Changes

In Chapter 2, I mentioned the fact that in the 1930s Lacan was much influenced by the work of Roger [[Caillois]]. By using examples from stick insects and the praying mantis, Caillois suggested that these [[creatures]] were seized by the [[image]]. Drawing on his work, Lacan argued that the human being (later, he was to use the phrase 'the [[speaking being]]') is captivated by the image or [[imago]]. There is a constituting image which determines what will be perceived. Our [[seeing]] is determined by [[images]]. It is not that we see but that we are seen by the imaging [[structure]]. Rather like these insects, we are seized by the image and this has a toxic effect. The human subject is [[alienated]] and is in bondage to the image. This is an interesting argument because later, in his second period ([[1948]]-1960) Lacan was to argue that language has this effect. Human subjects are caught, grasped, by the [[signifier]]. It is not the image but the [[word]] that has a toxic effect. The speaking being is poisoned by language. Traditionally, language has been conceived as an [[instrument]] for [[communication]], mastered by subjects fully [[conscious]] of what they are doing when they [[speak]]. In contrast, the [[Lacanian]] view of language centres round the [[lack]] of [[mastery]] of the speaking subject ([[slips of the tongue]], and so forth). In this view of language, the subject is formed in a [[process]] which turns the small animal into a human child. The subject is seen as constituted by language and it appropriates the world through language. In a Freudian perspective, says Lacan, man is [[nothing]] but the subject caught in, and tortured by, language. Lacan's emendation of Saussure is against the [[idea]] that communication is a transferral of [[concepts]] from one [[mind]] to another, an [[exchange]] of tokens which already have their meaning clearly stamped upon them. He rejects the view of language as a [[representation]] of pre-given objects. Lacan believes that the (contractual nature of language) requires that, in order for two subjects to [[name]] the same [[object]], they must recognise each other as [[recognising]] the same object, thereby transcending the [[struggle]] for possession. Speech, argues Lacan, is always an inter-[[subjective]] pact. Lacan stresses that speech is not simply a conveyor of information, but establishes a relation between [[speaker]] and hearer. ,In accordance with the [[dialectic]] of recognition the very being of the subject is dependent upon its recognition by other subjects. Lacan has always been concerned with language and speech; ( [[Saussurean]] [[linguistics]], on the other hand, did not become part of his theory until the 1950s) He believes that the essential property of language is the involvement of an interlocutor - one who takes part in a dialogue. Before it comes to [[signify]] something, language signifies for someone even though the interlocutor may be [[imaginary]]). It implies, then, a signifying [[intention]] on the part of the subject. [[Intentionality]] can be expressed in one of two modes. Either it is expressed but not [[understood]] by the subject (in which [[case]] it has to be interpreted), or it is masked by the mechanisms of [[negation]] and [[disavowal]]. It was in about 1948 a few years after the Second World War, that Lacan began to focus his attention on the use of Saussurean linguistics in psychoanalysis. In 1953 Lacan gave a paper in Rome ('the [[Rome Discourse]]'), 'The function and field of speech and language', which is the founding sftatement of psychoanalysis as a theory of the speaking subject. It is in this paper that Saussure first emerges as a major influence in Laean's [[thinking]] and where he contends that the human subject is determined by language. Lacan was indebted to [[Ferdinand de Saussure]]'s [[concept]] of the [[sign]]. Saussure argued that there is the signifier, which is an acoustic image, and the [[signified]], which is a concept. In the sign, a signifier and a signified collide and are bonded. Their relationship is an [[arbitrary]] one, but once this bonding has taken [[place]] the sign becomes a fixity. In Saussure the components of the sign are thought of as symmetrical and interdependent. Lacan questions the symmetry and equilibrium between signifier and signified in Saussure. What Lacan does is to reverse Saussure's [[algorithm]] and make it S/s (Signifier over signified). The bar separating the two [[symbols]] stresses the cleavage between them. Note that the signified is below the signifier; in Lacan's account the signified does '[[slip]] beneath' the signifier and successfully resists our attempts to locate and delimit it. For Saussure, [[words]] are [[signs]], combinations of signifiers and signified." To Lacan, however, signifiers are contrasted with signs. While signs refer to [[absent]] objectsl (for example, Man Friday's footprint in the sand indicates hispresence on the island),)" signifiers do not refer to objects but to the [[chain]] of language. They do refer, but to other signifiers. The signified seems finlally to be within reach, it dissolves in yet another signifier. Lacan often uses a metaphor of 'the signifying chain'. The chain is 'that limits the speaker's [[freedom]] et the chain is mt;tnle; anyone of its [[links]] can provide a point of-attachment to other chains. The [[signifying chain]] of speech comprises the\'rings of a necklace that is a ring in another necklace made of ring !]