5 31 2024
THE LINGUISTICS LANGUAGE
“return to Freud”
Lacan argued Ego-psychology and object-relations(the two genres divided after Freud dead) weren’t fit the original inspiration
Return to freud means return to his writings(before 1923---1923 Freud introduced the second topography which distinguished ‘ego’,’super ego’)lacan in favor of the first topography(unconscious conscious sand pre-conscious)
The essential principles of Saussurian linguistics
language is a universal capacity to regulate the world
Every study of language must involve the study of linguistic signs
Saussure called a sound-image(lacanian signifier) not a word or paragarph,it’s vocal production
Signified:concept attach to this image ,idea in the speaker/listener’s mind
And the ration between the signifier and the signified is completely arbitrary(so theoretically speaking, any sounds and words can be referred to certain concepts,but it only function in special circumstances:’bro’：good friends or real bro?),it’s look like completely free but actually be limited.
Interpret Freud with Saussure’s theory
in Freud’s works,the unconscious is shown as working with language(the unconscious as a structure just like language in lacanian)
P1
For lacan,signifier is primary , and the signifier and signified operates in different registers;
Signified operates in the register of symbolic
Signifier operates in the imaginary
Lacan’s 4 main differences with saussure
1.position of the signifier and signified inversed (primary of the signified)
2.signifier operates in the symbolic;signified operates in the imaginary
3.arrows and ellipse disappear(unity of the signifier and signified in the sign unimportant)
4.bar between the signifier and the signified (separation of registers;obstacle)
The impact of the ‘linguistic turn’
The practice of psychoanalysis require a theory of the function of speech and the ‘field of language’
The unconscious must be structured like language
When talk about the subject which must be relation to language(as a subject that only becomes a subject because of language)
The mirror stage
The theory of mirror stage is about how human express themselves via another way and how we draw a conclusion that we are a special mankind.
The sources of the theory:
1. psychological observations
2. Neuro-anatomical
3. Kojeve’s interpretation of Hegel’s phenomenology of mind
4. Ethological experiments
The emergence of self-awareness is the result of the active intervention of human beings themselves,which makes ego and alter estranged
Human children at one point become interested in their mirror image and are keen to actually take that mirror image as an image of themselves is because this mirror image it covers up.it somehow reduces the physical state of bodily incoordination in which human being find itself.
It will cause a new conflict,the whole self and the bodily incoordination,not independently self,moreover,a rival self.
蝗虫的行为学实验
When it come in two types when they grow up,solitary and gregarious.the two types look absolutely different.
“Chauvin isolated migratory locust shortly after they were born.and during the early weeks of their development,he exposed them two types’ pictures of other locusts(he didn’t show them a mirror)
The result is that they will become the type which u show to them.”
It means that this differentiation in the species has nothing to do with some kind of internal biological mechanism but has everything to do with the images of the other locusts to which tehy are exposed during their early childhood.
Not come singly but in pairs,Harrison Matthews discovered that female pigeons could be brought to ovulate if u just show them a picture of male pigeon.
Lacan drew a conclusion from these research,that is: the unitary image in our environment is actually inherently formative,constitutive(it not that something happens because our bodies develop over time”it’s not that there’s a spontaneous biological process of maturation,but the formative impact often image upon ourselves”)
Lacan described it as “the imaginary unity of the image that has a structuring effect on the constitution of the ego self awareness, the sense of self,the me etc.”
