1: Linguistic theory as discourse. -- 2: Ferdinand de Saussure. -- 3: Edward Sapir. -- 4: Leonard Bloomfield. -- 5: Kenneth Pike. -- 6: Louis Hjelmslev. -- 7: Noam Chomsky. -- 8: J. R. Firth. -- 9: M. A. K. Halliday. -- 10: Teun van Dijk and Walter Kintsch. -- 11: Peter Hartmann. -- 12: Linguistics versus language.

The author analyses linguistic theories not as abstract ideas or theses, but as the process and product of theoretical discourse. He argues that the best documentation of this discourse can be found in the "fundamental" works of major linguists from Ferdinand de Saussure to Teun van Dijk and Walter Kintsch. He therefore employs the highly unusual strategy of a close reading of these works as discourse perfomances and strives to uncover their main points and characteristic moves in the linguist's own words.