Lacan and Rhetoric

LacanOnline

The Lacanian maxims that psychoanalysis is a practice based on speech, and that the unconscious is
structured like a language, are now so classical that they are almost boring. Elsewhere on this site
these maxims are explored and their implications discussed. This post however is specifically about
Lacans references to rhetoric.
As Fink notes in his excellent Lacan to the Letter (p.72) Lacans use of the rhetorical mechanisms of
metaphor and metonymy to explain the operation of the processes Freud describes as condensation
and displacement in the dream-work, are already well-known. Lacan treats them quite thorougnhly in
the Ecrits (Ecrits, 515, for example) and in compiling the index to the Ecrits, Jacques-Alain Miller puts
metaphor, metonymy and witticisms under the heading of The rhetoric of the unconscious (Ecrits,
899).
What are less well known however are some of the other rhetorical mechanisms that Lacan sees at
work in what he labels the rhetoric of the discourse the analysand actually utters (Ecrits, 521).
These rhetorical tricks and tropes are ways that the speaker (an analysand, for instance) will use to
either disguise or unwittingly reveal the telling productions of the unconscious. It is important to note
from the outset that these rhetorical mechanisms are not unconscious in themselves, but rather that
when used in speech they can indicate the presence of unconscious content. Sometimes the speaker
is trying to disguise this content by employing certain rhetorical devices; sometimes he is unaware of
the alternative meaning or implication evident in the words he has said. Even if the speaker does not
realise it himself, Lacan believes that we can detect in the use of such rhetorical devices the presence
of certain unconscious thoughts, desires and fantasies.
Whilst these will usually pass unnoticed in everyday discourse, if we are to take Lacan seriously in his
argument that the unconscious is structured like a language and that it is only through a discipline of
the signifier listening attentively for the double meanings, ambiguities, possible suggestions in the
speakers own words that we discover the workings of the unconscious, they are surely deserving of
attention. The psychoanalyst is not interested in what the person meant or said they meant as much,
but rather in what was actually said. The words of the analysand are the sole currency in a
psychoanalysis.
As Fink points out, These mechanisms can be associated with what Freud called the defence
mechanisms: The analysand spontaneously employs well-known rhetorical figures to keep from saying
certain things and to keep certain ideas from surfacing (Lacan to the Letter, p.72). But these
rhetorical curiosities are not the same as Freudian slips they are more discreet and very often the
speaker will not realise the strange syntactical formations he makes but they can be equally telling.
Rhetoric in the Ecrits
There are two key passages in the Ecrits where Lacan refers to different rhetorical devices. After
quoting them we will look at these devices one by one.
Firstly, in The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis (the so-called Rome
Discourse), Lacan is discussing Freuds maxim in the Interpretation of Dreams that the dream is like a
rebus that is to say, a picture puzzle. Instead of taking the pictures or images in the dream at face
value we have to ask the dreamer for his associations, his speech, and translate these manifest
images back into the latent signifiers that the dreamer produces in his associations. In this context,
Lacan notes the fact that it is only what he calls the text of the dream, its rhetoric, that is of value:
What is important is the version of the text, and that, Freud tells us, is given in the telling of the dream
that is, in its rhetoric. Ellipsis and pleonasm, hyperbaton or syllepsis, regression, repetition,
apposition these are the syntactical displacements; metaphor, catachresis, antonomasia, allegory,
metonymy, and synecdoche these are the semantic condensations; Freud teaches us to read in
them the intentions whether ostentatious or demonstrative, dissimulating or persuasive, retaliatory or
seductive with which the subject modulates his oneiric discourse (Ecrits, 267-268).
Our second reference to rhetoric in the Ecrits comes from a passage in The Instance of the Letter
that Fink quotes in his excellent discussion on rhetoric in Lacan to the Letter:
This is why an exhaustion of the defence mechanisms turns out to be the other side of unconscious
mechanisms. Periphrasis, hyperbaton, ellipsis, suspension, anticipation, retraction, negation,
digression, and irony, these are the figures of style just as catachresis, litotes, antonomasia, and
hypotyposis are the tropes, whose names strike me as the most appropriate ones with which to label
these mechanisms. Can one see here mere manners of speaking, when it is the figures themselves
that are at work in the rhetoric of the discourse the analysand actually utters? (Ecrits, 521)
Fink discusses many of these already in Lacan to the Letter. This is a great book and one that I have
been heavily reliant on in writing this article. However in what follows I have tried to give a more
comprehensive discussion, including some of the terms Lacan mentions but Fink does not cover, and
include examples where possible.
As some are pretty obscure so please feel free to leave further examples or elaborations in the
comments.
