From Enunciation to Writing: The Displacement of the Regime of Reference in Émile Benveniste’s Dernières leçons

Jong-Seok Soh (2026) “From Enunciation to Writing: The Displacement of the Regime of Reference in Émile Benveniste’s Dernières leçons”

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This article examines a significant epistemological shift in Émile Benveniste’s theory of reference, as revealed in the posthumous Dernières leçons (1968–1969). In Problèmes de linguistique générale, reference is strictly defined as a semantic property of the sentence, anchored in the instance of enunciation — a concrete speech event grounded in physical co-presence and deixis. The Dernières leçons introduces a distinct referential regime: writing (écriture) as the instrument of auto- sémiotisation. By transforming language into a “langage visible,” writing suspends physical co-presence and reorganizes intersubjectivity into a deferred form (intersubjectivité différée), constituting a new relation between writer and reader across time and space. Drawing on both genetic and historiographical contexts, this article argues that the shift is not a rupture but an internal displacement within Benveniste’s “double signifiance” framework. Crucially, the logical groundwork for this displacement is already present in the final texts of Problèmes de linguistique générale, revealing a deep continuity within Benveniste’s theoretical trajectory. Central to this shift is référence réflexive: without losing its semantic capacity to refer to the world, language expands its referential power to its own formal materiality — providing the epistemological foundation for the speaker’s self-awareness (prise de conscience) and for linguistics as a rigorous science.