. In Lacan's view the characteristic sensations of 'being a person' or 'having a [[personality]]' come from the [[self]]-perpetuating imperative that propels the signifying chain. Lacan, then, has emended Saussure in several ways. While Saussure emphasised the co-[[presence]] of signifier and signified, Lacan always gives primacy (priority or precedence) to the signifier. He stresses the point that the signifier has an [[active]], colonising [[power]] over the signified. It 'anticipates' the signified. He says that [[sentence]] openings like 'I shall never ... ', 'All the 48 Jacques Lacan same it is .. .', 'And yet there may be .. .', are already creating meaning before the arrival of the key [[terms]]. [[Retroaction]], too, may be seen at work in sentences, in that they achieve their final 'effect of sense' only when their last word has been given. The single most important idea which Lacan adopts from [[structuralism]] is that of the 'arbitrary' relation between signifier and signified. This arbitrariness entails that there can be no [[natural]], automatic or self-evident transition from signifier to signified, from langu~ge language to meaning, or from human [[behaviour]] to its [[psychological]] [[significance]]. The bar between signifier and signified is described by Lacan as a [[barrier]] resisting '[[signification]]'. Shortly after '[[the Rome Discourse]]', a rapid and remarkable shift began to take place (about 1953) in Lacan's teaching. The theory of [[the Imaginary]], which had been the central concern in the first [[phase]] of Lacan's work, was [[displaced]] - or rather, enriched - by the [[Symbolic]]. This shift was undoubtedly the result of a growing [[awareness]] of [[structuralist]] thought, and was marked by a break in the phenomenological [[vocabulary]] of his earlier work. Lacan mapped his concept of [[the Symbolic]] on to Freud's concept of the [[Oedipal]] process (see Chapter 1). Access to the [[Symbolic order]] is achieved by crossing the frontier, out of the Imaginary, the dyadic world of [[mother]] and child, into recognition pf the [[Father]]'s Name and his Law. That is out of a [[body]]-based, [[maternal]] relationship into one created by [[social]] exchange, [[culture]] and taboos. These are the concerns of [[Levi-Strauss]]. ' lln An important feature of Lacan's theory is its [[incorporation]] of some of the [[ideas]] of Levi-Straus~he . The leading structuralist of the time, Levi-Strauss argued that a [[society]] should be seen as an ensemble of symbolic systems~ in the first rank of which would be 1anguagelanguage,-JIlarriagemarriage-rules, [[economic]] relations, art, science and [[religion]]. Lacan accepts almost without qualification the LeviStraussian Levi-Straussian account of the rules of matrimonial exchange as the foundation of human society. J , (Levi-Strauss argues that the [[family]] structure manifests a tr~scendence trascendence of all natural order by the establishment of Culture,culture; It it alone allows each and everyone to know who he or she is~ a [[total]] - promiscuity no . No one could in fact be called father, son or sister and - no one would be able to situate her- or himself or recognise [[others]] - by the particular place they occupie~ow, the occupied. The [[prohibition]] of [[incest]] is duplicated in the sacrifice of [[sexual]] relations with the   no\  The functions of language 49 mother or the sisteiJh sister is also duplicated by the law of exchange, the obligation to take a wife from another family in order that the relationships of alliance may be established.V ~ In short, the basic [[thesis]] of. Levi-Strauss is that [[marriage]] is governed by a preferential order of kinship which, like language, is imperative for the group, but [[unconscious]] in its [[structures]]. Rules governing alliance regulate the exchange of women and thereis there is a prohibition of incest. The Law which goy_erns governs this [[whole]] structure is identical with the law of language. It is on the basis of this argument that Lacan elaborates his theory of the Symbolic, the [[dimension]] of culture into which the child must be introduced --1nrough . Through the acquisition of language and through the [[renunciation]] of incestuous desires for union with its mother-:J . As far as language is concerned it should be remembered that, , though he draws on some of Levi-Strauss's ideas, Lacan criticises the claims of structuralism to produce an [[objective]] decoding of [[linguistic]] messages. For Lacan, meaning cannot be objectified; , rather, it is characterised by a fundamental elusiveness and unpre- \ dictabilityunpredictability: since no signifier follows automatically from that which precedes it, in the very gap between signifiers something of the subject is revealed. The primacy of metaphor 1-acan believes that language is, in [[essence]], metaphoricaL' This view derives from [[Roman Jakobson]], who argued that metaphor and metonymy are two poles, or two [[processes]] in language which are at work everywhere in language._\ First of all, it is essential to be clear about the meaning of met~phor and metonymy. Broadly speaking, metaphor is based on a proposed similarity or analogy between the literal subject and its f!l.e.!aphorical [[substitute]], whereas metonymy is based on a proposed contiguous (or sequential) [[association]] between the literal subject and its 'adjacent' replacement. Both metaphor and metonymy