Abstract

The aim of the essay is to revive the philosophy of language of the Soviet linguist Valentin Volochinov, by revisiting his concept of the utterance as enthymeme: the meaning of an utterance is not fully determined by the linguistic system, but is dependent on its insertion in a social situation, which it refracts rather than reflects, thus giving rise to evaluations. The essay proceeds by analysing a number of such enthymemes, moving towards literature and a definition of a realism of form rather than content, of refraction rather than reflection, examples of which are to be found in the works of Thackeray.