Borders of Language. Kristeva's Critique of Lacan (Shuli Barzilai)
Borders of Language. Kristeva's Critique of Lacan (Shuli Barzilai)
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Shuli Barzilai
Borders of Language:
Kristeva's Critique of Lacan
spite of-or perhaps in keeping with-her opening promise to examine "Lacan's contributions" (33), Kristeva proceeds to mount a radi-
not only through the differentfigures or spaces made by those signs which
resemble linguistic signs, but also through other elements . . . which, although always already caught in the web of meaning and signification, are
not caught in the same way as the two-sided units of the Saussurean sign
In this text and others, Kristeva proposes the concept of the "semiotic"
in order to designate those other elements and to facilitate study of
them. She would shift psychoanalysis away from its fascination with
language and toward operations that are "pre-meaning and pre-sign
(or trans-meaning, trans-sign)" ("System" 29), that cut "through lan-
294
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Shuli Barzilai
295
seem a questionable critical procedure. In what outbreak of what Kristeva calls "abjection."
follows I try to show that Kristeva's critique of theDescribed briefly and oversimply, abjection entails
Lacanian formula, in relation to the borderline pa- an absence (the normative condition of the pre-
despite its occasionally obsessive appearances- resonance. It designates a condition that eludes
which is almost impossible to memorize" (42). both the mirror stage essential for subject formaThese "bits" appear at the limits of the symbolic tion and the castration anxiety that (by placing the
order, "outside the transcendental enclosure
maternal object under prohibition) generates
within which we are otherwise constrained by phe-desire, leaving a "strayed subject . . . huddled
nomenology and its relative, linguistics" (40-41). outside the paths of desire." The borderline
Eluding the inside of the language system, borderalso denotes a corollary effect: "a language that
II
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296
elements of experience.
attentiveness to language makes him open tothe unconscious and language. "As something
works of art, since it is so-called aesthetic produccompletely different from communication or dialogue," from the symbolic-which is for Lacan the
tion that knows how to deal with [saitfaire avec]
the (de)negation inherent in language, without aclocus of social exchange-lalangue is called on "to
tually knowing it" (39). This statement alludes to
represent the real from which linguistics takes its
a convergence that Kristeva elaborates elsewhere.
object" ("Within the Microcosm" 34). Kristeva
She defines poetic language, like borderline discites Lacan: "Language is what we try to know
course, as "a practice for which any particular
about the functioning of lalangue" (Encore 126;
language is the margin" ("Ethics" 25) and, conqtd. on 34). However, even though lalangue seems
sequently, as eluding a strictly linguistic interto be "animated by affects that involve the prespretation: "the very concept of sign, whichence of nonknowledge" and therefore seems
presupposes a vertical (hierarchical) division be"irreducible-to-signifiance," it remains a funtween signifier and signified, cannot be applied to
damentally "thetic" concept: "it exists and can be
poetic language-by definition an infinity of pairconceived only through the position, the thesis, of
ings and combinations" ("Word" 69). At times, she
language." On what grounds other than her vested
interest does Kristeva make this claim? "No matmakes the connection even more explicit-"poetic
language . . . by its very economy borders on
ter how impossible the real might be, once it is
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Shuli Barzilai
297
order" (34). What, then, does Kristeva's critique This note constitutes an essay within the essay,
add to our understanding of this theory and its or a kind of subplot in Kristeva's text. In seclimitations? I would suggest that the force and in- tions 3-5 of my discussion, I closely study this
novation of her reading derive from its specific reference to "Freud's notion of a 'sign"' and exdirection or recourse: the path it takes back to the amine its immediate intertextual relations, and in
writings of Freud.
section 61 assess the wider implications of the note
for her challenge to Lacan's theory and practice.
III
By "intertextual relations," I mean both the inner
play of elements that organizes Kristeva's argument, "the web of relationships which produce the
A dense footnote, half a page long, gives the first
structure of the text (or the subject)," and the outer
indication of the direction Kristeva's reading will
play, "the web of relationships linking the text
take. It presents new and significant (not marginal)
an auditory connection, to the word itself, composeddefinitely heterogeneous to meaning but always in
of an acoustic and kinesthetic image, of reading and
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298
positioning of the theorist. The odd marginal moment, the emergence of the footnote within her
texts, enacts what Kristeva describes: the disrup-
synthesis) and of defense (when [jouissance] be- iological, explanation for articulatory disturcomes blocked)" (37). By a kind of associative
bances is already evident in his monograph
transposition, the reader is then directed to "the On Aphasia (1891). In describing the "speech
other scene"-literally, to a block of small type at apparatus," Freud posits a relation between
the bottom of the page. The material presented in "word-presentation" and "object-presentation."
this block reappears a few pages later, within the Later, in the 1915 paper "The Unconscious," the
principal text; that is, in the second part of her es- same terms enter into different combinations:
say, Kristeva raises the footnote out of the bottom "word-presentation" is retained, but what was
margin and integrates it into the main line of her called "object-presentation" becomes "thing-
ward mobility" of Hamlet after his original appearance in a note in the first edition of The
Interpretation of Dreams.) Kristeva's footwork
now becomes increasingly intricate. Her note on
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Shuli Barzilai
theory.
