Jacques Alain Miller The Monologue of L Parole PDF

THE MONOLOGUE OF L'APPAROLE
Author(s): Jacques-Alain Miller and M. Downing Roberts

Source: Qui Parle, Vol. 9, No. 2, Special Issue on Lacan (Spring/Summer 1996), pp. 160-182
Published by: University of Nebraska Press
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THE MONOLOGUE OF L'APPAROLE*
Jacques-Alain Miller
A small plan of the labyrinth.

The will-to-say.
Jouissance speaks.
apparatus of jouissance.
Language,
Interpretationintroduces the impossible.
Interpretation?
speech l'apparole
language lalangue
the letter lituraterre
I provided you last time with this small table of orientation, com
posed of six terms,' matched pairs, and divided up into two sets of
three. It is an apparatus, a small assemblage.
I can tell you where these six terms come
from, for inasmuch
as you may not know this. I repeat it tomyself.
The first set, vertical, ismade of three terms borrowed from
titles by Lacan from the firstpart of his teaching. You know the "Func
tion and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis." Take
* Seventh lesson of The Flight ofMeaning (1995-96). The Lacanian orientation, teach
ingdeliveredat theDepartmentof Psychoanalysisof ParisVIII. [French]textestab

lishedbyCatherineBonningue,and publishedwith theagreeableauthorization of J.-A.
Miller. [Fordetails]one shouldconsultthepreviouslessonpublished inLes feuillets
du
Courtil, as well as two other lessons to appear inQuarto and Letterina Archives.
Qui Parle vol. 9, No. 2, Spring/Summer 1996

THE MONOLOGUE OF L'APPAROLE 161
are also familiarwith "The Agency

'speech' and 'language' out. You
Of The Letter."The firsttwo are the key terms, the founders, of Lacan's
as a return to Freud, making these two terms
teaching, presented
work over both the ouvre of Freud and the concept of analytic prac
tice.
Some years later,under the heading of the "Agency of the Let

ter," you know that Lacan began a reorientation which resulted in
evacuating intersubjectivity of its references, inscribing these laws
of language thatmetaphor and metonymy would be alongside the
laws of speech.
With these three termswe've
got the essential coordinates which
condition both Lacan's teaching and much of what we've retained
With regard to these three terms, I have written three others,
of it.
more dubious, neologisms of sorts,which fiddle with our vocabu
or penultimate Lacan, the
lary. Iadopted these terms from the final
Lacan who reorients his teaching in the '70s, giving ita noticeably
distinct turn, one all the more surprising ifwe refer it to his begin
nings.
are: I'apparole- we are obliged to give an indication of
They
theway inwhich it iswritten, specifying itwith "I" and an apostro
phe or with two "p"s inorder to mark the difference, since it ispro
nounced in the same way as the term under consideration -lalangue,
all one word, and lituraterre, the only one of these three terms to
constitute by itselfalone a title of one of Lacan's writings.
I note these points of reference to indicate that the new turn
Lacan gave to his teaching in its last phase touches on fundamental
coordinates. This new turn imposes a new discipline, towhich we
need to be broken in,especially if we are trying to establish the new
regime of analytic interpretation conditioned by it.

Here Icould add "interpretation?" - with a question mark.
What happens to interpretationwhen we meddle with these
original basic coordinates? We must follow Lacan, who was the only
one to advance in the direction he took.
We are about tocatch something
of hisdesign,a design thatis
not without detours, contradictions, which make it rather difficult to
weave Ariadne's threadinthislabyrinth.
This isa smallplan of the
labyrinth still seen from afar.

162 JACQUES-ALAIN MILLER
Let's trytoweigh - as I started to do last time- the gymnas

tics that passing from one of the terms on the leftto one of the terms
on the right imposes on us.
Let's begin - - with the term language. What is
why not?
with to what traces itselfas - a term
language respect lalangue?
whose possibilities I illustrated last time by a reference to Michel
Leiris.
Let's begin by saying, as we often do, some simple things. Lan
guage, as Lacan approaches itat the beginning of his teaching, is a

structure.What does thatmean? An interdependent whole of differ
ential elements, with diacritic elements, relative to each other, so
that any variation inone element affects the others and brings about
attendant changes.
That will do for the moment. Itholds together, it's tight, rigor
ous. Itevidently doesn't have as itsobject the plasticity of lalangue.
We must say more. The way Lacan proposes itat the begin
ning of his teaching, structure ispar excellence linguistic structure.

