Subjectivité, discours et les deux notions d'énonciation chez Benveniste

Through a diachronic reading of the writings of Benveniste contained both in the two volumes of the Problèmes de linguistique générale, and in the handwritten notes of the "Fond Benveniste", the paper proposes the hypothesis that in the writings of the French linguist, we can find, even though implicitly, a twofold conception of enunciation, and not a single one: (1) a "strong (or particularizing) conception" which identifies enunciation specifically with the "discourse", the latter being connected to the structure of the dialogue and having a formal apparatus; (2) a "weak (or generalizing) conception", according to which the enunciation is considered as a general mechanism of sense production in a semiotic system, which involves the whole language and being not connected to a specific series of linguistic forms.