Paste your essay in here…Biographical information
Émile Benveniste was born in Aleppo on the 27th of may 1902 and died in Paris, due to an attack, on the third of october in 1976 (Schuhl, 1977). He studied at the ‘école pratique des hautes études’. After studying, in 1927, he became a teacher at this same school, where he teached advanced comparative grammar and Iranian (“Émile Benveniste”, 1989). In 1937 he received from the Collège de France the chair for general grammar and comparative linguistics and lost the chair in 1960 (Schuhl, 1977). Furthermore, in 1959 he became a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in 1960 of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres and in 1965 of the Accademia dei Lincei. Lastly, from 1969 to 1972 he was still the first chairman of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (“Émile Benveniste”, 2018).
Benveniste was a French scientist in the field of structuralist linguistics in imitation of Ferdinand de Saussure. Next to this, he studied the grammatical functions of Indo-European languages and the etymology and onomastics of Iranian and Indo-Mongolian languages. His work has been collected in a bundle named: Problèmes de linguistique générale ("Problems of general linguistics").
In his work Problèmes de linguistique générale, Benveniste corrected a part of the work from Saussure. Following Saussure, the field of structural linguistics was a semiology , which means that the concentration relies on different themes of language such as the functions and the patterns of language (“Ferdinand de Saussure”, 2018). An important thought of Saussure was that there is a relationship between the signifier and the signified, but that this relationship is analytical and arbitrary (“Ferdinand de Saussure”, 2018). On the contrary, according to Benvéniste, subjectivity was often seen in language, which made language not a pure response, or in other words, objective. Following Benveniste, these had something in common in the brain. He has divided this mostly on the basis of the pronouns in the lexicon of each language, in other words, the meaning which strongly depends on the context (“Émile Benveniste”, 2018). Additionally, Benveniste distinguished deictic language elements, such as personal pronouns, from anaphoric like the third person (“Émile Benveniste”, 2018).
His bundle “Problèmes de linguistique générale” is translated into English, Spanish, Italian, and Russian (“Émile Benveniste”, 1989). In total, his bibliography adds up to eightteen books, many contributions to books and 300 reviews (“Émile Benveniste”, 1989).
Furthermore, one can divide Benveniste’s work into three themes, namely: Iranian studies, comparative grammar of Indo-European languages, and general linguistics (“Émile Benveniste”, 1989). The text discussed below, Subjectivity in Language, is part of the area general linguistics.
Subjectivity in Language
The philosophical text discussed in this paper is called “Subjectivity in Language”, which can be roughly divided into four parts. Firstly, Benveniste starts describing why the original idea of language as an instrument of communication might not be true. Secondly, the definitions of terms like “subjectivity” and “ego” are given. Thirdly, he gives arguments of why subjectivity is the basis of language. And lastly, some examples are given of the effects of this subjectivity within language.
Why language cannot be the instrument of communication
Originally, language was said to be the instrument of communication, because it helps us to explain the sense of existence, encode messages and interpret thoughts, ideas, and opinions of words. In fact, humans have not found a more efficient or effective way to communicate. Furthermore, language consists of suitable qualities to carry orders, questions, and announcements. These qualities involve the participants in actions and certain behaviors.
However, it is actually doubtful if it is language that is the instrument of communication. We might be confusing it with discourse, because the transmission of language is not only carried out by the use of linguistic forms, but also by the use of nonlinguistic means, such as gestures or imitation. Discourse is language put into action; it adds more consequences to the interpretation of a thought or idea in mind.
When thinking about it in a simplistic manner, one might think that speaking in everyday life is a kind of object that is being exchanged. However, this role of transportation belongs to the individual act of speech. Speech cannot be turned into a vehicle of communication if it is not allowed by language.
Moreover, it should be mistrusted to compare language with something materialistic, like an instrument. As Benveniste puts it: “To speak of an instrument is to put man and nature in opposition. The pick, the arrow, and the wheel are not in nature. They are fabrications.” However, language differs from those fabrications, because language is in the nature of humans; it is the very definition of humans. Language is considered as a fundamentally mandatory condition to form connections between people and fulfill their sense of existence.
So far, we can state that language is not the instrument of communication. Language is something more; it cannot be explained simplistically. The characteristics of language make it a valuable asset. Language has an immaterial nature, which cannot be seen or touched, but rather plays a function in shaping the appearance of everything around us. The symbolic functioning, articulated arrangement, and content of language give even more doubt to the conclusion that it is an instrument.
Subjectivity
As we have seen, language is very complicated and difficult to describe. Benveniste tries to explain the nature of language by using the concept “subjectivity”. Also, language constructs the concept of “ego”. Ego is the part of the human personality that is experienced as the “self” or “I”. It is in contact with the external world through perception (“Encyclopædia Britannica”, 2018).
