Julia Kristeva is professor emerita of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII. A renowned psychoanalyst, philosopher, and linguist, she has written dozens of books spanning semiotics, political theory, literary criticism, gender and sex, and cultural critique, as well as several novels and autobiographical works, published in English translation by Columbia University Press. Kristeva was the inaugural recipient of the Holberg International Memorial Prize in 2004 “for innovative explorations of questions on the intersection of language, culture, and literature.”

• PrefacePart I. Introduction to LinguisticsIntroduction1. Language, La Langue, Speech, and Discourse2. The Linguistic Sign3. The Materiality of LanguagePart II. Language in HistoryIntroduction4. Anthropology and Linguistics: The Knowledge of Language in So-Called Primitive Societies5. The Egyptians: Their Writing6. Mesopotamian Civilization: The Sumerians and Akkadians7. China: Writing as Science8. Indian Linguistics9. The Phoenician Alphabet10. The Hebrews: The Bible and the Cabala11. Logical Greece12. Rome: The Transmission of Greek Grammar13. Arab Grammar14. Medieval Speculations15. Humanists and Grammarians of the Renaissance16. The Grammar of Port-Royal17. The Encyclopédie: La Langue and Nature18. Language as History19. Structural LinguisticsPart III. Language and Languages20. Psychoanalysis and Language21. The Practice of Language22. SemioticsConclusionNotesWorks Principally Relied OnIndex

[Kristeva's] graceful and lucid history of language ranges over vast intellectual territory—Egyptian hieroglyphs to psychoanalytic discourse, Crates of Mallos to Benveniste to Lévi-Strauss and Lacan. Guaranteed jargon-free.