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Borders of Language: Kristeva's Critique of Lacan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Shuli Barzilai
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Abstract

Throughout her theoretical writings, Julia Kristeva calls into question the privileged position of the symbolic order in Jacques Lacan's teaching and clinical practice. In particular, she argues that the Lacanian “algorithm” S/s inadequately accounts for nondiscursive pathological and creative phenomena, for experiential dimensions that elude the language function. 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).” As a part of this larger project, Kristeva's essay “Within the Microcosm of ‘The Talking Cure’ ” presents a concentrated critique of the linguistic interpretation of the unconscious. Her essay focuses on the analytic encounter with “borderline” patients. However, Kristeva's characterization of the limitations of Lacanian theory in relation to borderline discourse has wide-ranging implications for other forms of communication as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 106 , Issue 2 , March 1991 , pp. 294 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1991

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