Lacan began by formulating that the unconscious was structured like
a language - which means at least three things.
Firstly, the unconscious is structure. It is not a matter of a con

stant, imperceptible flux, nor of a storehouse of heterogeneous things,
a
independent of each other, put together in sort of sack. We discern
elements in it,and these elements make up a system.
Secondly, the unconscious is language. These discernible ele

ments are precisely those of language.
Thirdly, the unconscious is structured like a Saussurean lan
guage. We can distinguish within itsignifier and signified.
We are formed by, broken in by, accustomed to this object
language, which, when

we approach itas structure, implies a sus
pension, and even a methodical foreclosure of the temporal, or
diachronic, factor. The perspective taken on object-language is es
sentially that of synchrony,which presupposes, when it is referred to
history, thatwe make a cut, a synchronic cut. We are dealing with a
state that Saussure called language [/a langue].

This is also essentially trans-individual -

perspective
synchronic and trans-individual. This definition of language implies
that ithave an Other, that itbe correlative to another concept, the
concept of speech [/aparole] which, itself, isessentially diachronic

and individual.
This concept is Saussurian, but while Lacan essentially takes
his reference to la langue from the ceuvre of Saussure, he dresses up
his reference to la parole, and even organizes it,orders itas Hegelian
-
speech fundamentally intersubjective, hence always dialogical,
marked by the structure of dialogue - even when Lacan superim
poses on his Hegel his own version of Austin's speech-act.

-
As for the letter Ibrought this up quickly last time- which
designates, at least in "The Agency of the Letter," the signifier in its

isolated structure, the letter introduces with respect to the function
of speech -that itthereby belittles -the function ofwriting, which
iscompletely at the center of this paper, "The Agency Of The Letter."
The structure inquestion conditions one phenomenon and only
one - -
perhaps this is saying a lot an essential, initial
phenom
enon and by virtue of that, determinative forwhatever this
phenom
enon can attract like a magnet. This essential phenomenon is the
phenomenon of meaning [sens] that Lacan's "Agency of the Letter"
sends back to being in the position of an effect.
This triad- -
speech, language, the letter has as a primary
consequence that the essential phenomenon thus conditioned isput
back into place as an effect. On this account, structure, as Lacan
uses the term, isessentially the relation among signifiers, under the
two forms of combination and substitution, meaning [sens] appear
ing as the effect of this or that combination, or of this or that substi

tution, as a restrained effect [effetretenu] inmetonymy, a positive
emergent effect, inmetaphor.
Within these coordinates -which Imention briefly,but firmly,
in order to assure our grasp of them, before entering a more uncer
tain zone - interpretation doesn't pose a problem. Interpretation is
a matterof thesignifier.
The question isthatofknowing
which signi
fiermust be added, brought, injected, by the interlocutor-analyst.
Which meaning-effect this gives rise to- that remains to be seen.

But the problematic of interpretation plays between this signifying

addition and the specific modality of an anticipated meaning-effect
which is variously described in Lacan's teaching.
Here iswhere we need to be a bit careful. Especially when it's
very simple, astutely perceived, ar
appropriately placed, pleasantly
ranged and structured.
Structuring presumes discernment inplacing the elements, set
ting some beside others, putting them into their proper relationships.
Here, we must ask ourselves if itsuffices, if it is persuasive enough,
despite all the support thatwe can find for it in Lacan's teaching on
this subject, only to place meaning at the end of the chain, in the
position of effect, theway we find it in "The Agency of the Letter."

There are signifiers here which are combined or are substituted, and
then- I'm simplifying- a certain effect of meaning, which either
finds itselfheld in check or else finds itselfemerging.
... ~
f(S S')S S(-) s
f S ~S(+) s
Is this enough? Does itaccount forwhat the triad at the begin

ning implies?
Well, it ismisleading to present things thus, to present mean
ingonly as an effect,whereas, in necessity - a necessity that Lacan

doesn't misrecognize at all - meaning is initial as much as it is
terminal.
There are bound to be some people here who have thought

about what Lacan calls his graph of desire. We cannot fail to notice
what isclearly acknowledged in the construction of this graph which
organizes the elements determined by the first triad. This graph is
established as a schema of communication.

