Published in the USSR in 1930 under the name of Voloshinov, it has been
known in the West since 1973 in an English translation that likewise attributed
it to Voloshinov.^2 The origin of the text is therefore a matter of controversy.
It is universally agreed that it emerged from the work of what is called the
‘Bakhtin circle’. At the time of its publication by Bourdieu, various testimonies
affirmed that it was the work of Bakhtin, who had had it published under
the name of one of his followers (which he is also thought to have done with
Medvedev’s book),^3 for reasons that are not altogether clear. More recent
research indicates that Voloshinov is not simply a borrowed name, that he
had written a thesis in which the book’s main themes are already present,^4
and that there is therefore no reason to deprive him of his work in favour of
his more famous friend. Not having access to the primary sources, I cannot
form a definite opinion on the subject. I use the name ‘Voloshinov’ to indicate
a collective assemblage of enunciation: the Marxist dimension of the works
of the Bakhtin circle. For, as his title claims, Voloshinov’s work does indeed
contain the outline of an explicitly Marxist philosophy of language. And this
Marxist dimension is not limited to a single work: various of Voloshinov’s
essays should be added to it, as well as his book Freudianism.^5
Readers will recall the founding concepts of structural linguistics as set out
by Milner in the form of axioms:^6 the arbitrariness of the sign, the sign as
defined by Saussure, the angelic speaker, and the schema of communication –
or the principles of immanence, calculation (writing), and exchange. Voloshinov
too has his axioms or his inaugural concepts. They are not the same, but they
likewise number four.
The first is the concept of sign. But this is not the Saussurian sign, which,
for Voloshinov, is not a sign but a signal. In effect, the signal is stable, arbitrary,
and lends itself to calculation. The sign, of which natural languages are
composed, is very different: it is the site of a process of signification – a term
that is to be understood, etymologically, as an active production and not
merely a passive reflection; it emerges in the course of social interaction; it
106 • Chapter Five
(^2) See Voloshinov 1973.
(^3) See Medvedev 1978.
(^4) See Brandist 2002.
(^5) See Shukman 1983 and Voloshinov 1976.
(^6) See Chapter 2.