L’homme de Benveniste : linguistique, anthropologie et sociologie dans le débat français de la deuxième partie du XXe siècle

The thesis aims at investigating the linguistics of Émile Benveniste with a focus on its anthropological attitude, intended as an approach interrelating speaking subject, language and society. The topic is primarily dealt with by analyzing Benveniste’s historical linguistics works. What we try to do here is to highlight the link between the writings in general linguistics (as found in Problèmes de linguistique générale, 1966) and his technical studies on single and specific languages. In our view, such a link grounds the elaboration of the notion of enunciation, one of Benveniste’s most celebrated insights. Moreover, we argue that a wide anthropological outlook is actually what makes Benveniste’s heterogenous body of work cohesive and consistent, in that it allows us to establish a connection between the varied and recurrent themes and problems he addressed throughout his career.