Marxism and the Philosophy of Language

This book is a great classic in the study of language and its relation to ideology. The hollow debates about its authorship falls to the wayside when one considers how this work has revolutionized the study of ideological phenomena. Instead of looking at consciousness as a kind of vacuum to be filled by ideological content, it regards consciousness itself as a kind of substance composed of linguistic matter and riven from within its very core by social contradictions. The synoptic view of linguistics as a discipline divided between the romantic irrationalist approach of Vossler and the systemic semiological approach of Saussure is quite enlightening and original. Although the second part of this book is too difficult for non-linguists with no knowledge of Russian, one can perhaps make some headway into it if one has enough gumption.