Revolution in Poetic Language By Julia Kristeva

1. Revolution in Poetic Language By Julia Kristeva • The Author: Linguist, literary critic, cultural theorist, and psychoanalyst, Julia Kristeva has been one of the central figure of French intellectual life in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.

2. 2.Main contribution: Kristeva’s main contribution to contemporary theory lies in her elucidation of the process by which preverbal experience—bodily drives and effects—enters into language and activates creative, transformative, and something revolutionary modes of cultural production. (2165)

3. Kristeva diverges from other contemporary theorists, especially structuralist and poststructuralist theorist in her insistence on the corporeal origins of subjectivity and of artistic practice. She has emphasized the importance of prelinguistic, instinctual, and sensory components of both subjectivity and signification. (2165)

4. II. Revolution in Poetic Language (1974) A. In Revolution in Poetic Language, Kristeva maintains that all signification entails the dialectical interaction of the symbolic and the semiotic. The “semiotic” represents the discharge of pre-Oedipal instinctual energies and drives within language; it is associated with what Kristeva calls “chora.” The semiotic chora, which precedes and underlies figuration, is connected to the maternal body. Her thesis is that the eruption of the semiotic within the symbolic is what provides the creative and innovative impulse of modern poetic language. (2166)

5. B. Kristeva finds two forces competing for expression in the language of poetry: the “symbolic” and the “semiotic.” The symbolic is that aspect of language that allows it to refer. The semiotic dimension of language cannot be known except in the moments where it breaks through the symbolic. (2166) C. Kristeva’s thinking is influenced by Lacan, but she has a different thought; she proposes the term “semiotic.” The semiotic is closely connected with femininity, but it is by no means a language exclusive to women, for it arises from the pre-Oedipal period which recognizes no distinctions of gender. (2166)

6. From Part I. The Semiotic and the Symbolic2. The Semiotic Chora Ordering the Drives I. Kristeva borrowed the term “chora” from Plato’s Timaeus to denote an essentially mobile and extremely provisional articulation constituted by movements and their ephemeral stases. “Chora” represents neither something for someone nor someone for another; it is, however, generated in order to attain to a signifying position. Although the “chora” can be designated and regulated, it can never be definitively posited. (2170)

7. (2170-71) Not A sign, a position, nor a signfier A model or copy Is Generated in order to attain to this signifying position Precedes and underlines figuration and thus specularization Vocal and kinetic rhythm A receptacle, nourishing and maternal (2171) [physical  social] Its vocal and gestural organization is subject to …an objective ordering, which is dictated by natural or socio-historical constraints (2171) Chora

8. Semiotic vs. Symbolic • Chora as the pre-symbolic: -- “a modality of signifiance in which the linguistic sign is not yet articulated as the absence of the object and as the distinction between the real and the symbolic” (2171). • (p.2172) Pre-Oedipal drives—which are “both destructive and assimilating,” i.e. including displacement and condensation, absorption and repulsion • (p. 2173) drive – attack against stasis, chora– a place where the subject is both generated and negated.

9. The symbolic: social language social effects constituted through objective constraints of biological difference and historical considerations (p.2171)  organize the chora through an ‘ordering’ (mediation) but not according to a law. • The mother’s body as mediation –between the symbolic order and the semiotic chora

10. Semiotic Drives  symbolization • The semiotic rhythm: “text” is the terrain of operating signifying process (p.2172) • Checked by biological and social constraints (or the symbolic) • Semiotic marks: voice, gesture, color; a psychosomatic modality connecting the physical and the social (2173)

11. The Thetic as Rupture • All enunciation, whether of a word or of a sentence, is a “thetic.” It requires an identification, so the subject must separate from and through its images as well as its objects. We can say that the thetic phase of the signifying process is the deepest structure of signification and proposition. (2175)

12. Freud’s unconscious theory and Lacanian development show that thetic signification is a stage attained under certain precise conditions during the signifying process. (2176)

13. Genotext and Phenotext I. By distinguishing between the “genotext” (the energies that bring a text about) and “phenotext” (the linguistic structure that results), Kristeva tries to capture the trace of what in a subject brings a text into being, not what the text signifies. (2177)

14. II. The genotext can be regarded as language’s underlying foundation. We use the term “phenotext” to denote language that serves to communicate, which linguistics describes in terms of “competence” and “performance.” The phenotext is a structure while the genotext is a process. (2177)

15. Genotext，基因文本，指的是符號化過程以及象徵界的起點，此符號化過程包括欲力驅動的位置以及與身體之區分，而象徵界則涵蓋客體與主體的出現，以及字義與範疇的發生。Genotext，基因文本，指的是符號化過程以及象徵界的起點，此符號化過程包括欲力驅動的位置以及與身體之區分，而象徵界則涵蓋客體與主體的出現，以及字義與範疇的發生。 • 要在文本中辨識「基因文本」，便需要在聲音與音調設置（押韻，重複，韻律，聲調）中指出欲力能量所驅動之轉移，以及在此過程中，主體如何發生。 • 雖然「基因文本」不具有文法性，它卻是一個發聲的過程，並且帶出了本能之雙面性，身體與環境的連續，社會與家庭結構的關連，以及發言的模式。

16. 至於phenotext，或謂表型文本，則是溝通用之語言。至於phenotext，或謂表型文本，則是溝通用之語言。 • 表型文本時常是分裂的，而且無法化約回受到符號化過程的基因文本。 • 表型文本是一個結構，遵循溝通之法則，預設一個發言主體與受話者。但是，表型文本同時也是一個過程，在不同的區域之間移動，因此有各種暫時性的疆界。 • 克莉絲特娃將此基因文本與表型文本比喻為拓撲學的空間關係以及數字的連續關係。任何表義過程必然包含此二種過程。