Comments on: Saussure, the procrastinator

By: Éphéméride du 26 novembre - EphemerideDuJour.com

Éphéméride du 26 novembre - EphemerideDuJour.com — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 22:56:38 +0000

[…] : Ferdinand de Saussure, linguiste suisse et fondateur de la linguistique moderne, connu pour son ouvrage Cours de […]

By: Citações e referências: posso citar a mim mesm@? | Linguística – M.Carlota Rosa

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 19:25:48 +0000

[…] porque não publicava — a respeito desse saussureano “horreur d’écrire”, ver Piller, 2013, texto já mencionado neste blogue), mas também a demonstrar o impacto de sua pesquisa pela […]

By: Citações e referências: posso citar a mim mesm@? | Linguística-UFRJ M.Carlota Rosa

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 18:58:00 +0000

By: Finally, an introduction to “Proto-Semitic” *f: አንቀጽ ፪ – ስምትክ ፣ ብኔቢይ

Finally, an introduction to “Proto-Semitic” *f: አንቀጽ ፪ – ስምትክ ፣ ብኔቢይ — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 15:58:34 +0000

[…] I’ve found myself overtly distracted. Perhaps I’m just better at procrastinating than Ferdinand de Saussure; yet regardless I find myself here again providing more evidence toward what will be a […]

By: Luc Belliveau

Luc Belliveau — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 04:07:00 +0000

My procrastination in writing, and one of the main reasons I don’t see myself going much further into academia, is largely because of my love of reading and researching broadly. I love to dig into archival information and if an obscure christian mystic is mentioned in a secondary source, I will dig up her journal and take in her revelations. It got to the point in my undergraduate honours thesis that my supervisor, frustrated, told me “You can’t call ‘Luc reads 2000 books’ a thesis project!”

It seems like being an academic today requires one to be able to produce peer reviewed articles at a rate that stifles broader study (not to mention the imagination). I wonder if we would be aware of Saussure had his academic context been that of “publish or perish,” or if a Saussure is still possible in this context.

By: Language on the Move

Language on the Move — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 07:40:00 +0000

I don’t think going for a walk qualifies as procrastination. In fact, walking boosts your creativity and productivity. It’s a great way to stay creative and get some thinking done – when writers talk about good habits or what keeps them productive, “going for walk” usually features prominently (e.g., https://hbr.org/2014/03/the-daily-routines-of-geniuses)
The contemporary scourge of procrastination is YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and all those other social media … weapons of mass distraction and mass procrastination …
Ingrid

By: V.ca

V.ca — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 01:45:00 +0000

Thank you for this interesting topic. I think that procrastination is something that a lot of university students struggle with. Perhaps this is because the task can be quite daunting and the freedom of time they had compared to high school is quite different. Other students may have other reasons for such, but personally procrastination should be accepted than shunned because it IS normal. Moreover, having the limit of time pushes me forward to actually BE on time. What can I say? Pressure is oddly one of my motivators.

By: 44277660

44277660 — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 02:06:00 +0000

I could not agree with you more on the lesson that procrastination is normal. It seems to me that even disciplined people procrastinate at some points. We’ve been taught that procrastination is bad. It means we are lazy, careless, disorganized, or unprofessional. Although we all try to avoid procrastination, we couldn’t help ourselves. However, it sometimes bring some benefits to procrastinators, at least to me. Waiting until the last minutes forces me to focus and work faster as when deadline approaches, I fear the consequences of not getting it done on time. I am the type of person who work well under pressure but to others, the pressure goes up, the quality goes down. It is not an excuse for me to procrastinate as I still think that it is better not to wait until the last minutes. I only procrastinate on tasks I do not like.

By: Saussure não gostava de escrever? | Linguística-UFRJ M.Carlota Rosa

Saussure não gostava de escrever? | Linguística-UFRJ M.Carlota Rosa — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 19:29:42 +0000

[…] Você não é o único com problemas para escrever artigos. Leia o artigo da Prof. Ingrid Piller Saussure, the procrastinator […]

By: Paul Desailly

Paul Desailly — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 22:41:01 +0000

‘Procrastination is the thief of time’ reverberates down the rock of ages
‘Never put off till tomorrow what u can defer to the day after’
is its antonym i m o
Speaking of antonyms, what’s an antonym for ‘consultation’ as in ‘discussion’?

By: Andrew McDouall

Andrew McDouall — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:56:29 +0000

Is it procrastination? I don’t think it is. It is distraction. Increasingly grad students work outside of academia to make ends meet. Often they are in relationships that require them to take on responsibilities, such as child rearing and housework. And, of course, there is the internet – ubiquitous and never still. But, a scholar requires peace and time to think, work, and enter into dialogue with other academics. Students today procrastinate no more than those of previous decades, but they are more distracted. Consequently, everything takes a bit longer…

By: Cold Comfort for Graphophobes – Lingua Franca - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 20:22:14 +0000

[…] so, according to Ingrid Piller of Language on the Move, who reports on an archive of letters Saussure sent with varying explanations for his tardiness in […]

By: Hussein M. Farsani

Hussein M. Farsani — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 07:52:59 +0000

Lol! So there’s a term out there describing this condition: “Vielschreiberei”! That’s precisely it. Tnx 🙂

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 21:52:55 +0000

In reply to Hussein M. Farsani.

Thanks, Hussein! I suppose that’s another pathology of academic writing: writing for no obvious audience … German even has a term for this affliction: “Vielschreiberei” (writing a lot, in a pathological kind of way …)
Good luck with your job search! 🙂

By: Hussein M. Farsani

Hussein M. Farsani — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 19:24:22 +0000

Thanks dear Ingrid Piller for the insightful post.
I published a couple articles here and there as part of the requirement for eligibility to defend my Ph.D. thesis at the University of Isfahan.
However, the problem of procrastination for most graduates and postgraduates, including myself unfortunately, might not relate to what Saussure has termed “scriptoral laziness”; the problem more or less is sometimes coming up with many ideas and not knowing which one to pursue, which is going to prove more yielding in the current competitive job market, and which is going to bring with itself more attention and response from the academia. A wide-ranging interest in many subfields of your area of interest can bring another halt as you may wonder where you’re going to finally land before you get to find yourself some post-studies (tenure or non-tenure) position somewhere!

But thank you again for sharing that insight with us 🙂

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 02:29:26 +0000

In reply to Paul Desailly.

Thanks, Paul! You are correct about Saussure being Swiss and Brugmann was well aware of that fact; my interpretation of the passage is that referring to him as ‘Frenchman’ was intended as some sort of slur (this was written in the period after the French-German War and just before WW I …)
Another intriguing tidbit related to the fact of the Saussure family’s wealth was that one of Saussure’s PhD examiners bring it up: the examiner argues that, given his wealth, the study of linguistics is particularly laudable … not sure what to make of that …