Testimony: between the inside and the outside of language Cover Image

Świadectwo - między wnętrzem i zewnętrzem języka
Testimony: between the inside and the outside of language

Author(s): Tomasz Majewski
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Georgio Agamben; Testimony; Anomy

Summary/Abstract: Georgio Agamben’s considerations refer the radicalised notion of testimony to the possibility of speaking ‘in lieu’ of someone experiencing an impossibility of speaking, as concealed in daily use of language. In language, testimony is a paradoxical assumption of the position of a dead or impossible subject of speech. In a performance situation, anomy is integrated in the structure of articulation. It is in and through the latter that a split between the langue as a potentiality of speech and the parole as its impossibility is unveiled. As a purely linguistic option, testimony is situated between Foucault’s ‘archive’, i.e. conditions enabling the event (or, occurrence) of discourse and impossibility of speaking, which, by paradox, is entrusted to the tongue.

  • Issue Year: 2007
  • Issue No: 5
  • Page Range: 74-84
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: Polish