Saussure as a linguist and Wittgenstein as a philosopher of language are arguably the two most important figures in the development of 20th-century linguistic thought. Each was a revolutionary within his own discipline. Each had a far-reaching influence outside his own discipline. Each has given rise, independently, to a large corpus of interpretation, exegesis and criticism. Surprisingly, however, little attempt has been made hitherto to interrelate these two thinkers or make a detailed comparison of their views about language. By pointing out what their ideas have in common, in spite of emanating from very different intellectual sources, this study breaks new ground. It also raises challenging questions about the radical break which the work of Saussure and Wittgenstein provoked with traditional assumptions about the role of language in human affairs. It thus broaches topics of interest to historians, social anthropologists and students of literature as well as to linguists and philosophers.

Roy Harris is Emeritus Professor of General Linguistics in the University of Oxford and Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall. He has also held university teaching posts in Hong Kong, Boston and Paris and visiting fellowships at universities in South Africa and Australia, and at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study.

His books on integrationism, theory of communication, semiology and the history of linguistic thought include The Language Myth, Rethinking Writing, Saussure and his Interpreters,The Necessity of Artspeak, The Semantics of Science, Mindboggling, Rationality and the Literate Mind and After Epistemology.

He is a founding member of the International Association for the Integrational Study of Language and Communication (IAISLC) and was founding editor in 1981 of the journal Language & Communication, which he edited or co-edited for twenty-nine years.