299
just as he does in the 1891 monograph. Nevertheless, Kristeva contends, "[t]he fact that the acoustic
image is privileged in this case does not diminish
the heterogeneity of this 'psychological blueprint
of word-presentations,' which today we still have
difficulty assimilating"-and which Lacan apparently never did.
It should be stressed, however, that Kristeva
neither slights nor denies the importance of the
specific to language, and therefore to the linguistic sign (signifier/signified)" ("Within the Microcosm" 37); "one can say nothing of such (effective
other impressions" (77-78; see also "Appendix C"teva's critical position, I would like to recapitulate
213). This is indeed a complex object-presentation.
the argument already presented. In his much
In addition to linking visual and acoustic compovaunted "return to Freud," Lacan does not go far
nents, it allows nonverbal elements of expression
enough, either theoretically or chronologically.
to be integrated into the "[p]sychological schema
Despite the considerable explanatory power of his
of the word concept" (77). For this reason, Kristeva
theory, Lacan does not take in or allow for the full
asserts in her footnote that Freud's notions of
complexity of Freud's insights. Hence Kristeva empresentation are among "the most far-reaching"
of his discoveries. Certainly Freud, like Saussure
(as Jacques Derrida shows in Of Grammatology),
privileges the sound image in his later writings,
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300
those who would apply Lacanian formulations indiscriminately that "a reductiveness of this sort
("Within the Microcosm" 38). Yet the semiotic appears not only within and through infantile or
covery" (Powers 52). In Kristeva's view, a funny divergent modes of expression: "Beneath the
thing happened to Lacan on his way back to seemingly well-constructed grammatical aspects
Freud. He murdered his father, perhaps without of these patients' discourse we find a futility, an
knowing it.
emptying of all affect from meaning-indeed,
even an empty signifier" (41).
V
But if borderline discourse and, by extension,
certain types of poetic language are full of the
A further understanding of the drama that unfolds
symptom called the "pure" or "empty" signifier,
here requires transposing a different kind of cashow can the analyst (who is inevitably caught up
tration onto the one just mentioned. This transin the symbolic) respond to such a discourse? How
position will lead to the "maternal" mode of
can the "talking cure" or any interpretation take
reading recommended and practiced by Kristeva
place when the bottom has dropped out of the
as a supplement-in the Derridean sense of addisign? What kind of analytic technique is called
for?
tion and substitution-to the "paternal" mode
that marks Lacan's access to the unconscious.
In "Within the Microcosm," Kristeva offers a
In the treatment of borderline patients, Kristeva
primarily theoretical account of her work in this
remarks, the analyst often encounters "a language
area. (She includes more extensive clinical examthat gives up." This implies that something
plesisin Tales of Love, published in 1983, the same
surrendered or, more precisely, sundered at the
year that Interpreting Lacan appeared.) The title
amounts to a true castration of the Freudian dis-
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Shuli Barzilai
301
of the linguistic sign, the emphasis in treating them such obligation. On the contrary, the ethics of
themes." By introducing a sequential, relational in that it belongs to the domain of the ethical, but
logic into a discourse that is marked by discon- in that it ultimately authorizes every ethical law in
tinuity and fragmentation, this type of interpre- general" (80).
tation attempts to reconstitute "the very capacities
Psychoanalysis maintains the discipline (and the
of speech to enunciate exterior referential reali- freedom) of the question by putting it in question.
ties." Reactivating the defunct S/s connection, There are times, as Kristeva shows in Tales of Love,
"constructive interpretation reestablishes signifi- when the question must be superseded, when concation and allows meaning to rediscover affect" structive interpretation or "a knowledge effect,"
(45-46).
however provisional-"this means such-and-such,
In certain respects, condensation seems analo- for the moment" (276)-is required: "To the exgous to deconstructive criticism. It calls for a free tent that the analyst not only causes truths to
"play of signifiers" (46), for puns and other ver- emerge but also tries to alleviate the pains of John
bal manipulations in the analyst's own interpre- or Juliet, he is duty bound to help them in buildtive discourse. So why not call it "deconstructive" ing their own proper space." Note that she says
or "deconstructed" interpretation, especially since "truths," however, not one truth, and uses the
such terms bring out the contrast with the con- present progressive tense, "building." Kristeva
structive type? As already indicated, construction adds:
and condensation do not constitute a diametric
opposition for Kristeva, nor does she in any way It is not a matter of filling John's "crisis"-his
enjoin us to view them as such. To assign the la- emptiness-with meaning, or of assigning a sure
bel deconstruction to the supplement of construc- place to Juliet's erotic wanderings. But to trigger a distion would perpetuate a polarization that Kristeva, course where his own "emptiness" and her own "outdeliberately and consistently, attempts to forestall. of-placeness" become essential elements, indispens-
It is a question not of choosing one and exclud- able "characters" if you will, of a work in progress.
