Émile Benveniste was a
FrenchThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Jewish
structuralStructuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
linguistLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
,
semioticianSemiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
, an apprentice of
Antoine MeilletPaul Jules Antoine Meillet was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne, where he was influenced by Michel Bréal, Ferdinand de Saussure, and the members of the Année Sociologique. In 1890 he was part of a research trip to the...
and his successor, who, in his later years, became enlightened by the structural view of language through the work of
Ferdinand de SaussureFerdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
, although he was unwilling to grasp it at first, being a convinced follower of the sociological stance of his teacher.
He is best known for his work on
Indo-European languagesThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
and his expansion of the linguistic
paradigmThe word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
established by Saussure. Initially studying under
Antoine MeilletPaul Jules Antoine Meillet was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne, where he was influenced by Michel Bréal, Ferdinand de Saussure, and the members of the Année Sociologique. In 1890 he was part of a research trip to the...
, a former student of Saussure, at the
SorbonneThe Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
, he began teaching at the
École Pratique des Hautes ÉtudesThe École pratique des hautes études is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions....
and was elected to the
Collège de FranceThe Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
a decade later in 1937 as professor of linguistics. By this time he had already begun his investigation into the status of names within the history of Indo-European linguistic forms. He held his seat at the Collège de France until 1969 when he retired due to deteriorating health. However, he served as the first President of the
International Association for Semiotic StudiesInternational Association for Semiotic Studies is the major world organisation of semioticians, established in 1969....
from 1969 to 1972.
At the start of his career, Benveniste's highly specialised and technical work limited his influence to a small circle of scholars. The publication of his monumental text,
Problèmes de linguistique générale or
Problems in General Linguistics, would elevate his position to much wider recognition. The two volumes of this work appeared in 1966 and 1974 respectively. The book exhibits not only a scientific rigour but also a lucid style accessible to the layman, consisting of various writings culled from a period of more than twenty-five years. In Chapter 5,
Animal Communication and Human Language, Benveniste refutes behaviourist linguistic interpretations by demonstrating that human speech, unlike the so-called languages of bees and other animals, cannot be merely reduced to a stimulus-response system.
The I-you polarity is another important development explored in the text. The third person acts under the conditions of possibility of this polarity between the first and second persons. Narration and description illustrate this.
- I signifies "the person who is uttering the present instance of the discourse containing I." This instance is unique by definition and has validity only in its uniqueness ... I can only be identified by the instance of discourse that contains it and by that alone.
You, on the other hand, is defined in this way:
- by introducing the situation of "address," we obtain a symmetrical definition for you as "the individual spoken to in the present instance of discourse containing the linguistic instance of you." These definitions refer to I and you as a category of language and are related to their position in language. -- from Problems in General Linguistics
A pivotal concept in Benveniste's work is the distinction between the
énoncé and the
énonciation, which grew out of his study on pronouns. The
énoncé is the statement independent of context, whereas the
énonciation is the act of stating as tied to context. In essence, this distinction moved Benveniste to see language itself as a "discursive instance" - fundamentally as discourse. This discourse is, in turn, the actual utilisation, the very enactment, of language.
One of the founders of
StructuralismStructuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
Roland BarthesRoland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...
attended Benveniste's seminars at Ecole Pratique.
Pierre BourdieuPierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...
was instrumental in publishing Benveniste's other masterpiece,
Vocabulaire des Institutions Indo-Européennes in his series Le Sens Commun at radical publisher Editions de Minuit (1969). The title is deceiving: It is not a "vocabulary" but a comprehensive and comparative analysis of key social behaviors and institutions across Germanic, Romanesque, Greek and Roman, Old Iranian and Indian cultures, using the words ("vocables") that denote them as points of entry. It hovers over philology, anthropology, phenomenology and sociology. A number of contemporary French philosophers often refer to Benveniste's
Vocabulaire and are inspired by his methodology and distinction between signification and designation (
Barbara CassinBarbara Cassin is a French philologist and philosopher, born in 1947 in Boulogne-Billancourt. A past Director at Jacques Derrida's Collège international de philosophie and director of research at the CNRS,. In 2006 she succeeded Jonathan Barnes to the directorship of the leading centre of...
, Nicole Loraux,
Philippe-Joseph SalazarPhilippe-Joseph Salazar is a French rhetorician and philosopher born 1955, Casablanca, Morocco. Educated at Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Alumnus of École Normale Supérieure, Paris and past director at Collège international de philosophie, Paris, founded by Jacques Derrida. Currently...
,
François JullienFrançois Jullien is a French Sinologist. Jullien was President of the French Association for Chinese Studies , director of the East Asian Department of the University of Paris VII and President of the Collège international de philosophie...
, Marc Crépon).
Jacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
's famous work on "
hospitalityHospitality is the relationship between guest and host, or the act or practice of being hospitable. Specifically, this includes the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers, resorts, membership clubs, conventions, attractions, special events, and other services for travelers...
, the Other, the ennemy" is an explicit "gloss" on Benveniste's ground-breaking study of host/hostility/hospitality in the
Vocabulary ( Chapter 7) (
Jacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
,
On Hospitality, 2000).
Publications translated to English
- 1969: Indo-European language and society, translated by Elizabeth Palmer. London: Faber and Faber 1973. ISBN 0-87024-250-4.
- 1966-1974: Problems in general linguistics, translated by Mary Elizabeth Meek, 2 vols. Coral Gables, Florida
Coral Gables is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, southwest of Downtown Miami, in the United States. The city is home to the University of Miami....
: University of MiamiThe University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
, P 1971. ISBN 0-87024-132-X.
Selected works
- Hittite et indo-européen : études comparatives
- Indo-European language and society
- Les infinitifs avestiques
- Langue, discours, société
- Origines de la formation des noms en indo-européen
- The Persian religion, according to the chief Greek texts
- Problèmes de linguistique générale
- Le Vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes
- Inscriptions de bactriane extraits