The distributed invention of enunciation theory

Abstract

In the second half of the 20th century a linguistic approach emerged that aimed to complement the analysis of language structure: énonciation, centred on speakers and the act of speaking. Émile Benveniste has had his role raised to author of the theory, despite its developing simultaneously in work by Roman Jakobson and Jacques Lacan, and later Tzvetan Todorov, with each of whom he had professional and personal ties. Others who figure in its formulation are J. L. Austin, Charles Bally, Leonard Bloomfield, Jacques Damourette and Édouard Pichon, Bronisɬaw Malinowski, Hendrik Pos and, to some extent, Karl Bühler. Of particular significance is work published in

by Jean Dubois and Michel Foucault, both of whom give enunciation a clearer and fuller treatment than is found in the 1970 paper by Benveniste regarded as the locus classicus. The present article argues for, not sidelining Benveniste, but approaching the invention of enunciation as dialogic – a case of distributed cognition – instead of treating it on the lines of the ‘Great Man theory of history’ which this journal’s founder, E. F. K. Koerner, worked hard to oppose.