Language

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Language occupies an important position in Lacanian psychoanalysis, usually regarded as its most distinctive feature.

Language as a Structure

The word 'language' used by Jacques Lacan refers to the general structure of language, that is, the system of language in general, abstracting from all particular languages.

Jacques Lacan is concerned with the general structure of language (the system of language in general) (langage), (rather than the differences between particular languages (langues)).


Development in Lacan's Thought

Four broad phases can be discerned in the long process of development in Lacan's thinking on the nature of language.

ONE

Lacan argues that language is constitutive of the psychoanalytic experience.[1]

Language, understood in terms derived from Hegel rather than linguistic theory, is a mediating element which permits the subject to attain recognition from the other.

Language is first and foremost an appeal to an interlocutor.


=Language and Structure

Lacan's discussion of language contains references to Heideggerian phenomenology and to the anthropology of language (Mauss, Malinowski and Levi-Strauss).

Language is seen as structuring the social laws of exchange, as a symbolic pact, etc.

In his famous Rome Discourse Lacan posits a basic opposition between parole and langage. (see speech)


Lacan refers to Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson.

Following Sassure, Lacan argues that language is a structure composed of differential elements.

Language becomes for Lacan the single paradigm of all structure.

Lacan and Language

Lacan proceeds to critcize the Saussurean concept of language.

Lacan argues that the basic unit of language is not the sign but the signifier.

Lacan argues that the unconscious is, like language, a structure of signifiers.

Lacan asserts that "the unconscious is structured like a language."[2]


Lacan can formulate the category of the symbolic with greater precision.

In 1969 Lacan develops a concept of discourse as a kind of social bond.

Lalangue

Lacan coins the term lalangue to refer to non-communicative aspects of language which, by playing on ambiguity and homophony, give rise to a kind ofjouissance.[3]

All human communication is inscribed in a linguistic structure.

The whole aim of psychoanalytic treatment is to articulate the truth of one's desire in speech rather than in any other medium.

The fundamental rule of psychoanalysis is based on the principle that speech is the only way to this truth.

Speech is the only tool which the analyst has.

Any analyst who does not understand the way speech and language work does not understand psychoanalysis.


References

  1. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p.82
  2. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p.20
  3. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p.126
  1. Language: 12, 24-5, 33, 44-5, 71, 83, 118, 119, as system, 38, 40 (35, 37)