Discourse

French: discours

Discourse of the Other

The term "discourse" is used by Lacan to emphasize the transindividual nature of language, the fact that speech always implies another subject, an interlocutor.

The unconscious is the "discourse of the Other", the effect on the subject of speech that is addressed to that subject from elsewhere, by another subject (who has been forgotten), by an other scene or psychic locality.

Social Bond

In 1969, Lacan begins to use the term "discourse" to denote a "social bond, founded in language."

He identifies four types of social bonds, four articulations of the symbolic network which regulates intersubjective relations.

Four Discourses

These "four discourses" are

• the discourse of the master,
• the discourse of the university,
• the discourse of the hysteric, and
• the discourse of the analyst.

Four Algorithms

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Algebraic symbols from the Four Discourses

Each of the four discourses is represented by an algorithm which contains four algebraic symbols.

The names of these four symbols are shown to the right.

The four symbols correspond to four different positions in each algorithm of the four discourses.

Each algorithm of the four discourses has four different positions with which the four symbols correspond.

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The structure of the four discourses

The position of the four symbols in each algorithm is what distinguishes the four discourses from one another.

The four discourses are distinguished from one another by the positions of these four symbols in each algorithm.

Each of the four discourses is defined by the position of the four symbols in its algorithm.

The names of the four positions are shown to the right.