Language and subjectivity

Abstract

This article is a reflection on the question of subjectivity in language and aims at: 1. showing the importance of the notion of subjectivity in the study of language in general and also of specific languages; 2. giving an example of how subjectivity can be expressed in a specific language. The article is divided into two parts: in the first section the problem is discussed from a theoretical point of view and in the second section a concrete phenomenon is analysed. In the theoretical section the question of subjectivity is discussed taking the work of Émile Benveniste and its developments in the “theory of the act of utterance” as a starting point. In the second part modality is analysed as a form of expression of subjectivity in Italian with particular reference to modal adverbs. One hypothesis is put forward on the type of subjectivity that the speaker can express through this kind of adverbs in the utterance, and their syntactic and semantic characteristics are analysed.