A theory of enunciation: Benveniste and Greimas

Abstract

Benveniste formulates a theory of enunciation, which he conceives of as an intermediate between language (langue) and speech (parole). In his Structural Semantics, Greimas states that, in order to proceed to a good semantic description, it is necessary to normalize a text, that is, to eliminate from it the categories of enunciation. Greimas did not have then any theory of enunciation. Such theory will appear, in a more complete fashion, in Dictionary I, in which Greimas explicitly shows himself as an heir of Benveniste. Although Greimas inherited from Benveniste a theory of enunciation, he reformulated it, and gave it a dimension it did not have before, in order to make explicit the construction of text. He made it more precise, with operations of enunciative and enuncive disengagement, and he amplified it, with the operations of engagement and convocation. --- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.2017n44a983

Keywords

• mediação
• enunciado
• percurso gerativo
• debreagem
• embreagem
• convocação.