Catachresis
Literally, catachresis refers to a strained use (or misuse) of words. The example that Fink gives of a
catachresis is a mixed metaphor, which he sees as a compromise formation employed when a certain
idea or representation that occurs to the person as they are speaking is uncomfortable. Fink gives two
examples: stop circling around the bush and She unzipped her soul (Fink, Lacan to the Letter, p.73).
Litotes
Litotes are understatements. So that the speaker can avoid affirming something they would rather
distance themselves from they may employ litotes in the negative of the contrary of the thing they are
referring to. It is common, for example, to refer to something as not bad at all. The example Fink
gives is of someone saying I dont find her unattractive to disguise an underlying lustful attraction
(Fink, Lacan to the Letter, p.73).
Ellipsis
Ostensibly, this is the omission of a term that would make a sentence clearer, or abridge it. However,
Fink notes its potential to suppress an inappropriate or revealing idea. If someone is telling their
psychoanalyst the story of the dream they had the night before they might, for obvious reasons,
choose to omit the part of the dream that bears most on the person of the analyst. The man sitting in a
chair in the dream might go unmentioned so as not to have to acknowledge the immediate association
to the person of the analyst, occupying the chair behind the couch.
Pleonasm
The addition of a redundant term. Fink believes this can be used either to reveal or conceal. His
example is is: Last night I met a female person. This construction might bring into question whether
the person was perceived by the speaker as particularly effeminate, or not. Another example would be
term My fathers father when talking about the grandfather. Why not just say the grandfather? Does
this not suggest that there is something being communicated about the relationship of the father to the
father, as the speaker sees it?
Periphrasis
Beating around the bush or skirting the issue often using roundabout references to gloss over
something difficult. Fink says that this is most easily recognisable when someone is using sexual
terminology and feels uncomfortable doing so, but we can also think of instances where periphrasis
might involve a degree of tautology saying the same thing twice, in a slightly different way.
Digression
Again, very common in everyday speech the trick of changing the subject in order to get away from
something revealing or significant. We can imagine that in analyses where the standardised, fifty-
minute session applies digression would be a particularly useful tool for someone wanting to get the
analytic hour over and done with, running out the clock with a roundabout story so that they did not
have to confront revealing or uncomfortable material, for example, in a dream they were narrating.
Retraction
When the speaker realises the implication of what they have said the obvious thing to do, particularly
in speaking to a psychoanalyst who you fear might pounce on a suggestive phrase or construction, is
to retract it immediately. Finks example is the line, I think my mother sorely neglected me but Im
sure she was only trying to do her best. What is retracted or elided is no doubt going to be the most
revealing element. We can also think, as an example, of the statement: Last night I went home with
John well not home with John but
Irony
Fink sees this as a classic way to disavow the significance of ones own words, as a way the speaker
will use to indicate to the listener that what they are saying should not be taken seriously. His example
is straight out of the post-Freudian clinic: Of course I hated my father isnt that what Freud says we
all do?
Hyperbaton
Hyperbaton involves a distorted word order. An example might be someone using the phrase I said I
was going to Edinburgh to my mother, as opposed to the more obvious, I said to my mother I was
going to Edinburgh. Might the former lead the psychoanalyst to infer some kind of attachment to the
mother?
Syllepsis
Where a single word or expression is employed to perform two syntactic functions, at least one of
which does not agree in case, number or gender (Dictionary.com).
Apposition
Apposition is juxtaposition. Perhaps one of the ways that this might occur in the speech of an
analysand is in the connection they might make of two quite unrelated things, or in a strange
supposition that is presented unchallenged. To the analysand these two ideas may not seem at all
opposed. One story told about Lacans practice by Jean Allouch in Les Impromptus de Lacan involves
a patient who at one point during the session mentions that his grandmother was very beautiful. Lacan
responds immediately: Yes, youre absolutely right!. Of course, Lacan did not know the grandmother
and would not have been able to agree or disagree as to whether she was indeed beautiful. His
intervention therefore is made precisely to bring this contradiction to the ears of the analysand,
perhaps to make them question the automatic juxtaposition his analysand had made between his
grandmother and some paragon of beauty.
Antonomasia
Antonomasia involves identifying a person by something other than his or her name. This might be an
epithet or title such as his lordship, or a figure that denotes certain characteristics, such as Don Juan
or Blairite. As with all of these rhetorical figures, Lacan does not give an example. We might guess
though that, as with the above example of apposition, someone employing antonomasia is revealing a
certain perception of someone in their life that it is the analysts job to question and probe into, looking
for an unconscious fantasmatic relation. This might then reveal the place that the subject has
designated for him or herself in this fantasy. One instance of this might be the British television and
radio personality Jimmy Saviles description of his mother as the Duchess. This was his designated
term for her, revealed in Louis Therouxs documentary following the former presenter. It was
suggested that, given Savile was a life-long bachelor, his mother was the one true love of his life. He
lived with her until her death and in the documentary it is revealed that he keeps her bedroom and
wardrobe preserved in the same state it was left when she died. Whilst it is pointless speculating on
the reasons for this antonomasia in reference to his mother, it would certainly be of interest to a
psychoanalyst. At a very simple level we can ask why he chose this name for her rather than refer to
her simply as his mother, and indeed why a name like this was necessary for him in the first place.
More details on Savile and the documentary can be found here.
Hypotyposis
Dictionary.com defines this as a lifelike description of a thing or scene. The most obvious examples
that come to mind are from dreams. We are no doubt all familiar with the way that certain elements in
dreams, despite seeing in and of themselves relatively unimportant or trivial when we are narrating the
dream, are excessively vivid and lifelike in the dream. They stand in sharp distinction from the rest of
the dream, much like Freud says the different features of a face from many different photographs are
brought into relief when the negatives are placed on top of each other (SE IV, 139). Freud sees these
cases in dreams as evidence of a condensation: one single manifest dream element appears
excessively realistic (despite its obscurity to the dreamer) because it is a condensation or compression
of multiple different latent thoughts. Someone using hypotyposis might also remind us of Freuds
description of the operation behind screen memories that he described in one of his earlier works (SE
III, 301).
Negation
As Freud tells us in his 1925 paper on the subject, negation a sure sign of repression. To negate
something in a judgement is, he writes, at bottom, to say: This is something which I should prefer to
repress. A negative judgement is the intellectual substitute for repression; its no is the hall-mark of
repression, a certificate of origin like, let us say, Made in Germany (SE XIX, 236). If the
psychoanalyst asks someone who the female character in his dream reminds him of, and he replies
emphatically that it is not his mother, the psychoanalyst is justified in assuming it actually is. After all,
Freuds argument would be that it is the analysand himself who has raised the issue of the mother.
Lacans other remarks about rhetoric
Surprisingly, there are precious few references in the Seminar to rhetoric as such. Whilst Lacan
devotes plenty of time to metaphor and metonymy and the way that the materiality of the signifier is
manifest in the formations of the unconscious, to the best of my knowledge we do not find more
detailed reference to the rhetorical forms that he lists in the Ecrits.
However, for the sake of comprehensiveness, we can do a brief resum of these references. As a
source, I have used Krutzens excellent Index rfrentiel to the seminar. Whilst this book is in French,
English speakers will find it easy to use to find out what Lacan says on a particular topic, as they need
only find the French translation of the term or concept they are looking for. They can then look up the
relevant passage either in the official translations of the Seminar or in Cormac
Gallaghers indispensable unofficial translations of them.
To start with, in Seminar III we find a published version of an address which Freud gave concurrent
with the Seminar that year entitled Freud in the Century. It was delivered on 16th May 1956, almost
100 years to the day that Freud was born. In the speech Lacan argues that what we find in Freuds
work is nothing more than techniques of rhetoric apparent in the analyses Freud provides of how
dreams, jokes and symptoms are created:
At the bottom of the Freudian mechanisms one rediscovers these old figures of rhetoric. Freud
encountered it [rhetorical formations] in his medical practice when he came upon this field in which the
mechanisms of language can be seen to dominate and organise the construction of certain so-called
neurotic disorders, unbeknown to the subject, outside his conscious ego (Seminar III, p.238).
In Seminar VI Lacan discusses rhetoric in the context of a discussion of the etymology of the
verbtrouver, to find. The neurotic subject, he remarks, does not look for a place in what Lacan calls
the dialectic of the word, he finds one (Seminar VI, 07.01.1959, p.12). Like Picasso, he does not
seek, he finds. Lacan draws his audiences attention to the fact that the origin of trouver is in the
Latin,tropus, and is a rhetorical term: in English, we have the word trope, designating a rhetorical
device, which is of the same etymology.
Whilst this is only a brief passage and Lacan does not elaborate, what is suggestive is the reference to
the dialectic of the word, indicating that rhetoric and the formation of the neurotic subject go together;
that the neurotic finds his place in language thanks the the tropes that rhetoric affords him. He does
not choose his place in life, he finds or constructs it from the stuff of the symbolic. We might think here
of Lacans paper on the case of the Rat Man, The Neurotics Individual Myth, where Lacan argues
that the Rat Mans obsessional neurosis constitutes a myth-like explanation (in the Levi-Straussian
sense) built from the irresolvable dilemmas faced by his father before him around the questions of
debt and money.
