Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Language as Dialectic between Objective Science and the Subjective Experience of Language

Abstract

This article aims to present the appropriation that Merleau-Ponty makes of Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics. Based on the Course Merleau-Ponty will redraft his conception of language, a phenomenon he will approach from a phenomenological perspective. The phenomenological method will allow him to overcome the difficulties that appear in Saussure’s linguistics due to the positivist treatment of the problem. This accomplishment is brought about by the reading of an article by H. J. Pos: “Phenomenology and Linguistics”. Our article will attempt to conclude that phenomenology is the method that will allow Merleau-Ponty –without getting rid of Saussure’s concepts– to establish a dialectic between objective science and subjective experience of language to give an optimum explanation of the problem of language functioning.