The Formal Apparatus of Enunciation
E. Benveniste, in Langages mars 1970
All our linguistic descriptions dedicate a rather great deal of importance to the “use of forms”; what
is meant by that is a group of rules which establish the syntactic conditions in which linguistic forms
may normally appear, inasmuch as they belong to a paradigm which lists all possible choices. These
rules of use are attached to rules of word formation which have previously been prescribed, so that a
certain correlation between morphological variations and the combinatorial flexibility of signs
(agreement, mutual selection, prepositions and the ordering of nouns and verbs, etc.) has been
established.
It would seem then that these choices having limits in both aspects, one would obtain a theoretically
exhaustive inventory of forms and uses. Consequently, one would have an approximate idea of a
particular language as it is used.
Here however we will introduce a distinction in the functioning of language that has been examined
only from the point of view of morphological and grammatical nomenclature. In our view, these
conditions governing the use of forms are not identical to those concerning the conditions of our
everyday use of language. These are in truth different worlds, and it is worthwhile insisting on this
difference, which implies another way of describing and of interpreting them.
The use of forms, as a necessary element in any description, has given rise to a number of models, as
varied as the linguistic types from which they proceed. The diversity of linguistic structures, insofar as
we can analyze them, cannot be reduced to a limited number of models which would include only –
and essentially – fundamental elements. At least we have in this sense certain rather precise
representations, established on the basis of a technique that has been tested over time.
The use of language is another matter entirely. Here we are not dealing with a stable, comprehensive
mechanism that in one way or another affects the entire language. The difficulty is how to apprehend
this huge phenomenon, which is so ordinary that it seems confused with language itself, so necessary
that it escapes our notice.
Uttering (or enunciation) can be defined as the setting into motion, or functioning, of language
through an individual act of its use.
It is said that discourse is produced each time that one speaks; is this manifestation of uttering not
simply “language use” (la parole selon Saussure)? We must take some precautions regarding the
conditions specific to uttering: it is the very act of producing an utterance and not the content of the
utterance which interests us here. This act can be attributed to the speaker who sets language in motion
on his own behalf. The relation of the speaker to language determines the linguistic characteristics of
enunciation. It should be seen both as the product of a speaker, who takes a language as an instrument,
and in those linguistic characteristics which mark this relation.
This grand process can be studied in many aspects, but we shall insist on three.
The most immediately perceptible and the most direct (though in general one does not associate it with
the very general phenomenon of uttering) is the vocal realization of language. The sounds that are
emitted and perceived, whether studied in the context of a particular idiom or in their general
manifestations (as in the processes of acquisition, of emission, or alteration – these are all branches of
phonetic science) arise in individual acts that the linguist attempts to capture in a context of native
production, within natural language use. In scientific practice, one tries to eliminate or at least
attenuate the individual features of phonic enunciation through recourse to multiple subjects and by
repeated recording protocol, so as to obtain a median impression of sounds, whether distinct or related
in the sound signal. But everyone knows that for a particuler subject, are never reproduced exactly the
same, and that the notion of identity is only approximate when an experiment is repeated down to the
last detail. These differences can be attributed to the diversity of situations where the utterance is
produced.
The mechanism of this production is another major aspect of the same problem. Uttering
presupposes the individual conversion of language into discourse. The very difficult and rarely studied
question is to see how “sense” or “meaning” takes the form of “words”, and to what extent we can
distinguish between the two notions, and in which terms we can describe their interaction. The
semantization of language is at the heart of this aspect of uttering, and leads us to a theory of the sign
and to the analysis of meaning.
[…]
We can imagine another approach than that of a transformation al grammar based on syntax, which
would consist in defining uttering (enunciation) in the formal framework of its realization; in trying to
characterize the formal properties of uttering, we will consider the act itself, the situations where it
occurs, and the instruments necessary for its accomplishment.
The individual act through which we utilize a language firstly introduces the speaker as a parameter
in the conditions which are necessary to the act of uttering. Before uttering, langauge is only the
possibility of language. After uttering, language has been employed in a discursive instance (which
emanates from a speaker) in an acoustic form which reaches a listener and which encourages another
utterance in return.
As an individual realization, uttering can be defined in relation to language as a process of
appropriation. The speaker appropriates the the formal apparatus of language and in uttering indicates
his position as speaker by way of specific clues on the one hand, and by accessory procedures on the
other.
But immediately, as soon as he attributes the role of speaker to himself and takes possession of the
language, he materializes the other before him, no matter what degree of presence he attributes to this
other. All uttering is implicitly or explicitly an allocution, which posits an allocutor.
Finally, in the act of uttering, language expresses a certain relationship to the world. This
appropriation and this mobilization are conditioned by the speaker’s need to refer through discourse,
and for the other, the possibility of identically co-referring, in the pragmatic consensus that makes
every speaker an interlocutor. Referencing is an integral part of uttering.
