Passing of Claire Blanche Benveniste

[henri josé deulofeu]

Dear all,
I let you kow of the passing of  Claire Blanche Benveniste, Professor  
Emiritus at our university. To put it in a nutshell she was a kind of  
(attractive) feminine french version of Dwight Bolinger : impossible  
to classify as a linguist but extraordinarily perceptive about  
linguistic facts. In keeping of a preceding message, I will say it is  
a pity that she mostly wrote in French, so that her litterature will  
remain unknown to english reading community, unless one of you would  
be interested in editing an english "Blanche-Benveniste reader".  For  
those of you who read French , an obituary  has been published by the  
French newspaper Le MONDE , available on the website at the section  
"carnet".  The practical point of my message is the following. I am  
redacting a kind of "Laudatio" of her for my colleagues. And I would  
like to mention one opinion of her about language. But I don't know  
how. Indeed two days before dying of a terrible cancer, she was  
finishing her last paper and as usual she gave the draft to me for  
discussion. As we were strongly arguing about what is the main  
function of language, I asked to her (she was a radical  
antifunctionalist pace): Well Claire, if according to you; language  
main function is not "communication" not "cognition", not interaction,  
what kind of tool language could be for you, if it is not a mere  
arbitrary combination of signs ? And she answered in French : "Peut- 
être nous permettre de penser ensemble" (to think together). We remain  
silent one moment and as the air was cooling in her splendid provençal  
garden, she wanted to go inside. And I will for ever remember her  
waving at me through a blooming  lilac, as I was taking leave of her  
for the last time.
Has any one of you heard of language as "allowing us to think  
together". I want to include her answer into my laudatio but I would  
like to know if she was kind of quoting someone or making by herself a  
last effort to undersatand what we are all of us trying to.
Thanks a lot

Henri-José Deulofeu
Professeur
UNIVERSITÉ AIX-MARSEILLE I
DEPT. LINGUISTIQUE FRANCAISE
29 AV. Robert Schuman
13621 Aix-en-Provence CEDEX
+33442953569