THE SUBJECTIVE ELEMENT IN LANGUAGE

THE SUBJECTIVE ELEMENT IN LANGUAGE

  Since Emile Benveniste’s article (cf. Benveniste [1958] 1966:258–66English transl. 1971:233–30), subjectivity in language has been a persistent theme in French linguistics, especially the strand of thought called ‘theory of enunciation’. However, one can scarcely find reference to Bréal’s early, if not first, contribution to this prosperous field (but cf. Delesalle 1984; Nerlich 1986a).

  As Sebeok writes in his Foreword to a volume of Semiotica dedicated to Benveniste, Benveniste has opened up ‘the closed circuit of language versus speech act to account for actual language practice as opposed to abstracted language practice, and the subject of enunciation as the locus of its production’ (Sebeok 1981:2). Benveniste was also one of the first linguists to see a relationship between linguistics, semiotics, and psychoanalysis,

  a relationship richly exploited in post-Saussurean and post-structuralist linguistics in France. He also made a (quite peculiar) distinction between semiotics and semantics (cf. [1969] 1974:43–66), the study of language as a system (whose basic unit is the sign), and the study of language in action (whose basic unit is the sentence). He also differentiated between significance (the potential meaning of a sign in a system) and sense (or discourse-meaning), a distinction that resembles the one made by Bréal between sense and value. One feature of the linguistic system that needs these distinctions for its explanation are the pronouns, those small words that shift the conception of language as a static object towards language as an activity (cf. Benveniste [1956] 1966:251–71971, 217–22; cf. Jakobson on shifters, [1957], 1963: ch. IX).

  Benveniste writes that the ‘installation of the subject’ in language creates ‘the category of the person’ (1971:227). Thus we have ‘I’, a reality of discourse alone, and, on another more existential level, the constitution of the subject itself: ‘it is in and by language that man becomes subject: because language alone lays the basis in reality, in its reality which is that of being, of the concept of ego’ (1971:223). From language emerges the permanence of consciousness. ‘We hold that this “subjectivity”, be it phenomenological or psychological, is but the emergence in being of a fundamental property of language. Who says ‘“ego” is “ego”’ (1971:224). In this sense language does not represent thought, it creates the thinking subject itself. This linguistically founded ‘ego’ is itself part of a fundamental polarity: you and me, the ‘I’ and the ‘you’. Its foundation lies in dialogue. I can say ‘I’ and you can say ‘I’, I can say ‘you’ and you can say ‘you’. In the act of enunciation we appropriate language, the linguistic system, for ourselves, and bring it to life in our use of pronouns and other indexical signs. We anchor language in reality, the space constituted by the here and now, the me and the you.

  This aspect of the life of language had first been studied by Bréal in his chapter on the subjective element in language (ES: ch. XXV). He analyses the markers of subjectivity in language such as pronouns, the use of certain adverbs, like fortunately or perhaps, and the use of modes and tenses, as well as the emergence of particular grammatical features, such as the dual. His theory of the pronoun shows a slight influence of Jacob Grimm (cf. the quotation at p. 126, note) and his theory of the origin of language. Like Grimm, Bréal believes that pronouns, those subjective elements of language par excellence, are the oldest elements of language. They lie at the beginning of language in general and at the

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  beginning of language-acquisition. Both assumptions are obviously false. In language- acquisition the use of pronouns occurs at quite a late stage, and this should also be the case in so far as the evolution of language itself is concerned (the only indicator of subjectivity would probably have been the tone of voice; cf. Wegener US). This had been seen quite clearly by Whitney who wrote that the child can only ‘grasp and wield the grosser elements of speech’ (LGL: 13), he is learning words in relation to things, and apprehends singular and plural, persons, tenses and moods only later.

  So with the pronouns. He is slow to catch the trick of those shifting names, applied to persons according as they are speaking, spoken to, or spoken of; he does not see why each should not have an own name, given alike in all situations; and he speaks of himself and others by such a name and such only, or blunders sorely in trying to do otherwise—till time and practice set him right.

  (LGL: 13–14)

  But the falsity of his basic assumptions about pronouns does not diminish Bréal’s merit in pointing out the peculiar status of pronouns in the lexicon, their existential value for the speaker and their paradigmatic value for a theory of language interested in the conversion of language into speech.

  Pronouns are paradigmatic cases for a dynamic theory of meaning. All words ‘change their meaning’, take on a particular value, when used in discourse—pronouns are only the most extreme examples of this phenomenon. Bréal describes this phenomenon in language-acquisition: ‘The pronouns me and you, my and your, which, in changing mouths, transfer themselves from one to the other, contain its [the child’s] first lesson in psychology’ (ES: 267240). Language is permeated by the speaking subject’s activity on all its levels. Bréal points out that this is particularly evident in the use of some adverbs, such as no doubt, perhaps, etc. (ES: 256230). When I say that the cat is, hopefully, on the mat, or that the cat ‘perhaps’ is on the mat, I do not only make a statement, describe a state of affairs, but I give a personal opinion concerning the things described. The same is the case for the use of some modes, such as the optative in Greek (cf. ES: 259f.233) (cf. in modern French the use of the subjunctive). However, the subjective element has its most powerful influence on the expression of the imperative.

  What characterises the imperative, is that to the idea of action it unites the idea of the will of the speaker. It is true that in most forms of the imperative it would be vain to seek for syllables which specially indicate this will. It is the tone of voice, the expression of countenance, the attitude of body which are charged to convey it.

  (ES: 261235)

  The analyses of the imperative, or better of the speech act type ‘ordercommand’ will be made the subject of an article by Philipp Wegener, published posthumously in 1921 (see chapter 11, pp. 185–90).

  Over and above its intellectual function of representing thoughts or the world, language has thus an expressive or affective function. These terms (intellectualaffective)

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  are not used by Bréal himself but by Charles Bally, another forerunner of the modern theory of enunciation (cf. Bally 1932). He called ‘stylistics’ what one would nowadays call theory of enunciation or in English-speaking countries, speech act theory.