{"id":10328,"date":"2013-02-03T18:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-02-03T23:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=10328"},"modified":"2013-02-03T22:47:44","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T03:47:44","slug":"subject-of-statement-enuciated-subject-of-the-enunciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2013\/02\/03\/subject-of-statement-enuciated-subject-of-the-enunciation\/","title":{"rendered":"subject of statement enuciated subject of the enunciation"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article (from Lacanonline click here)<\/a> will examine the concepts of the subject of the statement<\/span> and the subject of the enunciation, the relationship between them, and look at three examples of where these ideas might be applied.<\/span><\/p>\n

A first general point to make is on the choice of translation. The English which is most often employed does not bring out the complementarity between the French terms Lacan uses: Le sujet de l\u2019\u00e9nonciation and le sujet de l\u2019\u00e9nonc\u00e9, where the ‘subject of the statement’<\/span> corresponds to the subject of the enunciated, de l\u2019\u00e9nonc\u00e9. Fink\u2019s translation of the \u00c9crits retains this choice, but in Gallagher\u2019s translations of the Seminar the reader commonly finds a more literal translation into \u2018enunciation\u2019 and \u2018enunciated\u2019.<\/p>\n

What is the\u00a0<\/strong>subject of the statement<\/span>?<\/p>\n

The subject of the statement<\/span> (or subject of the utterance, as it is sometimes also referred to) is I<\/span> \u2013 the first person. In psychoanalytic terms it can be equated to the ego. It is the subject that in day-to-day discourse we posit in order to attribute an agent to speech. As Lacanian psychoanalyst Philippe Van Haute writes, \u201cThe subject of the statement<\/span>\u2026 refers to the subject as it appears to itself and to the other (for example, as someone who believes herself to be a diligent student).\u201d (Van Haute, Against Adaptation, p.40.)<\/p>\n

In the \u00c9crits Lacan maintains that this I of the subject of the statement is a signifier, but that it does not signify the subject (\u00c9crits, 800). What does he mean by this? What is known in linguistics as the shifter (or indexical) – I \u2013 gives context to what is said so that the sentence is in some way \u2018rooted\u2019 or attributed to that subject. But as linguists recognise, in and of itself this I has no meaning. We have to look at the context, provided by the enunciation (in most cases, what follows after the I), to make sense of what has been said.<\/p>\n

So the ‘I’<\/span> of the statement functions simply as a way of making sense of the enunciation. In Van Haute\u2019s example above, \u201cThe shifter ‘I’<\/span> has no meaning and no determinable content unless I add something like \u2018am a diligent student\u2019.\u201d (Van Haute, Against Adaptation, p.39).<\/p>\n

What is the<\/strong> subject of the enunciation<\/span>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The subject of the enunciation<\/span> can be understood as the subject of the unconscious<\/strong>. It is a subject that emerges from within our speech, through our signifiers, and which differs from or contradicts the I<\/span> of the statement.<\/p>\n

Lacan calls the subject of the enunciation<\/span> \u201cthe subject not insofar as it produces discourse but insofar as it is produced [fait], cornered even [fait comme un rat], by discourse\u201d (Lacan, My Teaching, p.36). Here Lacan is pointing to the fact that the subject is not quite the agent of what he says: as much as he speaks he is spoken. The words that he uses carry a meaning which exceeds the one he hoped to convey when he opened his mouth.<\/p>\n

It is through the act of enunciation that we have access to the unconscious in the psychoanalytic sense. This is why Lacan says in the \u00c9crits that \u201dthe presence of the unconscious, being situated in the locus of the Other, can be found in every discourse, in its enunciation.\u201d (\u00c9crits, 834.)<\/p>\n

The difference between the subject of the statement<\/span> and the subject of the enunciation<\/span> is key in understanding why it is in speech and language that Lacan locates the psychoanalytic unconscious. In Seminar XII Lacan tells his audience that the difference between the subject of the statement<\/span> and the subject of the enunciation<\/span> demonstrates why language cannot be thought of as a code, in which a fixed and unambiguous meaning is passed from one user to another. \u201cLanguage is not a code\u201d, he says, \u201cprecisely because in its least enunciation it carries with it the subject present in the enunciating.\u201d (Seminar XII, 10.03.1965.)<\/p>\n

Lacan\u2019s idea is that rather than involving a single subject who uses language to convey a meaning or sentiment, there is a subject revealed which is not equivalent to the one speaking as I<\/span>, a subject which can be detected in the very words or signifiers themselves.<\/p>\n

Separating out these two subjects in speech can also help us understand how Lacan\u2019s famous maxim that the signifier represents the subject for another signifier<\/span> refers to exactly this split between the speaking subject that enunciates words or signifiers and the I<\/span> of the subject of the statement.<\/p>\n

Lacan says in the \u00c9crits that \u201cwhat the unconscious brings back to our attention is the law by which enunciation can never be reduced to what is enunciated in any discourse.\u201d (\u00c9crits, 892.) In other words, an unconscious production is one in which you do not recognise yourself in what you have actually said. This is an experience well-known to anyone who has undertaken a psychoanalysis.<\/p>\n

Rather than being found in the hidden depths or recesses of the mind, the unconscious for Lacan is therefore akin to an undercurrent of what the subject says, especially about him or herself. This is why in Seminar VI Lacan refers to the enunciation as being \u201cunconscious in the articulation of the word.\u201d (Seminar VI, 12.11.1958.)<\/p>\n

Elaborating on this point, Evans writes that, \u201dIn designating the enunciation as unconscious, Lacan affirms that the source of speech is not the ego, nor consciousness, but the unconscious; language comes from the Other, and the idea that \u2018I\u2019 am master of my discourse is only an illusion.\u201d (Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, p.55.)<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s now take three examples of ways in which the divide between the subject of the statement<\/span> and the subject of the enunciation<\/span> can be made apparent.<\/p>\n

Example 1: \u2018I am lying\u2019.<\/p>\n

The distinction Lacan makes between the subject of the statement<\/span> and the subject of the enunciation<\/span> help us to comprehend the seemingly paradoxical sentence \u2018I am lying\u2019. Indeed, we only see the paradox in this statement if we perform the mental operation of separating the subject of the statement<\/span> from the subject of the enunciation<\/span>. What is confusing about this sentence is that we do not know whether the subject of the statement<\/span> \u2013 here, ‘I’<\/span> \u2013 is telling the truth about the enunciation \u2013 here, \u2018\u2026 am lying\u2019.<\/p>\n

In other words, we do not know whether the speaker is telling the truth about telling the truth. As Lacan phrases it, \u201cIf you say, I am lying, you are telling the truth, and therefore you are not lying, and so on.\u201d (Seminar XI, p.139.) This is an example that Lacan returns to throughout his work. He first mentions it in Seminar IX, highlighting the paradox:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two lines that we distinguish as enunciating and enunciation are sufficient to allow us to affirm that it is in the measure that these two lines are mixed up and confused that we find ourselves before a paradox which culimates in this impasse of the \u2018I am lying\u2019 on which I made you pause for an instant.\u201d (Seminar IX, 15.11.1961.)<\/p>\n

But a couple of years later, in Seminar XI, he explains that despite this paradox there is nothing formally wrong with the sentence, and it is by separating the subject of the statement<\/span> from the subject of the enunciation<\/span> that we can demonstrate this:<\/p>\n

\u201dIt is quite clear that the I am lying, despite its paradox, is perfectly valid. Indeed, the I<\/span> of the enunciation is not the same as the I<\/span> of the statement, that is to say, the shifter which, in the statement, designates him. So, from the point at which I state, it is quite possible for me to formulate in a valid way that the I<\/span> \u2013 the I<\/span> who, at that moment, formulates the statement \u2013 is lying, that he lied a little before, that he is lying afterwards, or even, that in saying I am lying, he declares that he has the intention of deceiving\u2026.<\/p>\n

This division between the statement and the enunciation means that, in effect, from the I am lying which is at the level of the chain of the statement \u2013 the am lying is a signifier, forming part, in the Other, of the treasury of vocabulary in which the I<\/span>, determined retroactively, becomes a signification, engendered at the level of the statement of what it produces at the level of the enunciation \u2013 what results is an I am deceiving you.\u201d (Seminar XI, p.139-140.)<\/p>\n

So is the subject lying, or is he telling the truth? Lacan\u2019s answer is that he is telling the truth via his lie. At the level of the subject of statement<\/span>, he is lying; at the level of the subject of the enunciation<\/span>, he is telling the truth about that lie. The psychoanalytic response that Lacan suggests to elicit this truth involves sending the subject back his own message in inverted form (\u00c9crits, 41).<\/p>\n

Lacan continues:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe I am deceiving you arises from the point at which the analyst awaits the subject, and sends back to him, according to the formula, his own message in its true signification, that is to say, in an inverted form. He says to him \u2013 in this I am deceiving you, what you are sending as message is what I express to you, and in doing so you are telling the truth. \u00a0In the way of deception in which the subject is venturing, the analyst is in the position to formulate this you are telling the truth, and my interpretation has meaning only in this dimension.\u201d (Seminar XI, p.139-140.)<\/p>\n

In his 1925 paper \u2018Negation\u2019 Freud had noted that \u201dA negative judgement is the intellectual substitute for repression; its \u2018no\u2019 is the hall-mark of repression, a certificate of origin \u2013 like, let us say, \u2018Made in Germany\u2019.\u201d (SE XIX, p.236). In a similar way, the subject of statement<\/span>, corresponding here to the speaker\u2019s ego, believes itself to be lying; but it is in the enunciation that the truth is signaled.<\/p>\n

Where a negation signals the subject of the statement<\/span>, what follows in the enunciation signals the truth. Psychoanalysts, Lacan suggests, should, “\u2026 displace ourselves in the exactly opposite but strictly correlative dimension which is to say: \u2018but no, you do not know that you are telling the truth\u2019, which immediately goes much further. What is more: \u2018you only tell it so well in the measure that you think you are lying and when you do not want to lie it is to protect yourself from that truth\u2019.\u201d (Seminar IX, 15.11.1961.)<\/p>\n

This same ambivalence between the intentions of the subject of the statement<\/span> at the level of the ego, and the subject of the enunciation<\/span> at the level of the unconscious, is discussed by Lacan in an example he gives in the \u00c9crits, but which he also comments on in his Seminar. The phrase Lacan highlights is \u2018I fear that he will come\u2019,<\/strong> which in French is put in a curious way \u2013 \u201cJe crains qu\u2019il ne vienne\u201d<\/strong>, (\u00c9crits, 664):<\/p>\n

\u201c[With] the ne<\/strong> of this [phrase] you immediately put your finger on the fact that it means nothing other than \u2018I was hoping that he would come\u2019, it expresses the discordance of your own feelings with respect to this person, that it carries in a way its trace which is all the more suggestive because it is incarnated in its signifier\u2026 in psychoanalysis we call it ambivalence.\u201d (Seminar IX, 17.01.62.)<\/p>\n

Whilst the ne<\/strong> in this sentence is commonly used in French to signal a negation – rather than having a translation in and of itself – as Van Haute explains, Lacan uses this ne expl\u00e9tif in French as an example of the way in which \u201cthe subject of the enunciation<\/span> can also be present in the subject of the statement<\/span> in ways other than via the shifter ‘I’<\/span>.\u201d (Van Haute, Against Adaptation, p.40). In discussing the phrase \u201cJe crains qu\u2019il ne vienne\u201d<\/strong> in the \u00c9crits, Lacan uses this ne<\/strong> to demonstrate \u2013 by way of a cheeky attack that is effected in its forcefulness by this same ne – that the ne has a value which offers a clue to the subject of the enunciation<\/span> beyond the subject of the statement<\/span>, I<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Example 2: Advice.<\/p>\n

A simple answer to why Lacan privileges speech in its connection with the unconscious is to make clear that we can speak about ourselves without realising that we are doing so. The distinction to be made is not simply between what you say and what you mean, but which subject is at work in speech. In positing two subjects, the subject of the statement<\/span> and the subject of the enunciation<\/span> Lacan gives us, as he puts it, \u201dthe right way to answer the question \u2018who is speaking?\u2019 when the subject of the unconscious is at stake. For the answer cannot come from him if he doesn\u2019t know what he is saying, or even that he is speaking, as all of analytic experience teaches us.\u201d (\u00c9crits, 800).<\/p>\n