However complex, refined, varied, itmay be, the structure of

this graph is no more than a variation on intersubjective communi
cation, a variation on the structure of dialogue. This structure is still
- because there isa point of depar
driven, at itspoint of departure
-
ture, and only one, fundamental point by what Lacan himself
calls the intention of signification. This machinery, this apparatus -
as Lacan himself will call itat the moment when he separates him
self off from it- won't function for even one second ifthis initial
intention of signification ismissing.
What does thatmean? Itmeans that the energy of the begin
ning, necessary for the functioning and the animation of this graph,
is furnished by a wanting-to-say [vouloir-dire].2 Fromwhatever angle
we take it,we cannot do without
thiswanting-to-say. And the phe
nomenology of the elementary analytic experience supports it.

It'snotworth entering analytic experience if we don't want-to
say.We believe we want-to-say, and when we perceive, fromwithin,

thatwe don't want to say, thatwe express ourselves as wanting-not
to-say,well, the analyst is there inorder to point out that thiswant

ing-not-to-say isall the same a wanting-to-say. Try to convince yourself
of this.
Meaning [vouloir dire] has a certain materiality - it is not a
fiction- even a certain self-evidence. This evidence circulates in
Lacan's teaching. The wanting-to-say takes us back to the subject,
the complete subject, the barred subject, the split subject, the di
vided subject.The subjectwants to say [veutdire].And thesubject,

complexified, multiplied, and canceled by Lacan, remains a will-to

say [volont6-de-dire].
Here I insist strongly. It isnecessary to insist strongly inorder to
transmit something in the mass of the commentaries, signifiers,
which cover I'm not
signifieds all this up. treading lightlyhere. I'm
pacing off this ground laboriously. Later on, our steps will begin to
be more muddled, so I'll take advantage of this to lay out the ques
tion.
Doubtless, Lacan's barred subject is not the will to

recogni
tion, as it is at the very beginning. As long as the essential point for
Lacan is the intersubjective relationship, the subject iswill to recog
nition by the Other, and desire for recognition. All of which Lacan
questions, and finally disproves. But the subject remains a will-to

-
say to the Other, the Other with a big "0" a point that
changes
- or for the toward the Other, and even
nothing will-to-say Other,
from theOther - and even ifthis big 0 Other such as Lacan comes
to define it is no longer, itself,defined as a
subject. That doesn't
prevent the subject, who speaks, from a
being will-to-say as a func
tion of thisOther.
The heart of the function of speech isgiven by what Iam call
ing today the will-to-say. Speech always carries with it a strategy

which envelops theOther, insofaras the partner of the subject, which
is always there, is this big 0 Other. It ison this support (which puts
in place both the subject and itswanting-to-say in speech, and the
Other, itspartner), that, for example, demand and desire can be dis
tinguished.
But speech, when we begin from these premises, is an
always
affair of question and answer. The interpretation of the analyst al
ways appears in this configuration as a reply. Lacan can say rightly
that this interpretative response, the interpretive response par excel
lence, is a question, it is the famous Che Vuoi? The "What do you
want?" would be the minimal interpretation,what an interpretation
always means, even when itassumes other expressions.
We can rightly say that the answer is a question, a question
about desire. The formula "What do you want?" isone of the formu
suggestedinthisgraph,a formula
lasparticularly whichwould give

the minimal text of the analytic interpretation as long as itwere to

revolve around desire.
Here a principal, central path to the clinic suggests itself,
which
consists ofwondering about what the speech of the subject reduces
the other, itspartner, to; or which figure of theOther the subject has
for itsexplicit, implicit partner in this dialogue. This is really a very
can be made of
large part of analytic consideration, of the study that
clinical cases, even in the framework of case supervison, which passes
am not there inorder to say- it's not
through these assessments. I
a am there to indicate, on
working, it'sall put-on. I the contrary, how
itholds together, how itmakes a system.
Speech, the speech of that firsttriad, isalways taken inby such

a strategy of theOther, always decipherable as a strategy of meaning
[sens].
Let's take some examples. Begin thinking from this startingpoint.
What can we say about hysteric speech? Hysteric speech is the
speech of the analysand par excellence, insofar as it is that speech

which makes itselfenigmatic, which offers itselfto theOther as some
an analyst as partner. It is
thing to be interpreted,which needs really
within the modern disaster and before the closing of all the recesses
where we could, all the same, find the analyst, the pre-analyst, the
- as civilization had always offered
proto-analyst, the para-analyst
them down to modern times - it is in this great desert that itwas
necessary to invent the analyst proper, in order to provide for this
task of interpretation offered by this speech. Hysteric speech brings
to lighta wanting-to-say distinct from the said; itunderlines the gap
between the saying and the said.
Let's go further in this direction. Hysteric speech is a speech
always dissatisfied with the said. In this speech, the subject feels in
the dissatisfaction, in the suffering, indeed in the guilt, the impossi
bility of speaking the truth about the truth,of speaking the whole
truth. according tovariousmo
The subject feelsthis impossibility
of the lie to thepleasureof role
dalities, rangingfromthe fatality
playing. Moreover, it is not at all incompatible, on the one hand, to
be sometimes overjoyed with the role-playing, and then sometimes
tocollapse underthefatality
of the lie itbearswith it.This speech is

indeed the one which gives itsplace to the performer, and which
energizes and gives cause to this performer.
What could we say about obsessional speech in comparison
with hysteric speech, starting from these coordinates? It is rather a
speech which dries up interpretation,which silences the performer,

and which aims at a certain annulment of this subjective division,
and therefore at an adequation ofwanting-to-say towhat is said.We
a
might say, in forcing the line, by caricaturing it, that it is speech
whose message is forever silent- there is nothing to be added to
this speech. In any case, theOther has nothing to add. Obsessional
same a kind of gag on interpretation.
speech is all the
To continue with the gallery of great categories: what could we
say about psychotic speech? Here, it is speech itselfwhich takes

charge of interpretation, at least on the paranoiac side, and which
claims to be the mistress of meaning, to the point, in schizophrenia,
of denouncing its social semblance down to its last entrenchments.
As for perverse speech - perhaps we will make a separate
for it later- let's that itmakes fun of meaning
place say [sens].
When pure, perverse speech deploys itself, itdoesn't allow a lotof
room for analytic interpretation.
I'm drawing these little vignettes quickly in order to call to
mind the terrain thatwe can cover in the analytic experience; that is,
the extent of the account thatwe can give of this terrain, by consid
ering structure-language and its essential phenomenon, meaning,

even when thismeaning isbaptized as desire. The substance of our
analytic clinic moves around in these coordinates, of course with

some variations, some internaloppositions. It is this substance which
isdisplaced when we move from language to lalangue.
II
Lalangue, as Ibegan to illustrate, to touch on, last time, doesn't

appear to be a structure. Ifstructure iswhat I said at the beginning, I
can't manage to say, "Lalangue is a structure." Moreover, theword
that Lacan forges, in joining the article to the substantive, is rightly
made inorder to indicate that, there, the elements thatwe believe to

be discernable in language, are not as discernable as we thought.

And Leiris dumps loads of such examples on us. Inany case, lalangue
is very ambiguous. It is not without a relationship to the structure,
but we shrink from saying that lalangue is a structure. Especially
an object carved wholly out of
because lalangue isnot synchrony. It
includes a dimension which is irreducibly diachronic, since it is es
sentially alluvial. It ismade of alluvia accumulated out of misunder

standings, from linguistic creations, and by each of us.
Lacan took great care to indicate that the expressions thatwe
use have a precise origin, thatwe don't always manage to deter
mine. When we read the Dictionnaire des Prdcieuses,3 we notice
that a certain number of theirmost fabulous inventions became
part
of our most common means of expression. One day the Marquise
Untel said "The word escapes me" [Lemot me manque]. We found
itcharming, marvelous - "That's just like her!"We've repeated it,
and today it isour way of speaking. This example that Lacan picks
up has itsvalue, discreetly, of messing up just a bit object-language
in its synchrony. It is, after all, much funnier to take language with
contributions by the Marquise Untel and by the carter from Place
Maubert. It includes a diachronic dimension, and an "individual"
dimension, with "individual" inquotation marks. This concept that
Lacan forges thus reinserts each person's invention as a contribution
to the community which inhabits Ialangue.
The essential phenomenon of what Lacan called lalangue is
not meaning - it is necessary to get used to this idea - it is
jouissance. In this displacement, this substitution, it is a whole pan
orama which changes, not just a small modification thatwe make to
thatwe slip in here, while the rest doesn't
meaning, budge. When
we meddle with it,thewhole edifice or in any case, tot
collapses,
ters.
Let's say itanother way: the principle of the second triad isn't
wanting-to-say, it iswanting-to-enjoy [vouloir-jouir] . I've also rigged
up a little something here, I say tomyself: "The Marquis Lacan said:
'L'apparole'" that's marvelous. And I adopt this term, 1pass iton.
The second triad translates the new status of the first,
when it isdrive
- to take up Count Freud's invention- and not signification that is

as the principle, themotor of the speaking

conceived being, to say it
in so many words. An entire conceptual system is transformed here.
From this displacement, we can see betterwhat was at stake in
thismachine of the graph of desire. This machine was - we assured
this by other means last year - an attempt by Lacan to structure
drive on the model of intersubjective communication. Itwas a stu
pendous attempt, which consisted inmaking drive a form of mes

sage, a request [une demande] without subject.4 It is a paradoxical
message, but one which, all the same, makes drive into a kind of
message. The request isa kind of message, obviously, with an absent
or
eclipsed subject, or a subject which is no longer present except
through itsbar or its lack, but it is still a request. In addition, this
drive is endowed in the graph with a vocabulary all itsown, a vo
cabulary that Lacan writes inparallel with the treasure of lalangue.

On one side, the treasure of /alangue, on the other, the treasure of
the drive. It is really to indicate that the drive is endowed with its
own vocabulary. All the same, there isa message which finds its way
from the other side and which is formulated in terms of drive, and
then over here a meaning-effect [effetde sens], extremely specific,
but an effect of special, paradoxical, limitedmeaning.
We notice therefore, from the position that I invite you to take

up, that Lacan began with communication, and that he structured,
modeled, the drive on speech. In fact, he comments at length on
this, on speech and drive.

To modelthe drive on speech was doubtless tomake itsplace

for drive as wanting-to-enjoy, but always under the domination of
wanting-to-say. This isdone with extreme subtlety, and not without

foundation.
Here's where Iundress the princess. We'll see that itdepends
on a simple, elementary principle. The princess is the
graph. Ifwe
were to take everything off,what will remain is the organization
we pulled a
itself,the skeleton of the princess. And, for thatmatter, if
littletoo hard, like in the story by Alphonse Allais ...
Here we grasp what is at stake when l'apparole appears in
place of the concept of /aparole. L'apparole is not something that

Lacan said often, once, twice at the most. No matter. We must re
elaborate the concept of speech when we come to the extremities
that Ihave just described.
- calm speech -
Speech always says both one and the other,
even ifthe other becomes the
big 0 Other, itstill presupposes ques
tion and response. It is always a relation, a dialogue.
Now, l'apparole is a monologue. This theme of monologue
haunts the Lacan of the '70s- the reminder that speech isabove all
monologue. Here I'm proposing l'apparole as the concept which

responds towhat comes to light in the Seminar Encore, when Lacan
asks in a rhetorical way "Is Lalangue primarily of use in dialogue?"
Nothing is less certain. I said thatwhat responds to this remark, this

-
interrogation which, advanced as minimally as that, isof a nature
tomake thewhole system - iswhat makes a new concept
collapse
of speech necessary, insofar as lalangue isof no use in
dialogue.
With the concept of l'apparole, the body of reference to com
munication collapses; or at least, at the levelwhere it isa question of
l'apparole, there isno dialogue, there isno communication, there is

autism. There is no Other with a big "0." L'apparole isn't
grounded
in a principle of wanting-to-say to the Other, or starting from the
Other.
In Encore, Lacan touches on the term blablabla. This term is
not inLe Robert,at leastnot intheeditionthat Ihave,but itis listed
in the Larousse Dictionary of Slang, which I recommend to you.
Blablabla - an expression really incurrent use- isglossed as empty

we don't
prattle and being uninteresting. As for itsorigin, obviously
know too much about it, itseems to be derived from joking [b/aguer]
- a no means prattle that iswithout interest, it iswhat is
joke isby
in communication - or itmight derive from "to blab" in
interesting
means "to chatter" [Fr.jaser]. You would find this use
English, which
of it in Celine (as publishers aren't reissuing all of Celine's works,
given the significance of his blablabla which isn't always of the best
sort ... inquestion, 1937). In any case, for
Idon't have the volume
me blablabla is poured out by Le canard enchaind. I believe that
some years ago thismagazine claimed paternity of this expression.
We would have to make a scholarly inquiry into blablabla, into its
or
etymology. Ifsomeone is either in possession of this etymology
would want to make such an inquiry, itwould be most welcome.
We also say- this is noted by the Dictionary of Slang - "blabla."
-
Moreover, Lacan willingly used the expression blabla only two
times. It'smore refined.With blablabla, there is certainly more than
bla bla bla, but we get the impression that the one who is speaking is
lettinghimself get all carried away by the subject matter and that he
is precisely, blablahing. Whereas blabla is theminimum.
Iask myself ifwe could liken blabla to l'apparole. Not exactly,
even ifLacan calls tomind, inEncore, what is satisfied by blablabla.
Blabla isa degraded formof speech, but it is in the registerof speech
and not of l'apparole. It is finally empty speech, as Lacan baptized it,
speech where it is not the semantic content which prevails, which

carries theweight. This iswhy the dictionary says it isempty prattle.
It isnot the semantic marrow which counts, but the blabla - Idon't
know what you think of it - continues to assure the essential func
tions of speech, to the point thatwe ask ourselves ifwe can make
wings over everything that is speech.

the distinction. Blabla spreads its
You are thinking rightly that I settle on this question when I lecture.
Blabla secures a communication function perfectly. It secures ex
thefunction
ceedinglywell what Jakobsoncalls thephatic function,
ofmaintaining contact with the other. The emptier blabla is, themore
itdemonstrates the orientation toward the Other and gets its claws
into the Other. The less information itcontains, the more speech is
phatic.

L'apparole doesn't have any phatic quality. This iswhy, just

now, I even called itautistic, in a somewhat hasty use of the term.
L'apparole iswhat speech becomes when it isdominated by drive
and when but jouissance. Which an
itassures not communication
swers to the formula that Lacan gives in Encore - "There, where It
speaks, Itenjoys." [La o' ga parle, ga jouit]. That means, incontext,
Itenjoys by speaking.
Thus, there is something to be situated which is satisfied with
this blabla, and which is satisfied on the level of the unconscious.
itenjoys
itspeaks
In Encore, Lacan tried to advance a radical conjunction of the

'It speaks' and the 'Itenjoys' [du ga parle et du ga jouit], that is to say,
a conjunction of the Lacanian Other and the Freudian or Groddeckian
It [ga].5 It is the conjunction of what, in the graph, is distinguished
here; that is, how the structure of the ga parle imposes its structure
on the ga jouit. It's really themarriage of the earthen pot and the iron
pot. The earthen pot of theOther is shattered by the ironpot of the It.
Lacan is thus necessarily led to reexamine the axiom of the
unconscious structured like a
language, which belongs to the first
triad. Therefore, itworries Lacan immensely to have said the uncon
scious is structured like a language. We have witness of this concern
in the fact that he periodically returns to this point. Isaid the uncon
scious is structured like a language. He simplifies the question
"Lalangue, l'apparole, therewhere Itspeaks Itenjoys, that's exactly
what I said in saying the unconscious is structured like a language."

Icite him, in the chapter on "The other satisfaction," where he con
veys and demonstrates this perfectly novel conjunction.

Let's provide the essential commentary - three commentar
ies.
uncon
Firstly,when he says itand repeats it, it is not true. The
a
scious structured like language was formulated on the contrary, as
he says - I've often mentioned this formula of the "Function and
Field of Speech and Language," which really is a point of reference
- in order to resolve techniques of decoding the unconscious and
was done precisely to set drive, or instinct,
the theory of the drives. It
aside and to isolate properly the phenomena of meaning [sens]. So,
ifhe repeats this formula so often, in an affirmative manner, it is
precisely because it'snot true.
Secondly, who can say to Lacan: That's not true? People who
don't like him. That's not the case with me. This isa reinterpretation
of the initial formula, a creative auto-reinterpretation. Indeed, Lacan
- therewe only see fireworks- with an extraordinary art,manages
to demonstrate to you that itcan just as easily mean what itdidn't
mean in 1953. And it isworth the trouble of following the argument
indetail, because it is fed precisely by designs which are especially
delicate and interesting.
After all, it'seasy to say, "Iwas wrong." All these questions are
not at the level of a mistake. It'seasy to say "I am forgettingwhat I
said, I'm starting something else." It is, all the same, much more
difficult not to leave anything behind, to take itup again, to dress the
princess in new finery after having undressed her, and to show that
now, for example, she's a republican. That iswhat Lacan does, and,
on theway, it'smuch more interesting.
Thirdly, when he says "that's what I'm saying," it suffices to

add a temporal marker "That's what I'm saying now, when I say the
unconscious is structured like a language."
Lacan's interrogation goes to the point of putting in question
this "unconscious structured like a language," and, by these means,
he recasts thework. We notice that itdoesn't go back in exactly, that
sometimes you have to force it a bit. In any case, this interrogation
signals that the very foundations are in question.

What he presents as the jouissance of speech, theOther satis

-
faction, the one which is supported by language this jouissance
of speech isdistinct fromwhatever the pure jouissance of the non
speakingbodymightbe.
But the very expression of the jouissance of speech could slip
by without our seeing the value of giving itexpression. Some ortho

dox analysts - as they call themselves - were ready to put this
jouissance into the register of the oral drive. This is not the proper
value that Lacan gives to this expression of the jouissance of speech.
We must give a radical value to this expression, i.e., that
a
jouissance speaks. Speech is animated by wanting-to-enjoy. Not
only in the request [demande]. We could say that this appeal aims at
a need, a satisfaction, in trutha jouissance, and therefore thiswant
ing-to-enjoy isalready present in the notion of demande, but a want

ing-to-enjoy which goes by way of and is dominated by a
wanting-to-say.
Inorder to put the formula of the jouissance of speech into its
proper place, we must inscribe it in relation to the formula of "I, the

truth, I speak" [Moi, la vdritd, je parle]. That's a formula which be
-
longs to the context of the firsttriad of terms. In the firsttriad the
formations of the unconscious, the analysis by Freud of the firstslip
of the tongue - this iswhat Lacan summarizes in saying "I, the
I
truth, speak." The truth speaks, and itspeaks "I."
When he evokes the jouissance of speech, it is the symmetri
cal and opposite formula of the former.The unconscious structured
like a language implies that the truth speaks, whereas, in the context
of lalangue and of I'apparole, it is jouissance who speaks.
Moreover, this formula leads to an inversion of the value of
empty and of full speech, as Lacan had introduced itat the begin
ning of his teaching. Empty speech ishollow speech, and full speech
is speech full of meaning - likeMary full of grace.
Perhaps we can, in this context, find very perplexing what I
put on a line above: "interpretation" with a question mark.
When it isa questionof thecontextof speech,when it is the
truth that speaks, in the slip of the tongue, in the failed act, interpre
tation has a ready-made place. The goal of interpretation is tomake

an effect of truthemerge, which no matter which way we modalise

it,contradicts the effect of prior meaning, of truth,which ensued
fromwhat truthwas saying in the patient's speech. But what can we
properly make of interpretationwhen it is a question of I'apparole?

when it is jouissance who speaks? To interpretthe truth,certainly. To
interpret jouissance!
III
Where do the two "p"s in I'apparole come from? They come

