The aim of this thesis is to study the process of lexico-semantic formation and representation of F. de Saussure’s linguistic terminological system in his authentic works (1872-1911) and the work Cours de linguistique générale by Ch. Bally and A. Sechehaye (1916).

The Saussurean terminology is here considered as a developing system of lexical units for special purposes (terms) representing a part of the French lexical system. Therefore, its evolution is interpreted from the semantic point of view proving the influence of extralinguistic and linguistic factors, derivational mechanisms and other language laws. The research combines traditional lexicological methods (component and contextual analysis) and an innovative approach – the extrapolation of Alexander Bogdanov’s theory of self-organizational systems. Such a combination allowed revealing systemic regularities of the semantic evolution of F. de Saussure’s terminology. The synchro-diachronic models of terms are built, making it possible to supplement the existing nomenclature of conceptual features of each lexical unit here studied in order to improve the entries of terminological dictionaries, to optimize the translation of F. de Saussure’s French terms into the Russian language as well as to generalize lexico-semantic characteristics of evolving linguistic terminologies.