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The [[Latin ]] term <i>infans</i>, derived from the Greek <i>phèmi</i> ("I [[speak]]"), means "one who does not (or rather, not yet) speak," and refers to the [[baby ]] before the acquisition of [[speech ]] that marks the entry into [[childhood]].</p><p>A [[number ]] of authors (notably Melanie [[Klein ]] and Donald [[Winnicott]]) used the term to describe those whose mode of [[communication ]] is situated at a preverbal level. In the [[work ]] of Jacques [[Lacan ]] the term <i>infans</i> took on a further [[dimension ]] in his [[discussion ]] of [[language ]] and its relation to the [[unconscious]]. Piera Aulagnier elaborated a [[theory ]] of the [[mother]]-[[infant ]] relation in [[terms ]] of [[discourse ]] (with the mother as "[[word]]-bearer").

The discussion here will be limited to the specific reference to language implied in the [[notion ]] of <i>infans</i>.</p>

<p>In [[French ]] translations of authors like Klein or Winnicott, terms such as <i>bébé</i> (baby), <i>nourrisson</i> (nursling), <i>petit [[enfant]]</i> (small/young [[child]]), or <i>infans</i> are used. A [[good ]] many of Klein's [[texts ]] were originally written in [[German]], and she used the word <i>infans</i>, which was translated in different ways in [[English ]] and then in French, according to Luis E. Prado de Oliveira.

Winnicott commented on the term <i>infant</i>, commonly used in English, in "The Theory of the Parent-Infant [[Relationship]]," originally published in the <i>International Journal of [[Psychoanalysis]]</i> in 1960. He explicitly referred to the fact that the infant does not yet have the use of [[verbal ]] [[symbols ]] or [[word-presentations]]. The baby's [[dependence ]] on the mother's care is therefore more linked to [[maternal ]] [[empathy ]] than to any [[understanding ]] the mother might have of what could be verbally expressed. In the work of Lacan, the "<i>infans</i> [[stage]]" precedes the advent of the [[subject ]] through language. In "The [[Mirror ]] Stage as Formative of the Function of the <i>I</i> As Revealed in [[Psychoanalytic ]] [[Experience]]" (1949/2004), he wrote: "The jubilant assumption of his [[specular ]] [[image ]] by the kind of being—still trapped in his motor [[impotence ]] and nursling dependence—the little man at the <i>infans</i> stage thus seems to me to [[manifest ]] in an exemplary [[situation ]] the [[symbolic ]] [[matrix ]] in which the <i>I</i> is precipitated in a primordial [[form]], prior to [[being ]] objectified in the [[dialectic ]] of [[identification ]] with the [[other]], and before language restores to it, in the [[universal]], its function as subject" (p. 4).</p>

<p>Piera Aulagnier's theory of the <i>infans</i> stage is original in that she did not stop herself with merely noting the preverbal relationship to the mother at this stage, but also emphasizes that the mother plays the [[role ]] of "word-bearer" in relation to the preverbal infant. This can be [[understood ]] only in the context of the [[anticipation ]] of the baby's <i>I</i> by the mother. In <i>The [[Violence ]] of [[Interpretation]]: From Pictogram to [[Statement]]</i> (1975/2001), Aulagnier writes: "The mother's [[words ]] and deeds always anticipate what the infant may [[know ]] of [[them]]" (p. 10).</p><p>The [[idea ]] of the mother as word-bearer draws on Lacan's emphasis on the function of discourse. In <i>The Violence of Interpretation</i>, Aulagnier reminded us that "Every subject is [[born ]] into a '[[speaking ]] [[space]]"' and that the I is "an [[agency ]] constituted by discourse" (p. 71). By "bearing" the word, the mother effects a twofold junction: first, between the infant's manifestations and the [[outside ]] [[world]], by verbalizing them and giving them [[meaning]]; and second, between the world and the infant, since for the baby she serves as the [[representative ]] of an [[external ]] [[order]], whose laws and [[demands ]] she articulates.</p><p>Unlike the [[bodily ]] [[needs ]] that the newborn, because of its immaturity, cannot meet by itself, the [[psychic ]] needs involving [[representation ]] in its [[primal ]] form (the pictogram) do not depend on [[intervention ]] by a [[third ]] party. But the infant does not yet have access to the [[formation ]] of [[ideas ]] and naming, and it is thus in this [[place ]] of [[lack ]] that the mother as word-bearer is inserted. She fashions the [[objects ]] that are presented to the infant by endowing them with a [[libidinal ]] meaning. In Aulagnier's words: "[F]or the senselessness of a [[real ]] that could have no status in the [[psyche]], it substitutes a [[reality ]] that is [[human ]] because it is cathected by the maternal [[libido]], a reality that may be reshaped by the primal and the primary only because of that earlier work" (p. 74).</p>

