Enunciation

Enunciation is the act through which abstract language becomes concrete speech—through which a sentence in the dictionary becomes an utterance directed by a speaker to a listener in a specific context. De Certeau adopted this concept from Émile Benveniste to distinguish between language as a system of signs and language as a practice of communication. The same words mean differently depending on who says them, to whom, when, and why. Tone, emphasis, context, relational history—all shape meaning in ways that semantics alone cannot capture. AI-generated text is language without enunciation. It is syntactically and semantically competent but has not been said by anyone. The practitioner who uses AI output must supply enunciation—must transform the model's generated code into spoken language by directing it at a specific audience with a specific intention. This operation is invisible to observers but determines whether the work communicates or merely occupies space on the page.