Passing of Claire Blanche Benveniste

[Gilles Fauconnier]

On Sun, 9 May 2010, Gilles Fauconnier wrote:

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> Here is the link to the Le Monde obituary that Jose indicated:
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> http://www.lemonde.fr/carnet/article/2010/05/07/claire-blanche-benveniste-linguiste_1348114_3382.html
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> Merci, Jose, de nous avoir avertis.  Comme tous les collegues et amis de Claire, je suis tres peiné par cette nouvelle.
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> Gilles
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> _______
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> ----- Original Message ----
> From: henri josé deulofeu <jose.deulofeu at wanadoo.fr>
> To: funknet at mailman.rice.edu
> Sent: Sat, May 8, 2010 12:35:54 AM
> Subject: [FUNKNET] Passing of Claire Blanche Benveniste
>
> 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
>