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79The Unconsoious struotured like a Language

This paper i:;l concerned with Jacques Lacan's statement: The Un-conscious is structured like a Language". I t is iR no senseintended tobe a full investigation of th.eLacanian labyrinth.;.. ; I t is ra.ther a 'tentative venture into enemy t e r r i t o r y ~ S ~ n c e the difficult and the hostileare locked into a dual relation thai; only a return to the organic stateresolyes, i t is imperative' that we resort to various threads (filiations)'t,o make sure of our place in the day light.

What I have not done, then, is to produce some kind of summary ofwork of a Lacanian kind done so far within Social Anthropology. There isa huge distance between Laban's own 'fleeting references to Ethnography,to Mauss and to Levi-Strauss, and the clinical work carried out by MarieCecile and Edm9nd Ortigues in Dakar' (1962-1966). There i s a greater distance s t i l l between the Ortigues conclusions in Oedipe Africain (1966 :'1973),and the d e v a s t a t i ~ criticisms to which they are SUbjected in the A n t i ~ Oedipe (1973) 'by Deleuzeand u e t t a ~ i . ; I t is not that I feel that anyoneshould refrain f ~ a m the application of what could be called Lacanian insights within Sooial Anthropology, Such a request would be absurd, giventhe fact that i t \ 1a.s the early,.wr1tings of Levi-Strauss that helped Lacanto ~ e p a s s a phenomenological position, and move towards a ' structuralist 'one. However, I feel that i t is imperative taplace Lacanian Psychoi..analysis within the social formation of which i t is necessarily an ideolwogical moment. This ' totalizing' strategy requires more, not less, intellectual rigour, and demands that we read a book such asOedipe Afrioainsymptomatically, with an acute attention to that which is not n the texti tself and yet cries out to be heard. A pt'eliminary investigation ofcertain aspects of Lacanian thought is then, essential, before one Canconsider i t s descriptive powers in other Cultures.

I f we are to think about other cultures i t is obviously vital that..Ie understand the Unconscious rules of formation that delimit the terrain'uponwhich our lcnowledge claims scientificity for i tself. I m thinkinghere of the work of such thinkers as Foucault and Derrida, who in theirattempt to 'make strange' the very categories that are the scaffolding ofour social being, necessarily resort to the shimmering surface'of a poetics.I t i s simply not sufficient to be forewarned against the dragon of ethnocentricity as though the heraldry'of one's good intenfions were enough torestore all intentionality t o a (transcendent) innocence. Against ethnocentricity, i t s opposite (lack of ethnocentricity) enters the l i s ts asi f i t were a saving grace, as i f recognition of the sin were to lead toredemption. ~ i h e r e a s i t is precisely our guilt that we see other Culturestllr9ugh our own Sociai formation, and in theliEht or darkness 'of our ownc o n c r ~ t e h . i s t o r i c a l r e l a t i o n with them. 3 . '

I f Psychoanalysis is iocated within a SOGial 'formation as much asany -otl,1er form of kD.ol'1iedge',it is also' a form that-has the power to riseahoveits o ~ n l c o m p l i c i t y w i t h the dominant i d e o l o g y ~ - I f American Egopsyohology can be shown fa 'have an almoot completely normative ideologicalfunction O. Mannoni 1971: 180-190), the same cannot, be too easilyclaimed for Freud's ini t ial formulations in Vienna at the beginning of thecentury, nor for Lacan's brave theoretioal inquiries from the 1930's untilno"l. Since PsyChoanalysis" is 'cOncerned with the dialectical relationpetween persons, as both Imaginary and Symbolic (and Real) constructions,i t is the key Sciencewiuh which to unveil the ideological instance of a'Social f o r m a t i o n ~ This was explicitly recognized by Reich ' asear ly as1929 (1;1. Reich 1929/1912); and has been reiterated 'in a different way byAlthusser. Ih short paper on Lacan5, Althusser has acknowledged hisdebt to him, !ind a ~ m o s t a l l his writings on ideology are permeatedwtth'what is in fact 'a' Lacanian approach to 'the Imaginary" and to, 'the,_

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80fe t ishisa tions that' hinder thought's appropriat Lon of:' the real t

.In this.paper, I have lai,d a very limited stress on t'he Levi-Straussiannature of 'The Symbolic' and the Hegelian nature of 'The Imaginary'. vlhatI have done is to read Freud thrQugh Lacanian spectacles, referring to thoseaspects of DeSaussure and Jakobson that helped Lacan to clarify his concept of an Unconscious structured like a Language. I t is an inadequateaccount insofar as i t reduces the complexity of the Lacanian problematicin favour of a clar i ty which can only mislead. The answer to that i s , ofcourse, simple: to understand Lacan,there is no alternative but to readLacan. But, in. addition, (and this is th,e sJ,ant I have given to this ,paper)one should read Freud. As Lacan writes:

" on l i t FreUd comme on ~ c r i t dans la Psychanalyse, ,(Ec+,its '1966), By which Lacan means that his, return to J)'reud is a return to' more than .just the spirit, . i t , is a return to the let ter , to wit , to Freud t s ' cit-Tn useof Language and choice of terms,. L,acan' s obsessive concern with languageis no more than a cont inuat ion of J 'reud' s own, and any theme of Freud's(viz: "\lhere Id was, there Ego shall be") is played in the. forra. of severaldifferent variations (Ecrits: 1966:416;801). '

Anna O. (Bertha von Pappenheim) dubbed Freud's therapeutic method"the talking cure", and i t is. there from the mouth from one 1'lho is to becured, that,Psychoanalysis founds i t s own specific ,discourse. There areof course, several other models in operation in the Psychoanalytic armoury,and these will be referred to in passing in this ~ a p e r Some of them havebeen passed over almost in silence ( i t would seem) by Lacan, and i t is fromthese that a movement anti thetical to Lacan has arisen luthin LacanianPsychoanalysis. 6 But i f so many analysts following Freud acquiesced inthe repression of the function of the analysand's word in therapy,Lacan's theoretical interventions may I think be seen as a return of therepressed. His 'Discours du Rome', a highly polemical talk given to theCongress ofPsychoanalysts in 1953, is specifically concerned with the wordof the patient:

"\'lhether i t sees i t se l f as an instrument of 'healing, offormation, or of exploration in depth, psychoanalysishas only a single intermediary: the patient ' s ~ V O r d .. ' . , ( 1 9 53 / 1 968 : 9 )But the talking-cure i s characterized not by bringing the symptom toconsciousness: i t is made word. I t is the insistence of the le t ter thatis in question not that of the s b j e c t ~ consciousness. Nor is i t necessar i ly a q'uestion of the good fai th or love of the analyst. The analystdoes not direct the consciousness of the patient, i t is not a question ofmoral guidance. He directs the cure, and in the analytic situation hisown'being (through transference and countertranSference) is also put intoquestion (Ecrits 1966:586).This paper is concerned precisely with the capture of the humananimal within ' the nets of the signifier ' (Laplanche and Leclaire: 1961),so that he then becomes an animal gifted with speech. Gifted even in thatdespotic sense given' to the vlOrd' ' g i f t ' by Marcel Nauss: the \'1retch is

. obliged both to receive:theword, and reply to i t . Both sender and receiver are compromised" in that the gi f t is syn-thetic, ' & constitutes arelation which inheres in neither person (persona), but derives from thesymbolic to ta l i ty which preceded and determined them. Neither word, nor'copper', nor 'vaygu'a'" nor phallus (as Lacaniansignifier of desire'),

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81can be f inal ly appropriated. The search for their essence is an imaginaryproject, a fetishisation. Their essence resides only in their existenceas circulating signs that bind social persons in relations that are nowhere.

Even as early as Studies on H ~ s t e r i a (SE I I ) , the cl inical studythat Freud wrote with Breuer, there are definite l inguist ic insights asregards the working of the psychic apparatus. However i t is in TheInterpretation of Dreams (SE IV-V) that we find a way fOI Vlard to a l inguist icformula tion of the nature of the Unconscious. Thus, ]'reud makes a cleardivision between the manifest dream-text, and the latent dream-thoughts.The manifest dream-text is the text of the dream that the subject assembleson waking, whereas the latent dream-thoughts comprise the more completedream underlying the former:

trThe dream-thoughts and the dream-content are presentedto us like different versions of the same subject matterin two different languages" (SE IV: 277)The Unconscious is presented here as a different language underlyingthe manifest language. The dream-content is described as a ' t ranscript 'of the dream-thoughts ' into another mode of expression', and we are askedto 'compare the original and the translation' .

