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Speech
,no edit summary
speech (parole) The French term parole presents considerable difficulty
to the English translator because it does not correspond to any one English
word. In some contexts it corresponds to the English term 'speech', and in
others is best translated as 'word'.
Parole becomes one of the most important terms in Lacan's work from the
early 1950s on. In his famous 'Rome discourse', Lacan denounces the way that
the role of speech in psychoanalysis had come to be neglected by contempor-
ary psychoanalytic theory, and argues for a renewed focus on speech and
LANGUAGE (Lacan, 1953a). Lacan's use of the term parole owes little to
Saussure (whose opposition between parole and langue is replaced in Lacan's
work with the opposition between parole and langage), and is far more
determined by references to anthropology, theology, and metaphysics.
e Anthropology Lacan's concept of speech as a 'symbolic exchange'
which 'links human beings to each other' (Sl, 142) is clearly influenced by
the work of Mauss and LÈvi-Strauss, especially their analysis of the exchange
of gifts. Thus Freud's interpretations are described as 'a symbolic gift of
speech, pregnant with a secret pact' (E, 79). The concept of speech as a
pact which assigns roles to both the addressee and the addresser is formulated
in Lacan's concept of FOUNDING SPEECH.
e Theology Speech also takes on religious and theological connotations in
Lacan's work, in terms derived both from Eastern religions (E, 106-7) and the
Judaeo-Christian tradition (E, 106). In 1954, Lacan discusses speech with
reference to St Augustine's De locutionis significatione (Sl, 247-60). Like
the words uttered by God in Genesis, speech is a 'symbolic invocation' which
creates, ex nihilo, 'a new order of being in the relations between men' (Sl, 239).
ï Metaphysics Lacan draws on Heidegger's distinction between Rede
(discourse) and Gerede (chatter) to elaborate his own distinction between
'full speech' (parole pleine) and 'empty speech' (parole vide) (see E, 40ff.).
Lacan first makes this distinction in 1953, and though it no longer plays an
important part in his work after 1955, it never disappears completely. Full
speech articulates the symbolic dimension of language, whereas empty speech
articulates the imaginary dimension of language, the speech from the ego to
the counterpart. 'Full speech is a speech full of meaning [sens]. Empty speech
is a speech which has only signification' (Lacan, 1976--7; Ornicar?, nos 17/18:
11).
Full speech is also called 'true speech', since it is closer to the enigmatic
truth of the subject's desire: 'Full speech is speech which aims at, which forms,
the truth such as it becomes established in the recognition of one person by
another. Full speech is speech which performs [qui fait acte]' (Sl, 107). 'Full
speech, in effect, is defined by its identity with that which it speaks about' (Ec,
381).
In empty speech, on the other hand, the subject is alienated from his desire;
in empty speech 'the subject seems to be talking in vain about someone who
. . . can never become one with the assumption of his desire' (E, 45).
One of the analyst's tasks when listening to the analysand is to discern the
moments when full speech emerges. Full speech and empty speech are the
extreme points on a continuum, and 'between these two extremes, a whole
gamut of modes of realisation of speech is deployed' (Sl, 50). The aim of
psychoanalytic treatment is to articulate full speech, which is hard work; full
speech can be quite laborious (pÈnible) to articulate (E, 253).
Empty speech is not the same as lying; on the contrary, lies often reveal the
TRUTH about desire more fully than many honest statements (see Sll, 139-40).
It is never possible to articulate in speech the whole truth of one's desire,
because of a fundamental 'incompatibility between desire and speech' (E,
275); 'I always tell the truth; not the whole truth, because we are not capable
of telling it all. Telling it all is materially impossible' (Lacan, 1973a: 9). Full
speech, then, is not the articulation in speech of the whole truth about the
subject's desire, but the speech which articulates this truth as fully as possible
at a particular time.
Speech is the only means of access to the truth about desire; 'speech alone is
the key to that truth' (E, 172). Moreover, psychoanalytic theory claims that it
is only a particular kind of speech that leads to this truth; a speech without
conscious control, known as free association.
== References ==
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[[Category:Lacan]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]