These initial conditions regulate the entire mechanism of referencing in the uttering process, by
creating a very singular situation, and of which one is very rarely aware.
The individual act of language appropriation introduces he who speaks into his discourse. This is a
given, but one which constitutes the utterance act. The presence of the speaker in his utterance means
that each instance of discourse constitutes a center of internal reference. This situation is manifest in a
range of specific forms whose function is to put the speaker in constant and necessary relation to his
uttering.
This rather abstract description applies to a familiar linguistic phenomenon in language use, but
which is only just been subjected to theoretical analysis. Is it firstly the emergence of the signs as to
grammatical person (the relationship I – you) which are only produced in and by the act of uttering:
the term ‘I’ denotes the individual who proffers the utterance, and the term ‘you’, the individual who is
present as allocutor.
Of a similar nature and relating to the same enunciative structure are the numerous indices of
ostension (such as this, here, etc.), terms which imply a gesture designating the object at the same time
as the specific instance of the term is pronounced.
Forms traditionally called “personal pronouns”, “demonstratives” seem now as the a class of
“linguistic individuals”, forms which refer always and uniquely to “individuals”, whether it be a
question of persons, moments or places in contrast to nominal terms which always and uniquely refer
to concepts. Now the status of these “linguistic individuals” derives from the fact that they issue from
an utterance act, that they are produced by this unique and as one might say, seminal or “semel-natif”
event. They are engendered anew each time that an utterance is proffered, and each time they
designate anew.
A third series of terms pertaining to uttering is composed of the entire paradigm – often vast and
complex – of temporal forms, which are determined in relation to the EGO, center of all enunciation.
The “present”, which forms the horizontal axis of the verbal tenses, coincides with the moment of
uttering, and together with forms for “past” and “future” is part and parcel of this necessary apparatus.
This relationship to time is worthy of our attention, so that we might stop and meditate on its necessity,
and wonder what it may be based on. One might think that temporality is an innate framework for
thought. In fact, it is produced in and by the act of enunciation. Through uttering comes the
establishment of the category of the present, and from this category comes the category of time. The
present is the proper source of time. This form of presence in the world is made possible solely by the
enunciative act, for if we but think upon it, man disposes of no other means of living in the “now” and
making it current than through the insertion of his discourse in the world. We could demonstrate the
central position of the present through the analysis of the temporal systems in several languages. The
formal present only renders explicit the present inherent in the utterance act, which is renewed with
each production of discourse; and issuing forth from this continuous present which is coextensive to
our own presence, impresses upon our consciousness the feeling of a continuity that we call “time”.
[…]
Uttering is thus directly responsible for a certain classes of signs that it literally propels into
existence. For they could hardly be born of, nor find their utilisation in, the cognitive functions of
language. We must therefore distinguish between those entities that have their place, fully and
permanently, in language, and those which, as they derive from the utterance act, exist only within the
network of “individualizing terms” that uttering creates in relation to the “here and now” of the
speaker. For example the “I”, the “that” or the “tomorrow” of grammatical description are merely
metalinguistic terms for I, that and tomorrow produced in the utterance act.
Beside the forms that it governs, the utterance act creates the necessary conditions for the major
syntactic functions. The moment that the utterer uses language to influence – in one sense or another –
the behaviour of the allocutor, he has at his disposal an apparatus of functions. First of all it is the
interrogation which is a form of enunciation designed to elicit a “response” through a linguistic
process that is at the same time a double-edged behavioural process: all the lexical and syntactic forms
pertaining to interrogatives, particles, pronouns, sequences, intonation, etc. are part of this aspect of
enunciation.
We can also attribute the terms or forms that we call notification: orders and appelatives conceived
in categories like the imperative or the vocative, which imply a direct, vital relationship between the
utterer and the other, in necessary reference to the moment of enunciation.
What is perhaps less obvious but just as certain is the inclusion of assertion in this same inventory of
categories. In its syntactic aspect, as well as from the point of view of the intonation, assertion aims at
communicating a certainty; it is the most widespread manifestation of the utterer’s presence in the
enunciative act, it uses the same specific instruments that express or which imply it, the words yes and
no asserting a proposition positively or negatively. As a logical operation, negation operates
independently from enunciation, and has its own form, not. The assertive particle no however, as a
substitute for a proposition, and can be classed with yes, which has the same status among forms
falling within the domain of enunciation.
On a larger scale, although more difficult to categorize, come a range of formal modalities, some
pertaining to verbs as “moods” (optative, subjunctive) enunciating the attitude of the utterer in regard
to what he is saying (anticipation, wish, apprehension), the others to phraseology (perhaps, doubtless,
probably) and indicating uncertainty, possibility, indecision – or deliberately, the refusal to assert.