can be subdivided into other [[figures]]. A simile, for example, is a type of metaphor - in both cases there is a felt resemblance. A simile is [[explicit]], while a metaphor simply asserts without explanation. A metaphor has an elliptical concentration which is [[lacking]] in the simile.7 It is usual to consider synecdoche as a variant of metonymy. A 50 Jacques Lacan synecdoche is usually defined as the part for the whole, or the whole for the part. A textbook example of metonymy is 'Bordeaux'. It is, first of all, the name of a town; then it began to denote the wine produced there - the product instead of the place of production. This is a type of meaning shift based on contiguity. Words are constantly changing their [[meanings]] in this way. Figurative meanings become literal, and there is a growth of new figurative meanings. c• As I said in Chapter 1, Freud believed that two processes were important in the [[formation]] of [[dreams]], [[jokes]], slips of the tongue or pen, and [[symptoms]] in general' [[condensation]] and [[displacement]]. ~ Freud first came to recognise ((he [[mechanism]] of condensatiort in the simple fact tlJ.at the [[dream]] itself is(much shorter and much more compressed! than its [[verbal]] representation.(ln his view, condensation, the 'n_odal point' of the dream, always allows multiple [[interpretations]]. (Displacement is a [[form]] of [[distortion]] in which [[censorship]] displaces the centre of the dream on to objects or words of minor importance~ ~ I mention this because [1acan has sought to correlate Freud's concepts, condensation and displacement, with Roman Jakobson's [[analysis]] of the two poles of [[languag]]:.$ Jakobson argued that metaphor and metonymy are two poles, which are at work in language. It is important to [[remember]] that they are not entities. They are [[categories]] of [[distinction]], not bags to put things in. Neither describes an isolable thing; they describe a relation. Jakobson sees metaphor and metonymy as the characteristic mo no des of binarily opposed polarities which between them underpin the twofold process of selection and combination. An [[utterance]] or [[message]] is a combination of constituent parts selected from the repository of all possible constituent parts. Messages are constructed by a combination of a 'horizontal' movement, which combines words together, and a 'vertical' movement which selects the particular words from the available inventory of the language. The selective process manifests itself in similarity (one word or concept being 'like' another) and its mode is [[metaphoric]]. The combinative process manifests itself in contiguity (one word being placed next to anbther) and its mode is [[metonymic]]. In short, selection (the relation of similal'ity) and combination (the relation of contiguity) - the metaphoric and metonymic ways - are considered by Jakobson to be the two most fundamental linguistic operations.

The fUnctions of language 51 Of course, both metaphor and metonymy can be subdivided into other figures (simile is a type• type of metaphor; synecdoche is a type of metonymy) but• but the distinction between the two modes is fundamental: it is how language works. Second, as Jakobson reminds us, any metonymy is slightly [[metaphorical]] and any metaphor has a metonymic tint. ~ The distinction has great relevance in [[aesthetics]]. It enabled ":J~obsonJakobson, for [[instance]], to contrast cubism (which is metonymic: the "object becomes a series of synecdoches where each fragment stands for the whole) with surrealism (which is metaphoric), or to [[separate]] the metaphoric romantics and symbolists from the metonymic realists (Anna Karenina is described by [[Tolstoy]] through metonymic details, her handbag, her clothes, and so on). Widening his analysis, Jakobson concludes that the two processes appear in all symbolic organisations, for instance in the dreamwork: for him displacement is metonymic, but condensation is synecdoche, and [[identification]] or [[symbolism]] is metaphoric. r Lacan simplifies this by contrasting metaphoric condensation with metonymic displacemenDHe displacemen. He suggests that@ese these two modes of symbolic representation provide a [[model]] for the [[understanding]] of [[psychic]] functionl1tIie function. The concept of metaphor illuminates the [[notion]] of '[[symptom]]' (tile replacing of one signifier by an associated one), that of metonymy sheds light on the origin of desire (through the combinative connection of signifier to signifier and the sense this implies of the infinite extension of such a process into uncharted areasU % recapitulate: Lacan assimilates the two processes of the Freudian unconscious, condensation ~isplacement, to the linguistic axes of metaphor and metonymyjE.,or Lacan unconscious meaning 'insists' in the signifying chain by means of metaphor and metonymy; in his view the symptom is a metaphor and desire is a metonymy]

But what is the significance af metaphar? Metaphor is a systematic farm af classifying and imputing [[value]]. Lacan followed closely his friend Jakabson's definition of this trape: it is the trape afselectian and [[substitution]]. Metaphar implies [[choice]]. The ability to. chaase depends an. the- 'ability to.. sart into. categories, and therefare to. be able to. say, 'this, nat that'. In ather wards, any substitutian af ane thing far anather is the preferring af that thing to. the ather. Chaice implies value judgement.