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enunciation (Ènonciation) In linguistic theory in Europe, one important distinction is that between the enunciation and the statement (Fr. ÈnoncÈ).The distinction concerns two ways of regarding linguistic production. When linguistic production is analysed in terms of abstract grammatical units (such  as sentences), independent of the specific circumstances of occurrence, it is referred to as a statement. On the other hand, when linguistic production is analysed as an individual act performed by a particular speaker at a specific time/place, and in a specific situation, it is referred to as an enunciation (Ducrot and Todorov, 1972: 405-10).  Long before Lacan uses these terms, he is already making a similar distinction. In 1936, for example, he stresses that the act of speaking contains  a meaning in itself, even if the words spoken are 'meaningless' (Ec, 83). Prior  to any function it may have in 'conveying a message', speech is an appeal to  the other. This attention to the act of speaking in itself, irrespective of the  content of the utterance, anticipates Lacan's attention to the dimension of the  enunciation.  When Lacan does come to use the term 'enunciation' in 1946, it is first of all  to describe strange characteristics of psychotic language, with its 'duplicity of  the enunciation' (Ec, 167). Later, in the 1950s, the term is used to locate the subject of the unconscious. In the graph of desire, the lower chain is the  statement, which is speech in its conscious dimension, while the upper chain  is 'the unconscious enunciation' (E, 316). In designating the enunciation as unconscious, Lacan affirms that the source of speech is not the ego, nor consciousness, but the unconscious; language comes from the Other, and the  idea that 'I' am master of my discourse is only an illusion. The very word 'I' (Je) is ambiguous; aS SHIFTER, it is both a signifier acting as subject of the  statement, and an index which designates, but does not signify, the subject of  the enunciation (E, 298). The subject is thus split between these two levels,  divided in the very act of articulating the I that presents the illusion of unity (see Sll, 139).