Lacan\u2019s distinction between the subject of the statement<\/span> and the subject of the enunciation<\/span> allows us to ask a simple but intriguing question about advice: when advice is given from one person to another, to whom does the advice pertain? Does the advice fit better the one offering it than the one receiving it?<\/p>\n

Here is an example. A man is in a bar with a colleague discussing work. The conversation turns to the deals they are each expecting to be able to announce in the near future. When the talk turns to how likely certain of these deals are to be sealed, the man offers his colleague advice about the confidence with which he should report these to his superiors with the words \u2018Never commit, never commit\u2019.<\/p>\n

This advice would not have been so notable were the man not in the bar precisely to celebrate his engagement to his fianc\u00e9! With the words \u2018never commit\u2019 we can wonder what commitment was being avoided, and who therefore the advice was aimed at. In Seminar IX on identification Lacan makes a comment that is useful in thinking about how to view advice, which we can apply to this example:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 By this very fact in the enunciating, he [the subject] elides something which is properly speaking what he cannot know, namely the name of what he is qua enunciating subject. In the act of enunciating, there is this latent nomination\u2026.\u201d (Seminar IX, 10.01.1962).<\/p>\n

The nomination in our example \u2013 of the subject himself as recipient of his own advice to \u2018never commit\u2019 \u2013 is not possible at the level of the statement. The unconscious here cannot express itself with the first person pronoun. The only way for the unconscious thought to be voiced was through an enunciation which was intended ostensibly for someone else.<\/p>\n

This impersonalisation is common where the unconscious is concerned. If as Lacan says the unconscious is Other, it is not possible for us to assume it at the level of the ego, and so through mechanisms such as advice it is given or attributed to someone else. Lacanian psychoanalyst Joel Dor points out that \u201cMost often it is with ‘I’<\/span> that the subject actualises himself in his own utternaces. But the subject of the utterance may also be adequately represented by \u2018one\u2019, \u2018you\u2019, \u2018we\u2019 and so on.\u201d (Joel Dor, Introduction to the Reading of Lacan, p. 151).<\/p>\n

The failure to include oneself at the level of the enunciation that we see in incidences of giving and receiving advice is something that Lacan refers to via an anecdote, which he finds in the work of the psychologist Alfred Binet, about a child who uses the phrase \u2018I<\/span> have three brothers, Paul, Ernest and me\u2019 instead of \u2018We are three brothers, Paul, ernest and me.\u2019 (Seminar VI, 03.12.1958.)<\/p>\n

As with the example of \u2018I<\/span> am lying\u2019 discussed above, Lacan returns to discuss this \u2018mistake\u2019 several times in the course of his Seminar. We can take this as a signal that there is something about this anecdote that he treats as axiomatic, and he begins his reflections on it in Seminar VI by commenting that \u201ceverything about the implication of the human subject in the act of speech is there.\u201d (ibid).<\/p>\n

The speaker in Lacan\u2019s example talks about himself as a brother even though he is speaking about the fact that he has brothers. He is confused between being and having, as Lacan says. In Seminar XII Lacan points out that, \u201cHere, \u2018me\u2019 must be in two places, in the place of the series of brothers and also in the place of the one who is enunciating.\u201d (Seminar XII, 20.01.1965.). But the year before, in Seminar XI, Lacan allows that the child\u2019s mistake is quite understandable: \u201cBut it is quite natural \u2013 first the three brothers, Paul, Ernest and I are counted, and then there is the I<\/span> at the level at which I am to reflect the first I<\/span>, that is to say, the I<\/span> who counts.\u201d (Seminar XI, p.20).<\/p>\n

The little boy counts the subject of the statement<\/span> twice \u2013 mistakenly as one of the brothers, on the grounds that he is a brother, but also has brothers. The child does not deduct himself from the enunciation. As Lacan explains, \u201dthe child does not see this enunciation as coming from elsewhere as he should, namely that the subject does not yet know how to deduct himself.\u201d (Seminar VI, 10.12.1958.)<\/p>\n