<p>On this point, which is crucial for [[thinking ]] the relationship with the world, and which marks the way in which that relationship depends on the relationship to the other—here the mother—Aulagnier simultaneously underscores her indebtedness to Lacan and her proximity to Wilfred Bion, from whom she considered herself to be fairly distant in other respects. With [[regard ]] to Lacan, she [[notes]]: "The contribution of Lacan's theory will be recognized here: indeed it might be said that the [[object ]] is capable of being metabolized by the infant's [[psychical ]] [[activity ]] only if, and as such, the mother's discourse has endowed it with a meaning as evidenced by her naming of it. In this [[sense ]] 'swallowed' with the object, Lacan was to see the primal [[introjection ]] of a [[signifier ]] as the inscription of a [[unary ]] [[trait ]] (<i>trait [[unaire]]</i>)" (p. 73).</p><p>As for Bion, she underscored her similarity to him as regarding the idea of an object that initially resided in the "maternal zone" and is then metabolized by the infant into a pure representation of its own relationship to the world. On the other hand, she diverged from both Lacan and Bion in her [[analysis ]] of the consequences of this prosthetic function of the mother's psyche in terms of "violence." In this respect, we can assume that this notion that, a priori, seems surprising in the context of mother-child relations, came from [[another ]] source—specifically, from the other violence that marks the bonds between the mother and the baby who will become [[psychotic]], and specifically the [[schizophrenic]].</p><p>In what sense does the mother/word-bearer inflict violence upon the <i>infans</i>? This necessary, "primary" violence is violence nonetheless, in that the infant feels the imposition of the word-bearer's [[interpretations ]] of the world. As Aulagnier explained in another work, the mother maintains a "spoken shadow" relationship with the infant, but the infant never completely coincides with this shadow that preexists it. The "violence"

is linked to the [[need ]] to create and hold a subject-place (the spoken shadow) where there are as yet only potentialities. Accordingly, the [[future ]] subject, the I, will come into being in a space preformed by expectations that are not its own. This is the necessary violence of maternal interpretation. But just as there is no such [[thing ]] as a [[developmental ]] <i>tabula rasa</i>, there can be no human subject without this pre-form. It is the discrepancy between the infant and shadow that makes it possible to situate a violence that will only really be violent (secondary violence) if the mother imposes it no longer upon the infant, but upon the I of the child.</p>

<p><i>See also:</i> <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/apprenti-historien-et-le-maitresorcier-l"><i>Apprenti-historien et le maítre-sorcier (L'-)</i> [The apprentice historian and the [[master ]] sorcerer]</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/controversial-discussions-anna-freud-melanie-klein">Controversial Discussions</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/demand">Demand</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/graph-desire">Graph of [[Desire]]</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/helplessness">Helplessness</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/">I</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/ideational-representation">Ideational representation</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/identificatory-project">Identificatory [[project]]</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/infant-development">Infant [[development]]</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/megalomania">Megalomania</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/narcissism">Narcissism</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/object">Object</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/other">Other, the</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/narcissism-primary">Primary [[narcissism]]; Sense/nonsense</a>; <a href="http://soc.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/violence-interpretation-from-pictogram-statement"><i>Violence of Interpretation, The: From Pictogram to Statement</i></a>.</p>

<h2>[[Bibliography]]</h2><ul><li>Castoriadis-Aulagnier, Piera (2001). <i>The violence of interpretation: From pictogram to statement</i>. (Alan [[Sheridan]], Trans.).. Hove, U.K., and Philadelphia: Brunner/Routledge. (Original work published 1975)</li><li>Aulagnier, Piera. (1984). <i>L'Apprenti-historien et le maître sorcier. Du [[discours ]] identificant au discours délirant</i>. [[Paris]]: Presses Universitaires de [[France]].</li><li>[[Lacan, Jacques]]. (2004). The [[mirror stage ]] as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience. In his<i>[[Écrits]]: A selection</i> ([[Bruce Fink]], Trans.).. New York: W. W. Norton (Original work published 1949).</li>