Condensation and DisplacementTo make Freud's thought clear, we should concentrate, as he does, onthe operations that link the manifest content of the dream to the latentdream-thoughts. The two key operations are those of Condensation and Displacement.Let us take condensation first.. I f we compare the manifest content

of the dream, as we assemble i t upon waking, or again as i t is told to theanalyst, with the latent dream-thoughts that are teased out of the wordsand silences in the analysis i tself , we find that the latent dream-thoughtsare far more extensive than the manifest content. To put i t simply, themanifest dream is laconic. It has been radically condensed. Many ofthe examples of dreams in The Interpretation of Dreams are approximatelyfour or five lines long, whereas the dream-thought that Freud draws outof them, like theeridless stream of si lk scarves t ied to each other thata magician draws from his h a ~ are often four or five pages long.. Condenaation.is immense, so immense in fact that interpretation is never final .If we take anyone element in the manifest dream, i t is condensed or'over-determined' . lilien \ le say that i t is over-determined we mean thatt has multiple connections \'lith other elements in the' latent dream;thoughts. Freud notes in his analysis of the dream about the 'botanicalmonograph' , t h a t the word 'botanical ' led 'by numerous connecting paths,deeper and deeper into the tangle of dream-thoughts' (SE pp . 16-9-176).Because the word 'botanical ' is so heavily o v e r d e t e l ~ i n e d i t is describedas a regular nodal point in the dream'. ElseHlhereFreud uses the word'S\'litch-word' 'to describe the same idea, and in this metaphor the idea ofa 'points' system is evoked, where the word is seen as a kind of switchlocated a t the intersection of several different tracks or pathways. Lacanmakes much of these terms used by Freud, and provides several variant translations (ie 'noeuds de signification' , 'motscarrefours' etc. ) . TheLacanian Symbolic Order (derived ,from Levi-Strauss' Symbolic Function,and opposed to Freud's Die Symbolik) is characterized by the plurivalentnature of each signifier.

Displacement, the second lcey operation in the formation of dreams,refers to the fact that ' the dream is , as i t were, differently centredfrom the dream-thoughts' (SE V: 305). Elements which are central to the

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8manifest content may be peripheral to the latent dream-thoughts. In thesame way, elements which are crucial to latent d r e m t h o u ~ h t s maybe completely absent from the manifest text. I t is the vlOrk {the labour)done by the patient in his free association (and against the fact of hisown resistance) ti1at allows us to retrace the connections between the twosystems Displacement is a form t 'tdistorti'on t., a distortion made necessary. by, the e:X:istence of tcensorship'betlqeenthe different 'systems' ofthe mindMetaphor and Metonymy

ACGordingto De Saussure (1974), any linguistic sign involved twomodes of arrangement, Combination and Selection Combination refers tothe fact that each sign is made up of constituent signs and can onlyoccur wi th other signs. De Saussure stres.sed the linear nature of thesignifying chain (1974:70) - in fact i t is the second property he singlesout for emphasis after the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. I t iscombination that unites the links of the signifying chain, one to eachother, and once they have been combined they are in a relation of contiguity to each other.

The axis of Combination is concerned with the Message. I t is diachronic and can best be represented horizontally. I t represents, inSaussurean terrrls, Speech rather than Language, event rather than structure.The other mode of arrangement of a linguistic sign is known as Seleo

t ion and i t refers to the seleotion of signs from a set . ny selectionfrom a set implies the' possibility that another sign m i g ~ t be s u b ~ t i t u ~ e d n i ts place. This of course implies that Selection and Substitution areboth aspects of the same operation.

The axis of Substitution is concerned with the code, and can best berepresented as vertical .. I t represents Language rather than Speech,structure rather than event. I t is vital to realize that, in normalspeech, the two axes operate in conjunction. Combination ~ Selectiontogether arrange linguistic signs. I t is only in language disordersthat we can c l e r l y p e ~ c e i v e the separate nature of the two modes. ofarrangement. Thus, i t trlas"through his study of the different kinds ofAphasia that Jakobsonwas uble to distinguish one from the other (1963:43-68). Indeed, the fact that both Jakobsan and, after him, Barthes1 9 6 7 : ~ 1 ) have reserved the term ' Idiolect ' primarily to describe thelanguage of the aphasic, a language marked by i ts skewed participationin the Symbolic Order (cf. Levi-Strauss 1950: xvi-xvii), should remind

usthat Aphasia shows us language in a state of ,disintegration.From. his study Jakobsonconcludes that there are basically tuopoles of language, 'the Metaphoric and the IvIetonymic, an9. that these ttrl0poles are linlted to the two modes of arrangement of the linguistic sign.Depending upon the type of Aphasia concerned (C,ontiguity Disorder: ,Similar i ty Disorder), those suffering from i t tended to produce a kind oflanguage centred either on the Metaphoric or the Metonynlicpoles .The concepts of Metaphor and Metonymy developed by Jakobson are usedin a slightly altered form by Lacan in his model of the Unconscious

s t I . l J . c : j ; u r e 4 l ~ k e a Language. For Lacan, . the Freudian concepts of Condensation and Displacement that we have already discussed,;: are directlyhomologous idth the Jakobsonian concepts of N ~ t a p h o r and ,1Vletonymy (Eorits1966: 495). Critics of Lacan have questioned the validity of the Metaphor/

~ I e t o n y m y distinction. Anthony vlilden (1972 ) argues ,-that the two terms arein no l'lUy specific to language, but can be equated 'with (more general)prooesses present n al l forms of c9mmunication:

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83"Metaphor and Metonymy are not primarily linguistic processes:they are communicational processes. Selection from the codeand combination in the message must and do occur in anycommunicational system whatsoever, whether in the geneticcode of the DN molecule, or in the organism, or in thelife'processes of bacteria, or in a social system (1972: 350)

This is undeniable, but Jakobson in his study of Aphasiadealing quite specifically 1 1ith language and i t s disintegration. Inthat study he did isolate two poles of language, the metaphoric and themetonymic. I t may be that these two poles exist in al l communication,but the beauty ,of Jakobson's study was that i t located the existence ofthese two poles in language, and since one pole was damaged in each ofthe different forms of aphasia, i t provided a means of dividing parts ofa process that is unified in everyday speech. In studying social l i fethere are several possible epistemological confusions with regard to' levels ' . One can sumcumb to the temptations of a 'micro-measurement'that studies phenomena at a level that is belou' the level a t which,'meaning' resides (Ardener 1971: 451-452). Since one of Lacan's finestpieces of writing, the Seminar on The Purloined Letter by Edgar Alan Poe ,(Ecrits 1966: pp. 11-61), is about precisely just such a misapprehension"one'has to be ver,y cautious before accusing him of that kind of t h e o r e t i c ~ inadequacy. Wilden does not exactly accuse Lacan of such a 'misapprehensioIT,but his claim that Lacan reduces the cultural to the ontological (1972: 479483) is a parallel critique that demands more substantiation than Wildenoffers. Indeed, at this point, Wilden's polemic seems to lean very heavilyon Fanon' s critique of the applic at ion of European Psychoanalysis andP'sychiatry to other cultures. I f Fanon' s t fOrk (1970) is conce;rned with theviolence of reducing psychic phenomena that are actually relative to aparticular historical conjuncture to a supposedly transcendent ontologicalreali ty, Wilden's appropriation of i t does not blend easily with the generalsystems theory approach of System and Structure (1972). Whatever one maythink of the Lacanian Symbolic, and however much one may regard i t aspermeated by m g i n ~ y fetishizations, i t is nevertheless defined as at issue of meaning and not as a mechanism that determines. When I refer todetermination here I do not mean that fatal determination, that celest ialpre-ordination of which Lacan writes so often. I mean determination i6'suing from the (Marxist.) real, a determination present in the real and i t sproductions, and one that underlies the overdetermination present in. the,Symbolic. Hegelian and Idealist as Lacan.finally is , i t is an error toconfuse the tissue of signs that is the S;Y 1llbolic with the exchange' of

~ n e r g y and information that. characterizes organization a t the eco-systemiclevel . The Lacanian dialectic must be inverted, and. each moment of theSymbolic must be reckoned as being in the last instance determined by theinfrastructure . Wilden.by subsuming ,the Symbolic SO absolutely within'an ecosys'temic perspective, obscures the level at which Ideology does overdetermine social reali ty and estranges people from the nature of the livesiZhey lead.Phillipe's Dream

I want, in this section, to reach a deeper understanding of the l in -guistic relations within the psychic apparatus, by taking a particulardream and considering a Lacanian analysis of i t . I want to do this inorder to demonstrate that we are dealing here not only witll the construct ion of dreams, but also with the general workings of the Unconscious.If' we are dealing with the la t ter , then our ~ ~ n c l u s i o n s are necessarilyrelevant to al l areas of Social Anthropology where the Unconscious isdescribed, invoked or dismissed. I da not mean by this that the Lacanian

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84model can necessarily be used n the analysis of other Cultures. I meanonly to suggest that Lacan s reading of Freud is one that canhot be ignored,and one that is crucial to any evaluation of other psychoanalytical posi-tions that concern Social Anthropology (ie Roheirn,' Kardiner, Jung, Fanonetc.)

The dream is taken from an article by Laplanche and ~ e c l a i r e (1961).Their general theoretical position was, at that time close to that of Lacan(Ecrits 1966: 493-531). Ideally, of course, He should take an Englishexample of this kind of approach, for the sake of verbal resonances,' butI am not aware of the existence of any studies of this nature originallyi 1ritten n English. In the clinical situation, the dreams!', Phillipe hadnot only recounted another dream closely related to the one given below,but the material of the dream lias lent further significance by certainitems of obsessional behaviour present in the' patient. I have ,made onlyminimal reference to the second dream, and to the patient s symptoms, asI "Tanted to carry out a fairly simple exposition -Phillipe s Dream

The deserted square of a small t o w n ~ La place deserts d une petite ville;i t is unfamilia.r, I am :looking for c est insol i te , je cherche : quelquesomething. Liliane appears, barefoot chose. Apparait ,pieds nus, Lilialile- I don t know her - she says to me: - que jene connais pas qui me .i t s a long time sinc'e I -ve seen such dit: i l y a longtempsque j a i vufine sand. Ive are i na forest and l n sable aussif in . Nous sommes enthe trees seem u r o u s ~ coloured, .fo-ret e t le s arbres paraissentwi th bright and simple colours. I evieusement colores, de teintesthink to myself that there must be vives et simples. 3e pense qu i l yplenty of animaIs in this forest, a beaucoupd'ariimaux dans cetteand just as I am about to say i t , a foret, et comme je m appreitea IeUnicorn crosses our path; al l three dire, une licorna croise notreof us walk towards a olearing that is chemin; nous m ~ h o n s tous les troisvisible down below. vel'S une c l a i r : L ~ : r e q I on devineen contrebas.

