Emile Benveniste (1902 – 1976) is a French linguist whose most important work is Problems in General Linguistics (1966). His contribution to semiotics includes proving how language can be separated neither from discourse nor from subjectivity.
In Benveniste’s linguistics, therefore, there is an important challenge to the Saussurean project of language research (langue) as abstracted from speech or discourse (parole) and individual speakers or subjects. For Benveniste, only in and through language can we construct ourselves as subjects. This statement shows the closeness between his thought and that of Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and Luce Irigaray.
