speech community (origin of the concept)

[Timothy Mason]

On Thursday 15 November 2001 12:29, Vincent de Rooij wrote:
> In a thesis proposal, a student of mine traces the concept of speech
> community back to Labov's research in New York in the 1960s.
> Of course, the use of the term 'speech community' has a longer history than
> that: it occurs in the work of Hymes in the early sixties and also in
> Ferguson's classic article 'Diglossia' published in Word in 1959. It is
> also prominently present in Bloomfield's 'Language' (1933, Ch.3: Speech
> communities), albeit, of course, with a somewhat different meaning.
>

Surely the concept is already present in Saussure's writings - and is at the
base of the Grimm's idea of nationhood?

Best wishes
--
Timothy Mason
tmason at club-internet.fr
http://perso.club-internet.fr/tmason/