What generally characterizes enunciation is the accentuation of the discursive relation to the
partner, whether the latter is real or imagined, individual or collective.
This characteristic necessarily establishes the basis for what one might call the figurative framework
of enunciation. As a discursive form, uttering posits two equally necessary “figures”, one the source,
the other the goal of enunciation. This is the structure of dialogue. Two figures positioned as partners
are alternately the protagonists of enunciation. This framework is necessarily a given in the definition
of enunciation.
[…]
Conversely, monologue definitely proceeds from enunciation. In spite of appearances, it should be
posited as a variety of dialogue, the fundamental structure. The monologue is an interior dialogue,
formulated as an interior language, between a speaking self and a listening self. Sometimes the
speaking self is the only one to speak; the listening self is nonetheless present; his presence is
necessary and sufficient to render meaningful the enunciation of the speaking self. At times the
speaking self also intervenes with an objection, a question, a doubt, or an insult. The linguistic form
that this intervention assumes differs according to the idiom concerned, but always as a “personal”
form. At times the listening self substitutes itself for the speaking self and thus enunciates in the ‘first
person’; in this way in French, there are cases where the monologue will be interspersed with remarks
or injunctions such as: ‘No, I’m an idiot, I forgot to tell him/her that…’. At other times, the listening
self questions the speaking self in the second person. ‘No, you shouldn’t have told him that...’. It
wouold be interesting to establish a typology of these relations; in some languages we would find that
the listening self was predominant as a substitute for the speaker ans presenting himself as I (French
and English), or in others, presenting itself as a partner to the dialogue and employing the familiar
form of you (German and Russian). This transposition of dialogue into ‘monologue’ where EGO is
either splits in two, or assumes two roles, gives rise to figurations or psychodramatic transpositions:
conflicts between the inner self and the conscience, the splitting provoked by ‘inspiration’. The
possibility of this is provided by the self-relective linguistic apparatus of enunciation, which includes a
set of oppositions, of the pronoun and of the antonym (I / me).
These situations call for a double description of linguistic form and of figurative condition. It would
be too easy to invoke the frequency and practical utility of communication between individuals to
admit the situation of dialogue as the result of a necessity and forego the analysis of the mutiple
varieties. One of them is present in a social condition that is apparently banal, but which is one of the
least well known. Malinowski baptized it as phatic communion, qualifying it as a psycho-social
phenomenon with a linguistic function. He sketched its outlines starting from the role played by
language. This is a process where discourse, in dialogic form, forms the basis of a contribution
between individuals. Here are some passages from his analysis:
‘Language employed in free social relationships having no express aim, merits special
consideration. When people chat to relax, or when simple manual work is accompanied by
unrelated chatter, this constitutes another manner of using language, with an alternative
functioning of discourse. Here language has no relation to what is happening at the moment, and
is deprived of any situational context. The meaning of each utterance is unrelated to the
behaviour of the speaker or the listener, and to the intention of what they are engaged in.
A simple, polite formulaic phrase fulfils a function in which the sense of words is almost
comletely indifferent. Questions on one’s health, or remarks made concerning the weather, as an
affirmation of the obvious, are exchanges made not with an aim to communicate, nor to unite
people in a common effert, nor to express a thought…
We have no doubt that this is a new use of language, that I am driven by my demon of
terminological creation to call phatic communion, a type of discourse in which the ties uniting
people are made by a simplke exchange of words… Is the function of these words symbolic?
No, they fulfil a social function which is their main aim, but are not the result of any intellectual
reflection, and inspire no reflection in the listener. Again, langage functions here not as the
transmission of ideas.
But is it a manner of action? And in what realtion does it stand to our concept of situational
context? Obviously, the exterior situation here does not influence the technique of uttering. But
what can we consider as the situation when people chatter together aimlessly? It simply consists
of this atmosphere of sociability and in the fact of the personal communion of these people. But
this is in fact accomplished by language, and the situation in all these cases is created by the
exchange of words, by the specific sentiments that form convivial gregariousness, by the
transfer back and forth of propositions that make up ordinary chatter. The situation consists
entirely of linguistic events. Each utterance is an act aiming directly to tie the listener to the
speaker by the link of some sentiment, social or other. Once again, in this function language
does not appear to us to be an instrument of reflection, but as a manner of action.’1
Here we find ourselves at the limits of “dialogue”: a personal relatinship created, maintained, by a
conventinal form of enunciation turning back on itself, ans satisfied with its own accomplishment,
having no object, no aim, no message, pure enunciation with conventional words, repeated by each
enunciator. The formal analysis of this kind of linguistic exchange remains to be done. Many other
developments need be studied in the context of enunciation. […]
1
B. Malinowski, The Meaning of Meaning, 1923, p313.