" ..... ' ..This dream..text on' i ts own tel ls us almost nothing. Hithout the freeassociation of the dreamer i t is worthless . This cannot be stressed toomuch.:7 In the text, the significance of the 1Jords present. i n i t is notgiven to us, but is discovered in the process of analysis. The exact format ionof the dream derives from several sources'; 1) Events of the previousday, which in the context of the dream are described by J?reudas 'daytimeresidues , (2) stimuli originating from \1ithin the body, in this case,theneedtodririk,the sUbject having eaten salted herrings the previous evening;(3) events from the past, and in particular, memories stretching far backinto:childhood. Freuddesc:ribes dreams as 'hypermnemic' , and insists onthe permanence oftha memory-trace within the psychic apparatus, although:Ln his attempts to desc:ribe this fact heoftenfolihd himself in great, dif-ficulties. As early as 1895, in The Pro,iect, he 'had stressed that no Psy-chology worthy of the name could be established unless i t was securely foundedon a theory of human memory. We shall see in the later part of this paper,how important Freud s concept of memory was to his understanding of the Unconscious, and how i t can be interpreted in a manner that is explicitlyopposed to the Lacanian position (Derrida: 1967/1972). .

In thisacoount I have chosen to treat the psychic and somatic resi-due's, of the previous day together.

1) (2). Events of the previous day (Daytime residues)There were various daytime residues, in the form of memory tracesof uhat Phillipe had done the previous day, that contributed to the con

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85struction of the dream. Phillipe"had' in, fact taken a walk the previousday in the forest with his niece Anne. They had noticed a t the bottomof the valley where the st.reamran,' traces of deer and does ,where theycame to drink. On this walk, Phillipe remarked that i t was a long timesince he had seen ( i l y a longtemps que J a i vu) heather of such richflaming colour. These daytime residues play a significant part in thedream, as can be ascertained by glancing back at the original text ofPhill ipe's dream.8 . .

At the somatic level we notice that Phillipe had eaten some herringsthat evening, and therefore had a ~ drink. Dreams, i t will be remembered, are described by Freud as the guardians of sleep. In this ,case,the dream guards Phill ipe' s sleep against the organic fact of his thirs t ,against his physiological need to drink. The dream guards Phill ipe'ssleep by fulfil l ing a (repressed) t'1iSh.. I t cannot fulf i l his need todrink: only some liquid can do that . The dream fulf i ls a (repressed)wish or desire to drink (a desire that is inscribed in one of the subject 'smemory systems), and subsumes the (temporary)organic need of the sUbject'sbody within i t s own (timeless) trajectory.(3) Childhood Memoriesa) The f i rst memory was of a Summer holiday when he was three yearsold: he tried to drink the water which was flowing in a fountain. Hecupped his hands together and drank out of the hollow that his cuppedhands formed. The fountain was n the Square (Place) of a small t.oVinand had 'a Unicorn (Licorne) engraved in the stone. .

(b) The second memory was of a walk in the mountains vlhen he wasthree years old. The walk was t ied to the memory of imitating an olderchild cupping his hands, and blowing through them, imitating a sirencall . ' This memory was also associated with the phrase I I y a longtempsque J a i vu'

(c) The third childhood memory was of an Atlantic Beach (Plage) andagain the phrase i l y a longtemps que J a i vu un sable aussi f in . Thisas associated with Liliane - a barefoot woman n the dream who said~ x t l y t h t ~

In the course of the analysis, Phillipe took apart the name Liliane,and separated i t into the two componehts'Lili and Anne. Anne, as we~ l r e d y 10101'1, was his niece, and Lili , his Mother's o u s n ~ Lili hadactually been \'lith him on that Atlantic beach, when he was three yearsOld" at the beginning of those selile Summer holidays when he had been takento the town with the fountain and the Unicorn engraved on i t . I t is important to bear 'the French not the English words in'mihd, and to note thevarious homophones (between Lil i and Licorne, Place arid Plage ate.:) , "These l inguist ic cOllilections will , be shown' to be 'more,'and more significant as the vlork of interpretation advances. ' ,. '

e have already seen that, i f , as Freud has said, al l d r e ~ l s arethe fulfilment of a (repressed) wish, then this dream, from al l &lgles,finds i t s centre, i t s unity in the need or'tlre desire to drlllk. On thathot July day, when he was three, Phil l ipe had said again and again,and with great insistence J a i soif ' or tChoif'. Lil i , his mother'scousin, used to tease him, and say tAlors, Phillipe J a i soU', and i tbecame a kind of formula, and the sign of a joking relationship betweenthem: 'Phil l ipe-J 'ai-Soif '

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86 : 'At this pQint, this nodal point we remark that Phill ipefs thi rs tis (at the l e ~ t J doubly determined.' i t derives organically from hi-sneedto drink that night when he dreamt the dreaJnn but i t also derives, psychically from the desire to drink which the demand emanating from th& .Symbolic has caused to be inscribed in him; in the waxen surface ,of hismemory. Since dreams are hypermnemic (Freud); since they permit ,apri

vileged regression to that point "at which cllildhood memory a p ~ a r s to,constitute i t s unthinkable origins, 'we are 90ncerned with the. 'primal ' ,-

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87and in this context i t is important to note that the acoustic chain '1 i 'is common to both ' corne' and ' i I i ' , the woman' who listens to his cryof thirst and is in a position, i t seems, to receive his word. I tseemed like that to Phillipe because Lili was seen by him to have an' ideal ' marriage to her husband, and thus symbolized a harmony and sat isfaction not present in Phill ipe's Mother's marriage. A harmony and sat isfa.ction doubly associated l"lith the acoustic chain ' I i ' in French: for ' I i 'can be metonymica.lly connected with ' l i t ' , and Lil i with '1010', whichsignifies 'milk' or 'breast ' n French baby talk. .The Vnconscioustructured l ike a Language

When La.can claimed that the Unconscious was structured like a language, he meant exactly what he said:' I do not mean a structure to be situated in some sortof so-called generalized semiology draWl1 from the limboof i ts periphery, but the structure of language as i tmanifests i t sel f in the language which I might callpositive, those l lhich are actually spoken by the massof human beings'. (Ecrits.1966:444)

There are certain objections to this statement implicit in Freud's ~ w i t i n g s I want to consider these objections before continuing the argument.Freud talked of language eXisting in the Preconscious, and in theSecondar,y Process (Which is a t work III the Preconscious), but the languagehe saw as existing in the Unconscious was something very different. Thefact of there being no negation, no logic, no syntax and no time in theUnconscious makes i t hard for us to accord any process there the statusof a language as i t is spoken 'by the mass of human beings'. Il ithoutnegation, i t is hard to imagine the metacOlumunication that is vital toany language.There was a language in the Primary Process, Freud stressed (SE

~ I V : 199), but i t was the language of Psychosis, and of dreams in theirX e g r ~ s s i o n to the form of images:

"In Schizophrenia words are subjected to the same processas that which makes the dream-images out of latent dreamthoughts - to what we have called the primar,y psychicalprocess. They undergo condensation, and by means ofdisplacement transfer their cathexes to one another in 'their entirety. The process may go so far that a singleword, i f i t is specially suitable on account of its,numerous connections, takes over the representatiort 9f .a vlhole t rain of thought'. sm XIV: 1 9 9 ~ .

Here, in the 1915 paper on The Unconscious' I e clearly have sorle kind ofconception of an Unconscious structured like a language. As Ricoeurpoints out (1970:400) ' the problem is to assign an appropriate meaning tothe word "l ike" ' . Is language a priVileged model that we compare withthe structure of the Unconscious? Or does the term 'a language' merelymean that the Unconscious is semiologically structured, with languagea term of reference only because of i ts role in the Preconscious and theConscious?Thing-Presentations and Word Presentations

In his analysis of the relations between the different systems ofthe mind Freud introduced a new terminology in 1914/1915. He distinguished

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88, .sharply between what he called 'Thing-Presentation' (Sachvorstellung)and '\'lord-Presentation' (\lortvorstellUllg). I t is significant to notethat the nuances of these terms were often lost in early translations,which saw 'vorstellung' as meaning ' idea' and'not 'presentation'.

'Thing-Presentations are essentially visual, they are perceptualenti t ies , images or memory traces.. Freud's description of them inEgo and TheId as 'optical memOry residues' shoHs in fact l i t t le conf l ict there is between this new terminology and the terminology ofinscription', whereas in 1915 he had been quite adamant that the newterminology rendered the old One redundant. \10.rd..:.pr.esentations areessentially 'auditory' - 'The essence of a ~ r is after al l the memorytrace of a word that has been heard' (1961:21) - and in this sense areDe Saussure's acoustic chain.

Freud expressed the relation between the Thing-Presentation and theWord.Presentation, and their participation in the different 'systems'in this way: .'The conscious presentation comprises the presentation ofthe thing plus the presentation of the word belongingto i t , while the unconscious presentation is the presentation of the thing alone'. (SE XIV:201) . .

The unconscious presentation is stated here to be 'The presentation of thething alone . In 'that sense can this kind of presentation be said to belinguistic? The lingu.isticsign has' two basic components, the conceptand the acoustic image.lO What is the exact nature of the thing-presentationin relation to this? I t should be clear by now that Freud was uncertain,and that not al l of his statemerrGs are consistent with each other. He wasat least clear in his own mind that the thing-presentation.could notattain consciousnesS without 'being 'bound' to a vtord-presentation (andthe Bioenergetic language of 'binding' is significant here): .

'The locality at which the Repressed breaks through is theword-presentation and not the concept attached to i t (SE XIV)Here, the Thing-rresentation would seem to be simply the Saussurean conceptin the formula rboncept\ .signified, initially set out by De Saussure inlacoustid a i g n i f i e ~ \ image l '\ .

. . / ; / .the Cours (1974) ."-'However, Fre-crd is clearly' not happy wi th a simple t l '10tiered formula, and is always half a ta1 e that .there is some kind of signifying chain in the Unconscious too. This paper is l 3-rgely concernedwith the different. attempts that have been made to formulate clearlyFreud's fleeting perceptions as, 'to the relation between' the Unconsciousand Language. Both Psychoanalysis and Linguistics', once they are broughttogether, seem to demand 'c.ex-tain, modifications in each other.

The original formula of De Saussure places the signified. above thes ignif ier , ~ Concept

. tree .. JAcoustic imageLacan, for r s o n ~ l t e d to the nature of Repression and. the Unconscious,reverses t h i ~ o r m u l.. ( ~ : : : ~ e 1Acoustic image. . , .,,;. ' . Concept..... l ~ l. . /Using the symbols'S' and s to represent signifier and signified, Lacan

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89writes the formula in this way:

(signifier) s (signified)The formula is inverted because Lacan holds that the signifier has priori tyover the signified, and that m e n i n ~ is constituted t h r o u ~ h the relationbetween signifiers (Ecrits 1966:498;. Like Levi-Strauss (1950h Lacan wouldargue that meaning is created by a chain of signifiers, that, in i t sglobability, created meaning 'd'un seul coup'. llhen the two globalregisters (S/s) were created in that mythical cruci-formation to whichmyths (collectively) and dreams (individually) bear witness, a 'supplementary ration' was necessary to support Symbolic thought in i t s operations (Levi-Strauss 1950: xlix). For given that the two registers arecreated simultaneously comma deux blocs complementaires!;11 human thought,impelled by the desire for recognition from the other, can only appropriateotherness through a 'suplus of signification' that underpins i t s operations.The wandering of the mind that , in the shape of ' the floating signif ier ' ,draws from the actual the fuel necessary to feed the symbolic, is alsothat wandering that subverts any constant fbi-univocal' relatioribetweensignifier and signified. This is completely in accord with De Saussure'srejection of language as a name-giving system' (1974:16) or a l i s t ofwords, each corresponding to the thing i t names' (1974:65). Such a theoryof ' labell ing' would imply that the signified was a thing in i t se l f ratherthan a concept, and that implication would be anathema to Lacan as to DeSaussure.

Lacan is , however, actually concerned to modify De Saussure. Herejects the Saussurean i l lustration of the relation eXisting betweensignifier and.signified because i t suggests to us that ' the sig.aifieranS1 lerS to the function of representing the signified' (Ecrits 1966: 498).Lacan insists that ' the signifier intrudes into the signified' (Bcrits1966:500). By this, he means that 'meaning' .. inhereB .in (metonymic.and m e t a ~ h o r i c relations between signifiers, which are both e v e r ~ h e r e andnowhere (since relations are 'nowhere'). Rather than being a ' representat ion , 'meaning' in c ~ n i n Psychoanalysis seems to be a ~ u e s t i o n of'production'. Meaning is produced out of a difference that separates ' thele t te r (ie. ' the essentially localized structure of the signif ier ' ) from'a necessary topological substratum' ''fhich Lacan compares to an infiniteseries of interlocking rings in a necklace1'There each necklace is i tselfalso a ring in another n ~ c k l a c e (Ecrits 1966:501-502). How are we tounderstand this metaphor .

llilden argues that vrhen Lacan I'efers to 'a necessary topologicalsubstratum' he means to imply the phonological level of the Unconscious.I f Lacan is concerned here with that level at vrhich phonemes can finallybe dissolved into dist inct ive features, and Lacan's text is not absolutelyclear on this point, then i t is illumina:tiogto r ~ l a t e to Levi-Strauss'programmatic statements on the relation betv-Ieen structural Linguisticsand Social Anthropology (1972: eh. 2, 3, 4, 9, 11). Even as Levi-Strausswas formulating the paral lel between the phonemic sti"ucture of language,and the structures of 'languages' such as kinship rules.and myths, herealized that the analogy was a flavred one. Even i f it:was possible toreduce social 'languages' to ~ c o n s c i o u s systems.ofrelations, the unitsone was concerned with remained words and not 'distinctive. features' ,and as Levi-Strauss noted: "there are no necessary relationships atvocabulary level" (1972: 35/36). .

.The relat ion, then, between l inguist ic t e ~ j f f i and kinship terms,is not simple. I f they are formally the same, i f they can both be said

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90to be produced by a Symbolic Function (1972:203), yet they are f i n a ~ l y terms existing at a different leval. This is partly because any languagebeyond the reduced language of Psychosis is necessarily always a l r e ~ d y in a social world organized in terms of certain key-signifiers. Theclumsiness of expression here is partly due to the impossibility ofdescribing a language n a reduced state. Lacan's version of the Fort

D a ~ a m e played by Freud's grandson (Beyond the Pleasure Principle EP.8-10) treats i t as an ini t ia l entrance into a Jakobsonian world of phonemico p p o s i t i o n ~ Thecorellation between the ,presence and absence of thechild 's mother, and the child's 'symbolic'use of the two phonemes ~ o ato locate 'himself within such a 'difference , has been quite fiercefYattacked (Wilden 1972:147-.;152). Here I want only to note how i t is1thatLaeanian Psychoanalysis is concerned to describe the quite specificentrance of the child into the Symbolic Order, a re-capitulation of ' thatveftiginous 'moment' in which the two reigsters (S/s) were created ptheir globality (Levi-Strauss: 1950). 'Of course Lacan is always in placefrom which he stresses the 'exterio:dty', of the Symbolic Order, \'1hetheri t be the circulation of value in a Melanesian chain of islands, orithe$amecirctilation between boudoirs and hotel-rooms in 19th Century Paris.Indeed,: ,Lacan 'would consider the couple Exter:i.ority/Interiority to bequite spuriouS , a s can be Seen by noting his various references to ~ e v i -Strauss. The 'alread;y-there quality of the Symbolic Order is invariablyaffirmed, the Freudian Oedipus re-inserted as a mere moment of a wiAer

~ y s t e m that is.either present or absent:liThe marriage t ie is presided over by a preferential o r ~ e r whose law implying the kinship names, like Language,is imperative for the group in i t s forms, but unconsciQusin i t s structure." (1966: 276-277 Wilden's translation).

Lacan, in typical style, then proceeds to dissolve any s p e c i ~ i c i t y 't;hat European post-Industrial kinship organization'may appear to have, by$ituating ,it within the wider modalities of alliance and descent theyhave been described in the ethnography: ' ,

This is precisely where the Oedipus complex - ,insofaras we continue to recognize i t as covering the wholefield of our experience with i ts signification - maybe said, in this connection, to mark the limits 'that olfr'discipline assigns to subjectivity: that is to say whaithesubject can lcnow of his unconscious 'participation in themovelusnt, of the .complex structures of marriage t ies, ,byverifying the symbolic effects n his individual exist+ence of the tangential movement towards incest which li$.s,manifested i tself ever since the coming of a universal, commUnity, , (1966:277\filden's translation) ,. .

This seems ac,ceptable ~ o u g h but in another context (1966: 219) , in which~ a : c a n i s re-analysing the, case of Dora, this dissolution , i tself begins to

~ p p e a r s u s p e c t The cycle of exchange of presents, with 'all their undertones of cynical seXual purchase, that envelops Dora in a struct'ure of badfaith that she also fai ls to discern, cannot be so easily wt'enchedfromthe specific historical context. I mention this case because i t is notso often that Lacan' s Levi-Straussian formulations can,be con'sidered in a,concretehist.oricalcontext, and i t is only then that one can decide to'what extent Lacan is guilty of the ''violence of reducing the cultural. (ie historical) to the ontological"" (vaIden 1972) . .

Moreover, i f Lacan learnt so much from the early LeVi-Strauss, herarely attempted a formal analysis of the kinds practised by Levi-Straussn the early essays on myth and on kinship.' I t is partly for this, reason

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91(a reason related to Psychoanalysis as a therapy concerned with the 'structure of intersubjectivity) that Lacan ha.s never been so absolutelyt ied to a Structuralist formulation in terms of binary oppositions.Certainly the Oedipus has been correlated with the now largely discredited"atom of kinship', but the con-fusions of the Imaginary and the Symbolicthat the subject is caught within in Psychoanalytic discourse, havetended to help Lacan to avoid adopting a reductive position. This is nota defence that would be accepted by Wilden (1972) or Deleuze and Guettari(1973). My own position on this is rela.ted to my (as yet) incomplete 'situation of Oedine Africain (1966:1973) with regard to Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Social Anthropology. I t is there, in formulating a critiqueof tne work of the Ortigues, rather than in momentary allusions to Levistrauss in Lacan's Ttlritings, that some resolution of these matters is tobe found.

Lacan justif ies his emphasis on the signifier by referring us to DeSaussure and to certain of his explanations of the arbitrariness of thelinguistiC sign. DeSaussure talked or ' Ie glissement incessant du signifie sous Ie signifiant ' ( ' the incessant sliding of the signified beneaththe signifier ') and this point has been much stressed by Lacan (Ecrits1966:502-503). For Lacan, the signified becomes less and less importantsimply because i t e-ludes us, i t sl ips playfully away from us. The intrus.ion of the signifier into the signified can also be phrased in termsof the subversion of the subject that Lacanian theory demands. Just asi t is impossible to allow the subject to bathe in radiance of hisown thought, as i t constitutes him as present to himself, so also is i t&.ibiws to regard language and thought as being in the service of someperfectly calibrated celestial machine. I t is not that Lacan fails todistinguish between thought and language (Bar 1971: 246). He is concernedhowever with the (metonymic) movement of language and the progressiveregressive movement of desire that is invested n i t , with the (metaphorical) blossoming as the chain is momentarily suspended, and that whichis'suspended from i t , intrudeS.

In the section on the mutability of the l inguistic sigh (1974: 74-78),De Saussure writes of a loosening of the bond between the acoustic imageand the concept, o f a shif t in the relationship between the two. Ris 'examples are of changeS between Old German and Modern Gennan, or betweenClassical Latin and French (viZ: the Latin 'necare' , to ki l l , becomes theFrench 'noyer', to drown). These are obviously changes taking place overlong periods of time, indeed whole centuries, The inference, however, asfar as Lacan is concerned, is quite clear:Language is radically pOvlerless to defend i t se l f againstthe ,forces which from one moment to the next are shift ingthe relationship between the 's ignified and the signifier"., (1974:75 mv'italics) ,

I t is the 'change from one moment to the next' in the relation b e t ~ e e n signifier and signified that allot-IS Lacan to superimpose Saussurean l in-guistics on the Freudian dream-text. The dream-text i s a f ine ly spunweb (note that the Latin word 'textum' 'web') of l inguistic ' interconnections: yet analysis cannot exhaust i t . Analysis of a dream isindeed 'interminable'. However, at certain points, the wOrk is halted,comes up against 'nodal points ' which are, in Freud's.words, 'unpluininable'. For Lacan,these nodal points are points at vlhich the tworegisters (S:s) are anchored to each other: 'he describes them,as'points de capi ton ' ,as raised buttons on a mattress or armchair. These'points de capitan' are the place at which need is re-presented in psychi

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92to ahal t the othervlise indefinite sliding of meaning' (Bcrits 1966 :805 .La can compares ,the analyst to a fisherman who is fishing in the flow ofthe pre-text , but who cannot hope to catch the actual movement of thefish. ,The signified is marked here with a bar (viz p because i t isalways disappearing into ,the organic, into the insondable . I f Lacan12here does seem to confuse the Saussurean concept with the thing i tselfthis is only because, n defining the real as that which i s r e a l for thesubject, Lacan would align himself here with Benveniste and (1966: 49-56)circumscribe d m ~ d the bastard son, within the hegemony of the dog, s tar he answers even in his denial of i t . The real is an orphan Un-conscious: the real is a ,necklace threaded with stars. " ,

Lacan s treatment of the Saussurean signifier/signified relation ishighly idiosyncratic. I t hinges around the significance of the bar separating the two registers Insofar as De Saussure is concerned with Synchronic relations alone13, the bar is simply that which separates theacoustic chain from the concept. lrhen De Saussure talks of the linearnature of the signifier, he stresses that the signifying chain is l inear" because i t can only unfold in one dimensioth that of time (1974:70). TheFreudian Unconscious is timeless: this is one of i t s most b ~ s i c properties,and that on i ts own would seem to render the presence of a linear chain inthe unconscious unlikely. Indeed,. given the various kinds of regressioninvolved in the dream-work, and given the presence of Thing-Presentationn the Unconscious, we would seem to be far closer to De Saussure sconsideration of semiological systems that are visual. Visual s i ~ i f i e r s can offer simultaneous groupings in several dimensions' (1974:70), DeSaussure writes, and here one is immediately reminded of Freud s description of the transcription of signs from system to, system (1954:173-175).This is really,the kernel of the problem, and must be approached withgreat caution. For Lacan, the language that is present in the Unconsciousis that uhich is spoken by the 'mass of human beings . On the other hand,

Freud himself, in his description of the memory-system, repeatedly invokedthe metaphor of a script, of writing, present in the Unconscious. Inthis context, his references to pictographic and ideographic scripts nthe Interpretation of Dreams should be taken quite seriously. The pointis ,this: we c a n t h U L ~ of the Unconscious in terrls of a spoken languageor a written language, or in terms of both. Each of these decisions woulds t i l l allow for that necessary continuity between Unconscious and Preconscious. In discussing Lacan s position i t i s , I think, dangerous,to place him too simply within the kind of logocentrism attacked by. Derrida (1967/1972). This is vlilden s argument .(1972: 396fn.) and Ithink i t represents an over-simplification both of Derrida and of Lacan.The highly complicated argument and diagrams that try to evoke theprocess that Lacan calls capitonnage (Ecrits 1966:804-809) are, Iwould argue (and insofar as, I understand Lacan s text), against anycomplicity with the utopian plenitude of an absolutely present o r i g ~ n whether as signifier , subject, or both. I f Lacan s final point ofreference is with phonology, nevertheless, in his insistence that thesignifying chain is to be read b c ~ l r d s as well as forwards, is in4eedfinally sealed up in i ts meaning by that l'1hich is not yet and s yet 'retroactively already there, he is not so far from defining the psychicas text (Eerits 1966 : 805) . " , ." As I have said, the bar in Lacan' s system repres,ents the repress ionof thesigni,fied. In De Saussure i t has no such value, but is simply theline that separates the two chains. However,; Psychoanalysis is continually

concerned1rlith the fact that the relations between the different agencies,of, the ,mind are a kind of flawed semiology. ThePrec onscious and 'the Unconscious are both related and separated at the same time. There is acensorship separating them, and yet: commUnication between them doesexist. Indeed i t must, i f we are to avoid that Psychoparallelism

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93against which Freud warned us. I f certain passages (following the imageof Russian censorship) are blacked out, there are aspects (ie 'derivatives')of the original text that can s t i l l be deciphered in spite of the obliterations on either side. Thus, the pure l ineari ty of the signifying chaip.,as De Saussuredescribed i t , has to be modified so as to include the i -

trusions of another chain that liea beneath i t and insists that i t be 'read:There is in effect no signifying chain lvhich does nothave attached to the punctuation of each of i ts unitsa 1'lhole, articulation of relevant context suspended 'vertically from that point (DJcrits 1966:503) (Jan Miel'stranslation)

This 'other' chain that l ies beneath, and is suspended vertically ( s il,'on peut dire' :Lacan) from particular points, is composed of signifiersthat have fallen to the rank of signifieds. To understand exactly whatis meant by th is , we have to look a t the connection between tietaphor Repression.Metaphor and Repression

In Metaphor, as Lacan sees i t , a new signifier replaces (re-places)the original one. The o r i ~ i n l s i g n i f i e r then fa l ls to the rank of thesignified (Ecrits 1966:708). If we represent the new signifier a s S ,we can explain the process diagrammatically:STAGDJ I: STAGDJ I I :

~ (original signifer) ~ (new signifier)s (original signified) S (original signifier fallento the rank of thesignified) ,

To understand this diagram, we 'must remember that we are concerned noi; justwith the structure of language, and not just with a bar between signifierand signified, but with Repression.' In a language without Repression,things 1I0uld be as the, l inguist describes them, but since Freud, we h ~ . l T e learnt that intrusions into the text of everyday l i fe make STAGE I api,U'elyhypothetical caSj3: ' . ' s' In a language without metaphors, there wouldindeed be relations of signifier to signified, . (rapports de signifiant l t signifie) which maybe symbolized by ~ but there would be noequivocation, nor ~ y unconscious to decipher'., (Ricoeur:1970:401)

Indeed, there is no 'original plenitude except in the 'pre-texte ' and quest ions about the 'pre-texte' receive only mythical answers. Lacan describes Repression a s a snag or r ip or rent in the cloth,of experience, andsuch snags make i t difficult to sustain a Structural Linguistics constructedsolely on the basis of a bar separating an acoustic chain from a conceptual one. The general Freudian category of 'distortion' would seemto demand some kind of acknowledgement, for i t was Freud's achievementin the monographs on dreams, jokes, and parapraxes, to show that there wasa ] . o Q u ~ : : of language to which the conscious subject was, in Lacan' sword 'excentric ' .

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94Repression, for Lacan, i s m e t p h o r ~ h e snag in the tissue marksthe place \'lhere the original signifier is , as i t were, vertically suspended.I t has been 'displaced' and has falen to the rarut of the signified.However, 'although i t has fallen (and the topographic nuance is, I think,faithful to the process) i t persists as a repressed signifier i tself . This

persistence (and insistence) of a repressed chain is precisely what givepoetry, that most metaphorical of arts, the quality of saying what ,it as much by what is not there as by what is . To hear the thing that is notsaid beneath the thing that is , the basic attitude is One of phenomeno-logical suspension of the kind described by Bachelard in his theory of:reading, and attitude not so far removed from that advocated by Freud:' the evenly suspended attention' . There is a slight problem involved in equating metaphor and Re-pression. I t is t h i s ~ I f metaphor is seen as equated with repression,the existence of a repressed chain suggests that, froID the whole para-'.digmatic axis, only two elements are actually involved: 1) the new s i ~ -

nifer(S') and (2) the original signifier fallen to the rank of the s i g ~ nified (S). Thus, whereas the paradigmatic axis is defined by the p o s ~ sible substitution of all i t s elements, one from another, the idea of repression seems to endow certain signifiers with a more privileged p o s i ~ tion than that of others along the paradigmatic axis. I think there an answer to this. The quote from Ricoeur above (1970:401) reminded uthat there is no language without metaphor. Similarly, we must rememberthat except in the form of aphasia described by Jakobson as ContiguityDisorder, there is no language without metonymy. Since metonymy connectsboth the message and the code, i t is the metonymic movement of languagethat connects the repressed chain of signification to the rest of theelements in the code. In Lacanian terms, this movement is the movementof Desire, and i t is quite l i teral ly the ' restlessness' of this desirethat Psychoanalysis imputes to language. I f Lacan's position is validi t represents a kind of subversion of the study of language (cf. r i t ~ 1966:467). I t is within the practice of Psychoanalysis that Lacan's understanding of the workings of language is situated, and those l inguists who.. cr1ticizeLacan from the point of view of 'normal' l n ~ g e r e really'missing the point. By this I mean that i t IDay be more meaningful for :usto reverse Lacan's aphorism:' 'Language is structured like the Unconscious'.Lacan's wilful obscurity (and i t is , in no ironical sense, precisely that)is based on his belief that theory and practice should be unit ed, 'and theprimacy of the signifier over the signified results in a masking of sensethat only diligent work can unveil. .Another approach to the prob+em of the fixity that the metaphor!repression equation seems to ascribe to the workings of language, is thatdeveloped by Laplanche ~ d Leclaire (1961) in their analysis of Phillipe'sdream. They argue that the persistence and insistence of a repressedchain demands representation in terms of 4 levels instead of the 2 levelsshown to us by De Saussure.These four levels, divided up into what Laplanche and Leclairecallthe Preconscious and Unconscious Chain, can be represented like this:

The Preconscious Chain

The Unconscious ChainS

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95This formula does give a ,highlyul;let'ul r ~ I > r e s e n t : ~ t i o n o t the, relat ionbetween the Preconscious and,the UnconscioUl:l, and t does allow us' to 'makea close correlat ion, topograp:hicallyrepresented, be"j.;1'1een metaphor a ~ 1 d

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96i ,: - _

, In the case of Prima],: Repression, since i t , i s ~ o c l o s e l Y concerned with, the, t ~ n t r a n q e ' of. the drive into psychical l i fe it is espec:j,aliy interestine to F ~ e u d . I f t h ~ ~ primal repression happens ~ a t least a mythical event - 'thenwe havftq postulate a kind ofraythioalstate prior to ' the spli t t ing up of the'mind into systems. ' Thismythical s t ~ t e is 'Iapprehende4 not thr()Ugh' experimtmtal psycho10"y nor th;rOutm'psychOlinguisticl. 'Qut throUl the archaeology of ~ h e subject t h ~ t P s y c h ~ \ " I - . .'f - ,-. . ' ; _ -', . _. , ' . . . _analysis lays bare' f0:l;, 1 - ~ ~ ,: A m y t h i c ~ l e v e n t c . a n n 9 ~ b e J ) t ' 0 v ~ , 1 as'true or false: i t is irreducible to that kind 6f measurement." '" 'f '.

j .

B ~ j e f J , y , wha 11 happens ill thePrimal Repress!on i s this ~ . The ps;y,9:hical(or d e a t i ~ m a l ) J . 4 e p r e s e n t a ~ i v e i s refused ent; ,ancetothe psychica p p a ~ a ~ u s . 11. fi.;atiQn is ' ~ h e n established,-, ' the represEmtatiire'in question

p ~ r s i ~ ; t s l l t l a l t e r ~ g . from t h e n O ~ ' f i r d s , a n d the,Jnstinct ( d r , i v ~ ) reInains 'j i t tacbftdtoitt"{'SE X ~ : l ~ e ) ~ , 1:7ith t b i ~ ''ixation,the ins,tinct (drive)a c c e d ~ s t o t h e l e \ r e ; J . 9 : f t h e , s i ~ n i f i e r , or: f i s ' c a U ( i h ~ innets. or the sign i f i e r ( L a p H m c h ~ and Leclaire: , l S 6 ~ ) . 'The idea of f i X , a : t i o ~ l expressed',here, since1't so explic:lt ly suggests ~ n i m m u t a b i l i t i ~ 'can be comparedto Freudts'model of t h e J l l ~ i 1 . d a s a 'writing-machine' on to "those' mnemic'S y ~ t e m s traces a r ~ ' i n s c r ~ b e d ' or ' registered' . ' , :

> ' . Y:;. f'j. r ,J!:f. "", .:.-". . ;OF I t i s the i d e a t i ~ ~ a i ~ e p r ~ s e n t a t i v e s of sexUS:lity o f d ~ a t h thatare fiJeed inprimal;:Repression.' Ernest Jones' claim that there are'certain

J , i ~ i t e d s y m b o l i s ~ s r e l a ~ i n g to l i fe death, one's kinsmen, and one's",'body, (J.9l6/1923), can only be related to the dODiain ofPrimal Repression,~ privileged arena whre ~ h e hieroglyphs are not washed away with each t ide. I t is the privilege4nature of this arena that lends s u b s ~ a n c e to the. a.rgu1ents ofDerrida.(1967/1972) and of Deleuze a+ld Gueti;ari (1973), ',"regardil18' the primacy : t : ~ written (the traced) over the spoken. \1henI have, described the p r ~ W l } l repression in more str ict ly Lacaniantcrms"I ~ i l l return to this question of the trace and ~ ~ i t i n g and the p r o b ~ J;ematic relation bet,reen the phonetic and the 'grWninatic'. " .

; ~ ; ,:.;: '. .j - . , ~ ,;, : 1; ,, :.,

,'1

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97Phill ipe as a child who simply: ex'isted 1'1ithin the non-signifying 1'lOrld ofhis own need. In this (mythical) time., to have thi rs t is simply to engulfin a blind need which is then satisfied. Suddenly, with 1 i l i s jokingremark 'Phil l ipe-J 'ai -so i f , the world be,comes significant, and what hadbeen a blind instinctual impulse is caught in the nets of the signif ier ' .This is i l lustrated diagrammatically:

Lin says:Phil l ipe, S'J ai SOIF

sUndifferentiatedinst inctual (drive)energy S

soisoifS

Thus ( J a i ) so i f is one of the 'kernels' of Phill ipe's Unconscious. Thework of analysis, in i t s untiring elimination of the outer husk, willalways come up against this 'knot of signification' . I t is a 'point ofumbilication' (1acan) because i t is so radically over-determined. Thus,i t should be noted that Phill ipe's memory is of 1 i l i saying J 'a i soif .His ' insertion into the Symbolic Order occurs, then, through the mediationof another whose name (1i l i / '1010' : breast, milk in French baby talk)invokes his dual relat ion with his mother. However, i t is also significanttl!Ia t the name 1 i l i was not Phill ipe' s aunt 's name a t al l , but me rely theaffectionate nickname by which she was known by her husband, and by herhusband alone. Thus the desire to drink, around which Phil l ipe ' s dreamis organized, is multiply over-determined. Besides the desire to drink,we are concerned with Phill ipe's desire for 1i l i , 1 i l i s own desire todrink, and f inal ly, and most significantly, 1i+i 's desire for her husband.Since Phillipe was one of those children who said, 'moi-je' (ie. he had notmastered, the use, of ' shi f ters ' ) the ,formula Ja i soif ' signified the diZZymomE;lnt in which he was to move away from a,sit,uation of narcissiElm, '1'Jl1ere 1il i / lolo wa l merely an extensi.on of his being, to a Symbolic Orderwhich placed the other under the s l i d ~ n g m a r k of the O t h e r { L A u t r e ) ~ , ;I f i t was 1il i , who, was the ~ e d i a t i n g force in this t r ~ n s f o r m a t i o n ~ t h a t would have been because i t would make sense that an other shOUld 'break'the spel l of.the dual relation With the mother and ope;n upan orderorganized , in, terms oia n Oedipal structure of three separate persons.In such ,a, structure, peing is not a narci?sis'tic closure (ie. 'moi-je'),but a locus, of subjectivity which cannot be appropriated;'However,regression from the Symbolic to the Imaginary is always posElible. For,as need is transformed into desire through demand, the radical lack ofbeing of the child whose organism has been, altered (from a calyx of bright,only partial ly centralized slivers of l ight , into the fused s i lver of atota l mirror-recognition), is re-ihscribed at the level of the signifierwhose aleatory movement alone invokes the flaw i t labours to conceal.

Indeed, i f the formula (J a i ) soif ' is able to act as the kernelof the dream, i f i t is so heavily o v e r d e t e r ~ i n e d i t is because even ,primal repression does not f inal ly cut off the 'derivatives' , of the r ~ ~ pressed representative of the drive. I f there is sufficient, 'distort ion'for the 'derivatives' to overcome the censorship then they have freeaccess to the preconscious and conscious, and in the process of freeassociation Freud notes (SE XIV: 149-150) that the analysand goes o

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98spinning associative threads t t i l l he is 'brought up against some thought,t4e relation of which to what ' is repressed becomes so obvious that he iscompelled to repeat his attempt at repression' .. . . , .

