Letter
Jacques Lacan
Ferdinand de Saussure
Lacan's frequent references to the "letter" must be seen within the context of Saussure's discussion of language.
Spoken and Written Language
In his Course in General Linguistics, Saussure privileges spoken language above written language, on the grounds that the former appears before the latter both in the history of humanity and in the life of the individual.
Writing is conceived of as a mere secondhand representation of spoken language, and the signifier is conceived of as purely an acoustic image and not as a graphic one.[1]
Jacques Lacan
Material Basis of Language
When Lacan takes up Saussure's work in the 1950s, he adapts it freely to his own purposes.
He thus conceives of the letter, not as a mere graphic representation of a sound, but as the material basis of language itself.
"By letter I designate that material support that concrete discourse borrows from language."[2]
Materiality
The letter is thus connected with the real, a material substrate that underpins the symbolic order.
The concept of materiality implies, for Lacan, both the indivisibility and the idea of locality; the letter is therefore "the essentially localized structured of the signifier."[3]
Meaningless in itself
As an element of the real, the letter is meaningless in itself.
Examples
Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Lacan illustrates this by referring to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, which were indecipherable to Europeans for so long.
Until Champollion was able to decipher them on the basis of the Rosetta Stone, no one knew how to understand these enigmatic inscriptions, but it was nevertheless clear that they were organized into a signifying system.[4]
In the same way, the signifier persists as a meaningless letter which makes the destiny of the subject and which he must decipher.
Wolf Man
A good example of this is the case of the Wolf Man, in which Freud noted that the meaningless letter V reappeared under many guides in the Wolf Man's life.[5]
Lacan's concept of the letter is the subject of a critique by Jacques Derrida (1975) and by two of Derrida's follows (Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy, 1973).
Lacan refers to the latter work in his 1972-3 seminar.[6]
- ↑ Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1916) Course in General Linguistics, ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, trans. Wade Baskin, Glasgow: Collins Fontana.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.147
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.153
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-54. Trans. John Forrester. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. p.244-5; Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.160
- ↑ Freud. 1918b.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p.62-6.