There are a few passing references to Aristotles dense treatise on rhetoric in Seminar VII (255 and
287), and another in Seminar X on anxiety. In the latter, Lacan refers to Book Two of
AristotlesRhetoric:
Where best does Aristotle deal with the passions? I think that all the same there are a certain number
of you who know already: it is in Book Two of his Rhetoric. The best thing about the passions is caught
up in the reference, in the net, in the network of the Rhetoric. It is not by chance. This is the net. This
indeed is why I spoke to you about the net in connection with the first linguistic references that I tried
to give you (Seminar X, 14.11.62, p.11).
This is quite a fleeting reference but what Lacan seems to be suggesting is that the symbolic, the
network of the symbolic order, the mechanisms and tropes of rhetoric, have the function of localising
or mooring the affects, of stopping them from going adrift. This will probably remind anyone familiar
with it of the third chapter of Freuds 1915 metapsychological paper on the unconscious. In a similar
way, Freud there argues that to be experienced as a passion, to use Lacans term here an affect
must be tied to a given representation. With the exception of anxiety, affects, as qualitative
expressions of the quantity of the energy of the drives, become conscious to us only when hinged to a
particular idea or representation. The problem is that the affect and the representation go separate
ways, and the affect will very often be displaced onto another representation before becoming
conscious. You can read more about this here.
In The Knowledge of the Psychoanalyst, the Seminar that runs concurrently alongside Seminar
XIX,Ou Pire, Lacan makes reference to rhetoric when distinguishing it from a term he
invents, lalangue.Lalangue, he tells his audience, has nothing to do with the dictionary, whatever it
may be. A dictionary has to do with diction, namely, with poetry or with rhetoric for example (The
Knowledge of the Psychoanalyst, 04.11.71.). For Lacan here the unconscious is not like a dictionary;
rather,
The unconscious is a matter first of all of grammar. It also has a little to do, a lot to do, everything to
do with repetition, namely, the aspect that is quite contrary to what a dictionary is used for. Contrary
to what is, I dont know why, still very widespread, the useful aspect in the function oflalangue, the
useful aspect for us psychoanalysts, for those who have to deal with the unconscious, is logic (The
Knowledge of the Psychoanalyst, 04.11.71.).
Here then, Lacan is saying that the unconscious uses not rhetoric or diction but logic. It is difficult to
tell what Lacan is getting at with only this short passage. Perhaps we should question Lacan here, or
at least the translation of what he has to say: after all, who uses a dictionary to find out about rhetoric?
What we can tease out however is that if the unconscious is structured like a language, its structure is
logical more than it is rhetorical. Perhaps Lacan is referring to the fact that the psychoanalyst does not
look up the meaning of an analysands words in a dictionary to find out what he means; or considers
the analysands speech to be a particularly cogent form of communicating a (conscious) meaning, a
story that he wants to make the analyst believe about him.
Indeed, we can contrast Lacans remarks in The Knowledge of the Psychoanalyst to something in his
broadcast interview conducted only a couple of years later, published as Television. There Lacan calls
psychoanalysis something that should bring the analysand to the point where his symptom or his
account of himself can be well-spoken (bien-dire):
I can only take up that question as anyone else would: by posing it to myself. And the reply is simple.
It is what I am doing, deriving from my practice the ethic of the Well-Spoken, which Ive already
stressed (Lacan, Television, p.41).
By the time that he opens Seminar XXV, The Moment of Concluding, in 1977 Lacan is talking not
about the speech of the analysand but the speech of the analyst, and he appears to have come to the
view that the psychoanalyst is a rhetorician. Psychoanalysis is not a science; rather, it is closer to
rhetoric:
It [psychoanalysis] is a practice of chat. The psychoanalyst is a rhetorician. He does not say what
is either true or false. That which is true and that which is false, this is what we call the power of the
analyst. And thats why I say he is a rhetorician (Seminar XXV, 15.11.77., my translation, original
available here).
Whilst it is easy to see how such a statement can be used against Lacans practice and indeed,
psychoanalysis in general Schneiderman believes this indicates his view on the direction of
psychoanalytic treatment, Thus analysis seeks to persuade but not to convince, to persuade the
analysand to recognise things that he knows already and to act on his desire
(Schneiderman, Jacques Lacan: Death of an Intellectual Hero, p.169). However, we can also interpret
Lacans words more simply: the analyst attempts neither to persuade nor to convince. It is well-know
that the Lacanian analyst says little compared to some other psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic
practitioners. Indeed, it is almost a caricature of analysts in the Lacanian orientation that they make
the odd pun and then end the session early. But could we not interpret Lacan here as simply pointing
out the fact that the psychoanalyst does exactly what the rhetorician does: uses words in the most
economical way. Without speaking poetically, or even trying to persuade, he communicates a
message in a very efficient way, if at all possible by just sending the speakers words back to them,
allowing them to hear the resonances of their own words.