, In Phillipe "s dream we can ident ify some of the deriva tives of theinst inctual representative ' ( J ' a i ) soif". In the manifest text of Phil l ipe'sdream the word 'placet appears. Here is how th is part icular signif ier canbe related diagrammatically to what is suspended vert ically from' i t :

Li l i says: ' ..Phill ipe,J ta i soifst 'S t place

1 Pcs.s s scene

s, In ~ h i s i g r m tole are concerned with the four-tiered formula again,and with metaphor (repression) as the superimposition of signifiers . Thenewsignif ie t ' (place) is superimposed on to the original signifier ,p,lage,which has fal len :to the rank of the signif ied. The signif ied i s the', , scene (scene) where : theaction ' takes place and here of course i t is 'con

f u s ~ d ' with the original signif ier plage. Our problem is one of conceptualiiz,ing a four-tiered system in terms of a terminology rooted in a twot ieredsignifei-!signified system.' As have already noted,since a l llanguage involves me,taphor (repression), there 'Ivil1 be no language' 'that is not underPinnedbya repressed chain of signification. Ther d ~ c l condensation ,that' we detect in: the dream-work is in 'fact then,the result of the crossing of the Saussurean bar' between the language ofcon 3cious ahd prec'onscious and that operating in the repressed chain,C ondensat ion operates, as i t ~ v e r e vel 't ically, between a signifier and" another, signifier that has fai len to the 'rank of the signif ied. 'C.on

d e n t i ~ n i s then' a feature of language that is never completely there, ,but exists somewhere between the work of distortion andthel'lOrk of , 'i n t ~ r p r e t a t ~ o n the l a t te r in i t s guile 'simply revers1ngthe former:

"The creative spark o i the metaphor' does not spring ,from the conjUnction of tl'lO. 'images, ' that is 'of twos ignif iersactual ly actualized. I t sprl.ngs from twosigl1ifiers one of which has taken the' plade of the'other in the signifying chain, the hidden signifiertheri remaining present throughi ts (metonymic)relat ion to the res t of the chain t " ", (La6an :Ecrits 1966: 507; Mial'Stranslation)

The important point to note here ' is that the operations'ofmetaphorand metonymy are mutually interdependent ,aswas emphasized in the dis, cussion on Jakobson.If metaphor createS a' superirriposiHon of signifiers,metonymy effects a continual sliding of signifiers: i t is the one slopeof the effective f ie ld o the signif ier i i l the constitution of meailing'( , 1e premior versant ' duchamp effec t i fque 'ie signi'f'iant constitue, pourque Ie sens y pre-nne place Ecrf t ' s I966:506) .Thepoin t i s that metonymy,

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99for Lacan concerns .only the relations between signifiers, i t does notconcern the signified at all , for the signified is c o n t i n ~ a l l y slippingaway from underneath.

\le can understand the nature of metonymy better by returning tothe diagrammatic representation of Phill ipe's dream. I have already,attempted,a description of the (fict ion of) primal repression. I havealso shmm how i t is that a signifier such as place exists by virtue ofa signifier that i t has displaced - plage. Or, to put i t in another waywe have seen how the original signifier plage is in a metaphorising posit ion with regard to the s i n i y i ~ s chain 'above' i t . Since we are concerned with what Freud cal ls the 'derivatives' of the repressed instinctual(drive) representative, we need to trace the connections b e t ~ l e e n the rightand left haild side of the diagram .

Freud's ini t ia l point in separating out the two different kinds ofrepression was quite simply a logical one. I f i t was argued that , forrepression to occur, the 'presentation' (signifier) had not only to berepulsed by the Preconscious, but also to be attracted by a chain alreadyexisting in the Unconscious then a Primal Repression had to be hypothesised.The associative chains connect the already existing chain in the Unconsciousto the (distorted) derivatives of the repressed instinctual representativearound vnlich the Unconscious chain is organized.Thus when ie have undone the work of distortion we find the originalsignifier/signified relation p ~ g e The last syllable 'gel is phoneticallyscenerelated to the ' je t in the ' J ' a i soif ' of the Unconscious chain. We canpostulate a metonynlic sliding to the left of the diagram, from .:glage toplage~ ~ to ..i2 and so to (J 'a i ) soif. Here, then, is the --completed diagram,

-ge jeLil i says:Phillipe,J 'a i soif

S' S' placer ~ ~ Pos.;io..i tene1---.... ..----. metaphori -ge S{, - - - . S plage_..;;s;.;:o;.;:i;::f:.-.{_-=_ '-' ,; o;:e..-_:._.-'_,_,_- ;,.;.,I, Ucs.soif ~ _ je \ , S

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100"The '1t19rds' that compose:it:are eleDle-nts dral'1n from therealm of the i m . ~ C ; i n a r y - n ~ b l y f r o m vis'lla1 informa- .tion - but promoted to the dignity of signifiers."(1972:182)

Vlhat seems clear tIJ.en is thatwe':qave:1;othink of a PrimalUnconscious(establiEihed by Primal Repression) , ,and also an Unconscious which is the'domain of After Repressi, on. I t seems to me tllat the Primary/SecondaryProcessdistinction14 i s no t adequ:ate to contain the series of ' levels 'that. ,this ,demands.

To understand the distinction between these two forms ,of Unconscious,I 1tlantto consider briefly a paperwrit ten by B ~ n v e n i s t e on the relationbetween Psychoanalysis and Language. ,He offers two meanings of the word'symbolic' the f irs t one as defining ' the most manifest property of Language',that i t 'symbolizes' things in their absence. Lacan's own account of theF o r t ~ Da! game, and the phoneticization of the real involved in the child'suse of toys as signifiers, corresponds to, precisely th is sense of theword 'symbolic'. .

Benveniste compares this most basic p r o p e r ~ y f natural languagewith lithe symbolism of the Unconscious discovered l y , F ~ e u d , 1"1hich offerscharacteristics 'qUite specific to i tself" (1966:85). vie are concernedhere with the heritage of Stekel, a dangerous heritage as Freud had beenquick to point out sm IV). We are concerned with a tfixedSymbolism'.(Die . Symbolik). A careful reading of The Intepretation of Dreams andan attention to the dates at which certain passages were added, will"reveal a gradual transformation in Freud's t h o u g h ~ The sections onfixed Symbolism were more and more extended, until his express warningsagainst the over-indulgent use of them, are al l but buried under a mound.of sue;gestions (for possibly universal symbolisms) from his cO-1"1prkers,and indeed from himself. However, in a note dated 1909, Freud insiststhat the consideration of Symbols should never be carried out separatelyfrom free association:

"l should like to utter an express warning. against overestimating the importance of symbols in dream-interpretation, against restr icting the work of translating dreamsmerely to translating symbols, and against abandoningthe technique of making use of the dreamer's associations""" " . . . . " " . (SE IV)I f the free association can be considered to be that work done by theanalysand in following the threads 'in the' manifest dream-text to thelaj;ent dream-tl).qughts, i t would s t i l l seem to be in the domain of AfterRepression.' What, then of the fixed SYmbolism?

Ernest Jones, in one,of :the key papers on the subject, claimedthat "all symbols represent ideas of the self and the immediate bloodrelat ives, or of the phenomena of birth, love and death" (1923: 169).Since Lacan's whole work has been concerned with an emphasis on the lackof fixity in language, he has naturally militated against a too greatreliance on any theories of fixed Symbolism, Stekelian theories thatFreud had effectively rejected in his ini t ia l discussions of 'ai-chai'c'"methods of dream interpretation. Even the symptom is shown to be part icipant in the chain of s igni f ie rs , i f only negatively, i n a frozen violencethat both' hides and reveli.1sthe text suspended from i t (Ecrits1966:259).However, in an i n t e r e ~ t i n g , t r i b u t e to Ernes'i,Jones (1966:697-717), we ,find certain cluest6 Lacan"s theoretical position. In general, as Ihope I have shown in this paper, Lacan i a fa r more 'concerried '1"1ith LeSymboliQ'J.e than ~ l i t h a t i ~ a d symbolism. l . n d ~ e d , i n s o f ~ r a s he accepts

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101a fixed symbolism he seems to equate i t with those 'key-signifiers' thatorganise the inser t ion of the subject into language as the primal repression happens. Lacan writes of symbols in terms of primary ideas:

"Ces idees primaires designent les points au Iesujet dispara:lt sous 1 "E,tre du signif icant: cu' i 1s 'agisse, enseffet, d ~ t r soi , d 'e tre un p ~ r e d 'e tre ne, d' etre aime, au d' mort" (1966: 709)Thus, Phillipe, and his 'disappearance' beneath the s ignif ier ' so i f ' . However, i f these 'primary ideas' are crucial to the inser t ion of thesubject into the Symbolic Order, can they real ly be said to be ' s ignif iers ' themselves? Are they not, rather , as much part of the Imaginary as theSymbolic, thing-presentations in face 'elevated to the dignity of s ignif iers '?I f they are Imaginary elements, are they not, as Benveniste argues,' Infra-l inguist ic ' , because they have their source ' in a region deeper thanthat in which education ins t i l l s the mechanism of language' (1966:86)?Certainly, the domain of primal repression in i t s timelessness and lackof syntax, and in the production of desire that operates there ( in theshape of Kleinian part ia l objects) would seem to be ' in fra- l inguis t ic ' . Whether it is possible, however, to imagine a language of inscr iptions,a system of writing, of traces, at this instance of the Unconscious, whichnevertheless insists so strongly because i t persists , and because al l 'derivatives' are traced back to i t , is another question. 'What m u ~ t thepsychic be' Derrida asks ' for i t to be a text? ' (1967/1972)

