Among linguists there seems to be general agreement on the assumption that the history of linguistics can be accounted for in terms of Kuhn's approach to paradigms and scientific revolutions, and that, accordingly, Saussure's 'Cours' gave rise to a scientific revolution in linguistics. The aim of the paper is, first, to give an overview of the arguments which seriously question this assumption. Second, as a consequence of this overview, it emphasizes the necessity of drawing a much more refined picture of Saussure's impact on linguistics than the Kuhnian framework does. Third, the precondition of such a sophisticated reconstruction of Saussure's structuralism is the renewal of the historiography of linguistics.
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