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These examples show different types of metadiscursive utterances: it is also called enunciative “dedoubling” (dédoublement énonciatif) as the enunciator takes a position which is that of an observer who comments on the enunciation. This means that in the production of the utterance there is something that “does not go by itself”, that is not automatic or transparent in the language; this is described by Authier-Revuz in the following way: non-coincidence of saying, a non-unity (non-un), auto-repre- sentation of saying in the making (auto-représentation du dire en train de se faire). In sum, Authier-Revuz’s enunciative linguistics is an explanation of the metasemantic and metapragmatic use of language in a speaker’s (single) utterance.
3. Some basic notions
3.1 Enunciation and enunciator
The main concepts are enunciation, act of uttering, énoncé, utterance, a linguistic object that is the product of the act of uttering, and énonciateur, enunciator, the one who produces utterances – or utterer (see above) or speaker depending on the theoretical approach in which the terms are used. In order to consider a situation communicative, the counterpart of the speaker is either receiver or addressee. These notions reflect the communication scheme developed by Jakobson and the unilateral model of communication. In more recent accounts, this explanation of the relationship between the enunciator and the addressee has been given more broad meanings. A dialogic view of enunciation has produced the concept of co-enunciation which takes the co-presence of two or several speakers in the speaking situation and assigns them as co-enunciators or co-speakers. However, in the framework of different enunciation theories, the last distinction between speaker and utterer is a fluctuating one between the utterance level (Ducrot) and the discourse level. The adjective enunciative (énonciatif, -ive) refers to enunciation.
One of the basic distinctions of enunciation theory is between restricted enunciation (énonciation restreinte) and extended enunciation (énonciation étendue). The former analyzes only the speaker and the traces she or he leaves in the utterance (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2006: 35–36), whereas the latter perspective takes into consideration the participants, the situation, the spatio-temporality and the general conditions of the production and reception of the message (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2006: 35).
3.2 Situation/Context
Since the terms situation and context have acquired so many different meanings in the linguistic literature, the following classification is an attempt at clarification (cf. Charaudeau 2002: 535–536).
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1.Communicative situation refers to the extra-linguistic situation where interaction takes place.
2.Utterance situation (situation d’énonciation) refers to the situation in which language is actualized by an individual act of usage characterized by deictic and illocutionary markers.
3.Discursive situation refers to inter-discursive knowledge and to institutionalized ways of thinking and speaking. It sets the limits of what can be spoken and, more importantly, how something may be spoken of (cf. Maingueneau 1997)
3.3 Subjectivity and deixis
Enunciation theory can be considered as the theory of the speaker, or the speaking subject. The notion of subjectivity is one of the most central notions that appear in the writings of several theoreticians during the development of this approach and also in contemporary writings (Vion 1998). It was Benveniste who noted how subjectivity is the speaker’s capacity to position her/himself as subject:
It is in and through the language that the human being becomes a subject; because it is language alone that provides a foundation for the concept of “ego” in reality, in his reality which is that of existence.
C’est dans et par le langage que l’homme se constitue comme sujet ; parce que le langage seul fonde en réalité, dans sa réalite qui est celle de l’être, le concept d’ « ego ».
(Benveniste 1966: 259)
One of the main axes of investigation is the personal deictic system by which the subjectivity and the relationship of the speaker becomes manifest intersubjectively. Accounts concerning deixis consider person, place and time and what their grammatical forms and their meanings are (Cervoni 1987; Morel & Danon-Boileau 1992; Maingeneau 1994; Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2006). Deictics refer to the way in which they take the spatio-temporal environment (entourage) into consideration when describing an occurrence: indexical meaning is given to the referent by the contextual information
(Kleiber 1986: 19).
In accounts deriving from Bühler, the speaker’s point of view is seen as the deictic origo or centre; in deictic accounts, the main criteria in identifying the referent of the person form are the time and the place of the situation. The focus is on the varying reference of pronouns or other type of shifters, or embrayeurs as they are also called (Jakobson 1963). From the point of view of subjectivity in enunciation theory, the person form je is the one who speaks; it is also the name of the speaker when she or he leaves a trace in her/his utterance. According to Benveniste (1966: 253), the present situation of producing an utterance is the one from which the je derives its meaning. In the French tradition, the referential nature of first and second person personal
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pronouns has been studied as marking the subjectivity of speech. This refers to the way in which the speaker stages her/himself as a subject (Benveniste 1966: 259). According to Danon-Boileau (1994:162), the personal pronoun of the first person functions in propositions as an indicator of subjectivity or point of view, especially when associated with the verb. The subjectivity or objectivity of the discourse has also been described in terms of a dichotomy: speakers may stage themselves or make themselves manifest in utterances, or on the other hand may decide to distance themselves from it, leaving no explicit signs of their presence or manifesting their attitude in utterances. Reflections on deictics also consider time and place.