Almost everyone discussing Lacan's conceptualization of the Unconscious(15) has explici t ly or implici t ly produced this question that demands ananswer: an answer that l o s e s i t seH in the unplwmnable, What is thisdomain, this ' in fra- l inguis t ic ' domain, this Unconscious chain that giveslanguage 'ba l last ' , this 'landscape of writing'? f we t ry to ente:r the(mythical) time before primal repression, i t s phenomenology; i t s l ibidinal production beneath the law of the Symbolic Father, do we finda scrambling of several codes, an interpenetration of several 'chains ' , asDeleuze and Guettari a:r;gue? (1973:47-48). For Derrida a1so, a writerconcerned to emphasise the metaphor of writing in Freud's writings againstthe general hegemony of the Logos within the European t radi t ion, theUnconscious is marked by a 'writing' that pre-exists the phonetic - "not ofa 'wr i t ing' that simply transcribes the stony echo of muted words, but.ofa preverbal lithog:r;aphy: ,metaphonetic, non-linguistic, a-logical" (1972:85).There is much evidence for such a system of writing in Freud '.s works, and i t ' i s especially insistent when he considers. the question of memory.. Thiswriting i s perhaps a writing ' s t raight out of the rea l ' , infra-lip.guisticcer tainly, meta-phonetic, clearly, the infant 's actually but la t ter ly c,elestial appropriation of every grove and stream. Noquarter , then .Convulsive beSLuty: the phonemic operator That the signifier mp, 'Ks thepolymorphous meadows with a h e r l d ~ c quartering, and imaginary figuresblaze s t i l l against the squaring of content (the el l ipse, the flow Of thepre-text) , continuing.

I t should be clear that . there is far more at stake in this debate. than I have developed here. Whilst an adherence to phonoJogy allows usto Slide al l too easily into an idealism, an insistence on the. image ofinscription,. of ~ r i t u r places us firmly within historical materialism,and makes possible a conception of the Lacanian Symbolic as an exter iorregister inscribed in the actual 'discursive practice' of the socialformation. The Lacanian Symbolic is always already there, i t does precede and determine' any possible 'presence' of any possible ' subject ' . Yet, since Psychoanalysis has been concerned with ontogenesis, with apersonal myth of origin rather than a collective one, i t will always tendto fa l l back into an idealism. Dangerous myth of origin, then, the Fort:Dal game. Dangerous to locate the mater ial i ty of the two registers onlyin the tension between an original disappearance and a play of binaryoppositions supplementing the lack:

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102"Through that which takes on body only by being the traceof,a nothingness and whose support from that moment oncannot be impaired, the concept, saving the duration ofwhat passes bJr engenders the thing". (Ecrits 1966:276;, Wilden's translation)

If ,pntogenetically, the lat ter is only a symptom of a nothingness (anabsence of the other pregnant with the threat located in the Other),i t has to be said that the Symbolic cannot be so easily emptied of theReal,' (in the Marxist sense) that must, in the last instance, determinei t . , This is nO ' real is t imbecility' (1966: 25), for i t does not allowthe level at which meaning resides to elude i t . I t is merely an sistence that the 'law' of the Symbolic be reinserted within the differential histories of the culture that made Psychoanalysis and Ethnographyposstble,and the cultures that were subjected to the actual violence ofi t s ~ a z e

Martin Thom

Notes1. Given the massive amount of. material by Lacan that is s t i l l to bepublished, every reading is necessarily a very fragDlentar,y one.2. Annette Lavers has emphasised (Semiotika 1971), the break in Lacan'sthought should not be over-emphasised. Indeed, Psychoanalysis asa,practice is so permeated with the Imaginary (ie. la parole vide

symptomatic of meconnaissance) that i t is unlikely .to fal l preyto the lure of an absolutely seamless Symbolic, ~ b o l i o thatwquld be in that measure i tself an Imaginary (ie. an Ideological)imposition. The Hegelian category of Desire that Lacan has utilizedso convincingly to illuminate FreUd's thought tends to militate, against' s tructuralist ' closure of the phenomenological dimension.

3. Thus, Levi-Strauss (1950), in a paper that was both influenced byLacan, and in turn influenced him, argued that the old phenomenologicalproblem of the opposition between self and other could be resolved byr ~ s o r t i n g to the Unconscious. This statement (which calls to mindbQth Surrealism and the Lacanian conception of ' t ruth ' ) is applied' to the ethnographic situation in an Idealist manner. Idealistb(i!cause i t dehistoricizes the encounter beh'eenself and other, andr ~ s o l v s i t by reference to a transcendent domain where a human

~ s n is e t e r ~ l l y in residence.4. This is where I differ from Wilden (1972). He rejects the idea that

t ~ r is 'anything particularly specific about psychoanalysis exceptinsofar as i t is a historical product of a certain type of socioeconomic system' (1972:450). I t is very hard to situate Wilden polit ically, but I consider that his emphasis on the digital, logocentric,phallocentric, patriarchal etc. nature of Lacanian Psychoanalysisblinds him to the power that inheres in i t to unmask ideologies,including that which is ideological in i t s own construction.5.' viz. "Freud and Lacan" in Lenin and Philosophy 1971, pp. 189-221.6. The tone is deliberately hesitant. 'Reading Lacan from a distance,wi th no real kno'Vrledge.of his writing,s beyond the Ecri ts, any otherattitude than caution would be foolish. I am referring to Laplanche's

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103. . ;

6. 1965 postscript to the'.1961 article (I'rritten jointly v i thLeclaire) , to his book, La Vie et r1ort en Psychanalyse (1970), and also, in s l ightly different f ields, to Derrida (1967/1972), and Deleuzeand Guettari (1973). ..7"., Much Anthropological,:f.ielcI-work has beenmarred by i t s insensitivityto the free associations of the dreamer (cf. The Dream in PrimitiveCulture: Lincoln 1935:99). Even so Lacanian a work as Oedipe Africain

is not absolutely'sensit ive to the l inguistic situation. 8. The use of the word t ex t here is merely a recognition of the fact that Phil l ipe's 'dream-text' is presentedtypographically. This is

n no way meant to pre-judge the status of the dream as t ext , for this paper is in fa'ct centrally concernedvIi th the r ival claims of a linguistics based on phonetics, and a 'graphematics s t i l l to come'(Derrida 1972:104). .9. Indeed, i t was the ego-driyes that were transformed into deathdrives in Beyond the PleasurePrinciple (SEXVIII).

10 .. .But c.f Benveniste 1939: 49-56.11. The phrase is from Levi-Strauss (1950), but Lacan also refers to the

sis relation as being that of two registers, I e mot registre designant deux enchainements pris dans leur globalite ' (Ecrits 1966:444).He ins is ts that there is nb bi-univocal (ie term to term) relationinvolved, but o111y that of register to.register.

12. But cf. Ecrits 1966:705 - ' Ie rapport du au pens6e n'est pas celui du s i g n i f i ~ au signif-iant'. '13. De Saussurewas quite sensitive about,the methodologicalnecessity ofseparating the study of Synchronic from Diachronic relations. I t wasnot, finally, an ontological judgement (cf ArdeneI' 1971: xX:l>.rviii-xxxix).14. Wilden's (1972) superimposition of,the analog/digital distinction onto the Primary/Secondary Process distinction seems tome also far too blunt a strategy. I f I have not discussed the general conclusions of the 1972 b o o k w i t h r e g ~ d t o Lacan, -it is;because I am not happywith the way the analog/digit'al distinctibn is used, and i t seems to me that there is a certain violence present in the reduction of the

Lacanianto the.Batesonian.,. Having. saidthat. I should add that Iconsider the translation and commentaries' n the' Language of the Self to be very fine, and that I no longer have any way of ascertaininghowmuch of my limited understanding of Lacan is due to Wilden's work.15. i .e . Laplancheand Leclaire: 1961: Derrida 1967/1972; Bar;197l; Deleuzeand Guettari: 1973.

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Bar E 1971. 'The Language of the Unconscious according toJaques Lacan , Semiotica, .pp. 241-269.Barth-es, R. 1967. Elements ofSemi61ogy.Benveniste E. 1966. Prob1emes de Linguistigue genera1e.

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1957. 'Les embrayeurs, 1es categories verba1es et Ieverbe Russe , in 1963.Lacan, J . 1966. Ecrits.

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1051949. 'The Mirror-Phase as forwative of the functionof the I ' , in New Left Review 51, pp. 71-77.1968. 'The Function of LanguEge in Psychoanalysis', inVlild.EiN.h :pp.2 87. ...... . . .1970. 'The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious',. in t r u c t u r a l ~ Ehrmann J . , pp. 101-137.1972. 'The Seminar on The Purloined Letter ' , ~ French t u d i ~ 48, pp. 39-73.

Laplarobe J . 1961. 'L' Inconscient: une etude psychanalytique',( Leclaire S.) in LesTemps Modernes, pp. 81-129.1972. 'The Unconscious: a Psychoanalytic study', inYale French Studies, 48 pp. 118-176.

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Levi-Strauss, C. 1950. 'L'Introduction a L'oeuvre de Marcel Mauss',in Sociologie et Anthropologie, pp. ix-I i i .1972. Structural Anthropology.

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