“The latest lessons by Émile Benveniste at Collège de France”: a new look over his writing

Abstract

The publication of Problems in General Linguistics (vol. 1 1966, vol. 2 1974), according to a plan approved by Benveniste for the first volume, and identically reproduced for the second one, has later secured wide publicity of the Benveniste’s greatest works, but has confined others to being less accessible. The set of courses taught by Benveniste at École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) and Collège de France were also pushed aside. It seems important to offer the reading of the latest courses at Collège de France, where Benveniste develops a theme frequently mentioned in the articles of general linguistics, but never treated by himself: the one about writing. In Benveniste’s own course entitled “La langue et l’écriture” the linguist interrogates the very act of writing, grapher, and then he goes back in search of it.