3.4 Reported speech
The linguistic phenomena of voices and of reported speech has a long history in enunciation theory from Bally to Benveniste, from the third generation to the present day (see for instance Rosier 1999). It is an extremely heterogeneous field, where the terminology concerning the phenomena varies considerably, reflecting the differences in explanation among the analytical approaches. The ways of conceptualizing this linguistic phenomenon can be divided into the traditional approaches that take into consideration the internal characteristics of reported speech, and those that discuss the external qualities (Johansson 2000: 67). The former approach stems from the lexico-grammatical tradition and its analysis of the different forms of direct, indirect, free (in)direct speech and the relationship of the reporting and reported parts, the use of different verbal and deictic forms. In enunciation theory there are also considerations about how the speaker takes distance from or adheres to the reported utterance. In the modern approaches there are several new forms that are linked to the analysis of this phenomenon, such as the verb form in the conditional as well as prepositional groups such as according to X (selon X) and their capacity to mediate information from other contexts (Rosier 1999). The latter approach based on the logical and philosophical tradition of oratio obliqua and oratio recta discusses how reported speech is reflexive, how it keeps fidelity when reproducing the speech (Johansson 2000: 67). Several theoreticians discussed above give their own definition and description of reported speech. However, in the modern accounts there are several approaches in which the nature of reproduction is problematized and in which different sequential dimensions are taken into consideration, whether cognitive, textual, interactional or discursive, in which the relationship to the enunciation varies (Waugh 1995, Vincent & Dubois 1997; Marnette 2005).
3.5 Modality and modalization
The notion of modality in French linguistics is a complex one. This is due to its origins (cf. infra) and to the many different usages it has in the French linguistic
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literature. As Vion (2001:213) points out, it is a concept closely related to enunciative pragmatics and hence very little used in the Anglo-American literature. We will first trace the origins of the concept and then look at some more contemporary approaches to modality.
The concept of modality has a long history dating back to Greek antiquity (cf. Aristotle’s modalities of the sentence: assertive, interrogative, optative, predictive and imperative). Modality is a recurrent topic whenever the problem of thought and language is dealt with. Thus, for example, Arnauld and Lancelot state in their Grammaire générale et raisonnée (1660): “The verbs are the kinds of word that signify the way we think and the form of our thoughts, of which the foremost is affirmation” (Seconde partie, chapitre XVI: Des divers Modes ou Manières de Verbes).
Traditionally, the concept of modality was used to refer to the construction of a sentence around the verb but also to the production of a sentence as an utterance. It is in this sense that Ferdinand Brunot treats issues related to modality inherent in utterances in his book La pensée et la langue even if the speaking subject does not yet explicitly appear in his definition:
An action uttered, be it a question, a positive or a negative utterance, presents itself for our judgment, our sentiments, our will and this utterance has extremely varied properties. It is presented as certain or possible, as desirable or doubtful, it expresses an order or it dissuades etc. These are modalities of ideas (modalités de l’idée). […] There is modality in all kinds of elements of the sentence. (Brunot 1922: 507–508)
The definition of the term modality which explicitly mentions the speaking subject is attributed to Bally who defines it as:
Modality is the soul of the sentence; just as thought, modality is mainly realized through the action of the speaking subject. Thus one cannot attribute the value of a sentence to an utterance unless one has discovered the expression of modality of the utterance. (Bally 1932 § 28)
Bally includes among signs that mark modality a great variety of markers such as intonation, mimic, gesticulation, modus of verbs, adverbs and adjectives.
As for Benveniste, the range of explicit modal expressions is much more limited. He includes only modal verbs expressing desire, necessity, volition, and above all, obligation and permission. The latter two he considers as modal verbs par excellence whereas the others are only occasionally modalizing verbs according to Benveniste (Benveniste 1974 :188). However, when speaking of the grandes fonctions syntaxiques (cf. supra) Benveniste deals precisely with categories related to modality.
For Culioli [1968] 1999 :24), there are four types of modality, each of which expresses a particular attitude of the subject to the predication: (1) positive, negative, injunctive and fictive (hypothetic) ; (2) certainty, probability, necessity etc., i.e. epistemic modality; (3) judgemental (appréciative) (how sad, luckily..) and (4) pragmatic