(380)
ing the other (a logic of either/or) but, rather, of
deploying the two types (a logic of both/and). Perhaps, more complexly still, the borderline patient Yet, even if Kristeva's refusal of the term deconis better served when the analyst maintains an instruction may be understood, the question re-
terpretive stance that moves freely between the opmains: Why condensation? Kristeva borrows
Freud's term for one of the essential mechanisms
tions presented by these forms of logic.
Such a stance is itself close to, and yet not idengoverning dreamwork and joke work. She quotes
tical with, that of deconstruction. It is like deconFreud, "Condensation . .. [is] a process stretch-
struction in its moments of play and in its ing over the whole course of events till the perceptual region is reached" (Freud, Jokes 164), and
logics of interpretation. It is unlike deconstructionimmediately continues, "Thus, a condensed in-
in the ethical position the analyst takes vis-a-vis terpretation has a more erotic and more binding
the "text," in the analyst's obligation to alleviate effect" ("Within the Microcosm" 46). The connec-
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302
ately apparent. Nevertheless, they indicate another(175). Kristeva comments in the first part of Tales
important distinction between construction and of Love, entitled "Freud and Love: Treatment and
condensation. Whereas the constructive interpre-Its Discontents":
separated it . . . from drive heterogeneity and its archaic hold on the maternal vessel. To the contrary, by
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Shuli Barzilai
303
Jane Gallop comments on the broader significance of this opening statement: "Outside the
immediate context, it reminds us that, psychoanalytically, interpretation is always motivated by de-
can might put it, the reader desires the signifier of stood to announce: Lacan is not the master of
sible reading-my own-of Lacan's contributions point, Lacan is not the father; instead he is the selfto the interrelations between language and the appointed son and hero. Kristeva thus enters into
unconscious" (33). Yet Kristeva has already noted
that every text is an incorporation and transformation of another text. If, as she also reminds us,
paternal power, avails himself of it. His interpre"every hero is a patricide" (Powers 181), every critic tation is an act of self-empowerment that strips
might be one too. The role of the writer as patri- away the full originality of the Freudian insight.
cide is, of course, what Harold Bloom documents
Kristeva challenges this appropriation. A defender
in his poetics of influence. But whereas Bloom, of the father and his faith, she attempts to resurfollowing Freud's Totem and Taboo, envisages interpretive appropriation as a father-son conflict,
and murders him. Her example invites other female descendants who formerly were spectators or
objects in the male drama of desire to join in the
ritual feast.
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304
conception of the unconscious derives from a no-In choosing to engage Kristeva's work and, partion of language as both heterogeneous and spaticularly, her essay on the "talking cure," I repeat
tial, outlined first in On Aphasia when he sketches
and applaud her criticisms of Lacanian theory as
out as a 'topology' both the physiological undertoo narrowly enclosed in its linguistic formulapinnings of speech . . . as well as language
tions. My reading of Kristeva's reading of Lacan's
acquisition and communication. . .. "This state- reading of Freud would establish a communion,
ment sums up Kristeva's critique of Lacan: it is the a sisterhood. I follow not only the movements of
"extraterritorial" or semiotic dimension of ex-
ing Freud's initial, preanalytic text on aphasiatival. It raises the specter of a conflictual engage.. we find Freud's own model of the sign andment between mothers and daughters. I have taken
not the Saussurean signifier/signified distinction"pains to defend myself and avoided any footnotes.
(42). Again, in Powers of Horror, she links herFor the fathers hover dimly, recede into the backreturn with heterogeneity: "And returning to theground, as I find myself in the coils of a transfermoment when [the Freudian theory of language] ence with a powerful maternal authority. Not
starts off from neurophysiology, one notes the sister, but daughter; both daughter and sister.
heterogeneity of the Freudian sign" (51); the Nevertheless, no longer silent onlookers at the
documentation reads: "See Freud's first book,brothers' banquet, we come up to the table. And
Aphasia (Zur Auffassung der Aphasien, 1891)"we are hungry.
(213). In the two-paragraph section of Powers of
Horror entitled "The 'Sign' according to Freud,"
the words "heterogeneity" and "heterogeneous"
Works Cited
appear five times (51-52). These terms, as already
noted, are also among the defining characteristics
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poof le semiotique, Kristeva's major theoretical coretry. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.
rective to the preeminence granted the symbolicClement, Catherine. The Lives and Legends of Jacques La-
order.
UP, 1983.
1976.
daughter.
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Shuli Barzilai
305
1986.
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