language linking daily interaction with ideological (re)production of social 'structures'.
April 11, 2017
As a linguistic anthropology-person, I loved this book. It is written in a register slightly more accessible that Bakhtin's other work (surprisingly). Great introduction to how we might think of language through the optics of materiality.
The last section of book was not as useful to me (which deals with forms of reported speech) since I have less experience with the non-Russian authors he mentions.
The last section of book was not as useful to me (which deals with forms of reported speech) since I have less experience with the non-Russian authors he mentions.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews