The resistant embrace of formalism in the work of Émile Benveniste and Aurélien Sauvageot

Rarely claimed by linguists as labels for their own work, ``structuralist'' and ``structuralism'' have been more often hurled at others as criticisms. Yet those doing the hurling were themselves often pursuing a similarly formalist analysis, and were not averse to claiming their share of the academic capital that structuralism brought to linguistics. Work by Émile Benveniste (1902--1976) and Aurélien Sauvageot (1897--1988) shows different modes of a ``resistant embrace'' to structuralist formalism, with their resistance centred on a perceived abandonment of attention to phonological and philological detail; and to the role of speakers, a concern that culminates with Benveniste's concept of enunciation. Their reactions are examined here within the framework of two different ways in which structuralism was conceived, one based on holism, the other on universalism.