In the same way, where advice is offered it is worth asking: who does this advice fit best – the one giving it or the one receiving it? Perhaps a Lacanian response to advice when it is offered would be to send the subject back his own message in inverted form, as Lacan suggests in the \u00c9crits; that is, to give it its true signification (\u00c9crits, 41).<\/p>\n

The signifiers the subject enunciates belongs to the discourse of the Other, of the unconscious as Other. At the level of the subject of the enunciation<\/span> it is clear that repression is taking place. \u201cWe see when repression is introduced\u201d, says Lacan in Seminar VI, \u201cit is essentially linked to the absolute necessity of the subject being effaced and disappearing at the level of the process of enunciating.\u201d (Seminar VI, 03.12.1958.)<\/p>\n

The subject\u2019s words will effectively overtake him in their enunciation. By addressing advice to someone else certain ideas can be expressed in the third person rather than the first. Something more is being communicated about the speaker than that which the speaker attributes to himself as ego, as advisor. Similarly, the subject can talk about someone else whilst seeming to be talking about themselves. In Seminar III Lacan states that, \u201cThe I<\/span> is the I<\/span> of him who is pronouncing the discourse. Underneath everything that is said there is an I<\/span> who pronounces it. It\u2019s within this enunciation that the you appears.\u201d (Seminar III, p.274.)<\/p>\n

Example 3: The back-handed compliment.<\/p>\n

Even though in many cases there is nothing unconscious about a back-handed compliment, what is interesting about them from the perspective of Lacan\u2019s distinction between the subject of the statement<\/span> and the subject of the enunciation<\/span> is that where there is an intent to cause offence it can only be detected at the level of the enunciation.<\/p>\n

Usually back-handed compliments can be broken into two parts – the first part is ostensibly complimentary; the second is insulting. The speaker makes a back-handed compliment from the position of the subject of the statement<\/span>, the level at which it could be regarded as a genuine compliment. In the actual content of the remark there is probably little to argue with, but it is in the enunciation itself that the intent is revealed, even if this is unconscious to the speaker.<\/p>\n

When used consciously the backhanded compliment is a fairly subtle way for the speaker to distance him or herself from the intention of his or her own words, in much the same way as a negation can be used for this purpose. In this sense, the division between the subject of the statement<\/span> and the enunciation could be said to be deliberate. But a backhanded compliment can also be uninitentional, revealing the speaker\u2019s unconscious thoughts through words they do not attribute to themselves as subject of the statement<\/span>.\u00a0Take the following examples:<\/p>\n

\u2018I always feel more intelligent after reading your articles\u2019.
\n\u2018You\u2019re smart to do your laundry on Saturday night, when everyone else is out.\u2019<\/p>\n

The speaker\u2019s statement occupies the position of a compliment, but in its enunciation there is an insult.<\/p>\n

Another noteworthy aspect of the back-handed compliment is that it doesn\u2019t go without saying. It can be thought of as something that corresponds to what Lacan calls a \u2018half-said\u2019.\u00a0 Dor quotes Lacan here from L\u2019\u00c9tourdit:<\/p>\n

“That doesn\u2019t go without saying\u2019 \u2013 we see that that is the case with many things, even with most of them, including the Freudian thing as I defined it as being the said [le dit] of the truth\u2026. This is how the said doesn\u2019t go without saying. But if the said always presents itself as the truth, even if it never goes beyond a half-said [un mi-dit], the saying [le dire] is coupled with it only to ex-sist [ex-sister] there, that is, not to be of the spoken-dimension [la dit-mension] of the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Cited by Dor in Introduction to the Reading of Lacan, p.152).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article (from Lacanonline click here) will examine the concepts of the subject of the statement and the subject of the enunciation, the relationship between them, and look at three examples of where these ideas might be applied. A first general point to make is on the choice of translation. The English which is most … Continue reading “subject of statement enuciated subject of the enunciation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lacan","category-subjectivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10328"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10340,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10328\/revisions\/10340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}