Subjectivity of language is “the capacity of the speaker to posit himself as subject” (Benveniste, 2012, p.420). Benveniste (2012) continues explaining it as following: “The “subjectivity” is not characterized by the feeling everyone experiences of being himself but as the psychic unity that transcends the totality of the actual experiences it assembles and that makes the permanence of the consciousness.” In other words, subjectivity is not a feeling, because it cannot be remarked. Rather, it is something mental that can create the consciousness.
The consciousness of self possibly appears when it is experienced by different people in contrast. For instance, “I” is employed in the condition of speaking to someone who will be “you” in the address.
Subjectivity as the basis of language
To make it more clear, some examples are given to show that language is based on subjectivity.
The first example can be found in the personal pronouns. Personal pronouns, like I and you, are never missing in languages. Apparently, these personal pronouns are necessary to indicate “person”. A language without the expression of “person” cannot be imagined. However, I does not refer to a certain concept, because it doesn’t refer to all individuals in the world. It also doesn’t refer to any particular individual, because one word cannot refer to any random individual and still at the same time identify their individuality. On the contrary, I refers to the act of individual discourse in which it is pronounced. So the true basis of this exercise of language is subjective.
The second example of why subjectivity is the basis of language can be found in deixis. Deixis refers to the words that do not have any meaning without their context. For example, spatial words like here and there, or temporal words like yesterday and tomorrow. These words are all dependent on the subject. Because we just determined that the personal pronouns like I form the basis of subjectivity, we can state that deictic words are dependent on the basis of subjectivity.
Another way to see that these expressions of temporality contain the expression of subjectivity is looking at the linguistic “tenses”. Every language makes a distinction between tenses like the present or the past. The present tense refers to the time at which someone is speaking. This never relates to the true chronology of an event, because every speaker talks about an event differently. Therefore we can state that linguistic time is “self-referential”. Thus, the use of linguistic temporality reveals that language contains subjectivity.
The effects of subjectivity in language
We just confirmed with some examples that subjectivity is the basis of language. Language cannot exist without subjectivity. But what effect does this have on the change of perspective? There are no universal examples, but it can be illustrated by using examples of specific languages, like English. Benveniste distinguishes different types of English verbs, such as: verbs that present a description of an action, like eating, and verbs that present a description of a mood or a mental operation, like believing. In the verb to eat, the real utterance is given within the verb; namely the fact that the subject is doing the operation: eating. However, the verb to believe does not contain this utterance. Look at, for example, the sentence "I believe that the weather is going to change". It states a certain feeling or thought. It does not describe the "I" as being in the act of believing. The true utterance is the proposition that comes behind it, namely "the weather is going to change". In other words, personal verbs like believe, presume and suppose do not present a description of an operation; they indicate the subjectivity of the language.
This subjectivity can be seen even more clearly when looking at verbs expressing an act of social import, like to swear, to promise or to guarantee. When someone swears something, they give a certain promise or guarantee, which has a real influence in the real life. This influence or consequence is not given in the meaning of the verb, rather, it is the subjectivity of the discourse that makes it possible. The meaning of a verb can even change when given in a different discourse. When saying “I swear”, the person saying it gives a certain pledge, which has a certain consequence. On the other hand, while saying “he swears”, the person saying it just gives a statement about someone else, with no consequences for himself. To conclude, the instance of discourse determines the meaning of language used, due to its subjective nature.
What does it say about communication and why does it fit in this book?
The book in which this article occurs, ‘The Philosophy of Communication’, is a collection of different articles all centred around the theme ‘Communication’. In its introduction one can read the purpose of the book as followed:
Our objective, more ambitiously, is to demonstrate that communication should itself be considered one of the central topics of philosophy, as the commonplace (koinos topos), in and toward which the love of wisdom, insofar as it is pursued through open exchange and does not exist just as an individual’s private occupation, moves and re-moves itself according to its own origin and truth. (Chang & Butchart, 2012, p. 6)
So the articles in this book are chosen because they explain or state something about communication in the light of philosophy. For this article this is true. It philosophies about language, its role in communication and the concept ‘subjectivity’.
What it says about communication is focussed on ‘language’. It shows which role language plays. First of all, Benveniste (2012) argues that language cannot be the instrument of communication, as was believed before. To support this claim and to assign another role to language, he explains the ‘subjectivity of language’ and the effect of this concept. Because language is a great part of communication, this of course is linked to the subject of the book.
References
Benveniste, E. (2012). Subjectivity in Language. In Chang B. & Butchart G. (Eds.),
Philosophy of Communication (pp. 419-426). MIT Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ru.idm.oclc.org/stable/j.ctt5hhcqm.26
Chang, B., & Butchart, G. (Eds.). (2012). Philosophy of Communication. MIT Press.
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ru.idm.oclc.org/stable/j.ctt5hhcqm
Encyclopædia Britannica. (2018, August 29). Ego. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from
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Encyclopaedia Iranica. (1989, December 15). Émile Benveniste. Retrieved October 9, 2018,
from http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/benveniste-emile
Schuhl, P. M. (1977) Nécrologies. Revue Philosophique De La France Et De L'Étranger,
167(1), 142. Vendôme: Presses Universitaires de France.
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