ABSTRACT
The end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century marked a period of considerable turmoil, not only in the world of politics but also in the world of ideas. The discourse on language and society which emerged during this period laid the ground for what is contemporary sociolinguistics. In this chapter, the author intends to survey these antecedents in order to ground the subsequent critical discussion of contemporary work on language and society. The tendency to look to comparison between features of language and to accommodate links between different languages in the form of universal features fitted neatly into the philosophical conception of society and history. Thus, establishing links between languages served to demonstrate an elaboration of the Babel thesis either in its original Biblical form or in terms of legitimising state languages. The Saussurean linguistics introduces a philosophy of language.
