ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how Saussure has been read by the two most influential American linguists of this century, Leonard Bloomfield and Noam Chomsky. Jesus and Saussure, their thought recorded by several hands, pose especially great problems of exegesis: the lack of a single authoritative text makes for uncommon breadth of interpretation. Jakobson intended for 'this eternal wanderer' to describe Saussure in his lifetime, and while it seems to have been an accurate portrayal. It applies even better to Saussure in the decades following his death and the publication of the Cours de linguistique generale (CLG). The upshot of this section is that Saussure's linguistic system, as viewed by Bloomfield, is precisely the system are accustomed to identifying as that of Bloomfield. The critics of Cartesian Linguistics were strident, but tardy: for by the late 1960s, Chomsky had in effect vanquished the former students of Bloomfield for dominance in the field.