- I indicated it last time- from theword "apparatus" [appareil].
Lacan already goes forward in this direction in Encore, when he
calls tomind the apparatuses of jouissance through which reality is
approached. Moreover, he essentially reduces this plural to language

as the apparatus of jouissance, though
obviously we would just as
easily consider the phantasm as an apparatus of jouissance. Nor
mally, we don't consider that reality is reached through the contriv
ances of jouissance. We consider that
reality is reached by the
apparatuses of perception, by the apparatuses of representation, by
the apparatuses of consciousness. Here, it is in relation to It [ca] that
Lacan formulates that by means of the apparatus of jouissance real
ity is arrived at. It is apprehended by everything which isof use to

enjoyment.
We could stop a moment with theword apparatus, instrument,
contraption. But there are other values to apparatus. The apparatus

is a final finish [appret], something ready for use. Le Robert says it is
what is at hand [sous lamain]. That evokes Heidegger's present-at
hand, which is the utensil, what is in proximity.6 The apparatus is
what has been arranged, laid out, prepared in advance.
This word "apparatus" - -
itpleases me a lot one face leans
toward appearance [le semblant] and one face leans toward utility.
On one hand, the apparatus is the external display of finishes
or dressings; it is therefore related to everything that is beautiful ap
pearance, allure, the impression produced by the totality of what is
laid out there. Thus, there is always magnificence of pomp, of osten
tation in the apparatus.

Itgets more trickywhen we call to mind a simple apparatus.

For us, after Racine, thewords of Nero describing the amorous pas
sion for Juniawhich overcomes him still ring inour ears. These two
verses are like the condensation of the enunciation of a phantasm
"Belle, sans ornement, dans le simple appareil/D'une beaute qu'on
vient d'arracher au sommeil."7 'Apparatus' is never better evoked
than in this verse where all pomp and ostentation isabandoned. To
the contrary, it is the very apparatus of surprise and of nudity. Here's
one of the faces of apparatus. Here we really have the phantasm as
an apparatus of jouissance.
Onthe other hand, there is itsuseful face, since an apparatus is
an assemblage, a fitting,an arrangement, which permits the accom
a
plishment of a function. This arrangement forms totality; itsele
ments are combined inorder to serve.
So, there is the side of appearance, with all itsnuances, and
then there is the side that is utilitarian, functional.
An apparatus iswhatever serves to do something, and is not
simple. It is not a tool. A certain complexity is necessary to form the
apparatus.
I am ready to give - I'm not hesitating- all itsvalue to this
notation of Lacan's, "Language: apparatus of jouissance." Iwould
even be ready to construct the concept of apparatus as a concept
opposed to that of structure.
Language isa structure, but indefining language as "apparatus

of jouissance," perhaps we are going towards replacing (at the suit
able level) the concept of structurewith the concept of apparatus.
Apparatus is an assemblage, but an assemblage which can be

more heterogeneous than structure, and above all which is power
fully finalized. A structure is deciphered, it is constructed, but it is

somewhat within the contemplative element. You have to add things
like the action of the structure for it to start to function. Whereas
apparatus isconnected straightaway to a finality,here to a finalityof
jouissance,which outclasses theso-called finality
of "knowledgeof
reality." Thus, Iwould like to consider that the concept of structure
belongs properly to the context defined by the first triad, and per
I
haps would have itsmatching piece on the other side with appara
tus.

When Lacan uses theword I'apparole, he presents itas a mon

sterword, whose ambiguity he asks us to receive favorably. The ex
pression "monster word" cannot fail to recall that of Leiris, the one I
mentioned last time, about oral monsters which are born of lan
guage. Lacan uses "I'apparole" ina written work regarding the graph
of desire - as ifby chance - ofwhich he says- "L'apparole which
ismade out of theOther is represented in the apparatus." The whole
question is to find out if I'apparole is really compatible with the

Other.
Thus, Iwas situating the place of interpretation in this new
context as a difficulty,where there is no place for dialogue, for
intersubjective communication, even modified by the introduction

of thebigOther.
The problem is the "no dialogue," pas-de-dialogue, the PDD.
On that point, there isan indication from Lacan - I'm giving it
- could do for today. Calling tomind the PDD, the pas
which
you
de-dialogue, and seeing quite well that an absolute position on the
pas-de-dialogue does interpretation in, Lacan points out "The pas
de-dialogue has its limit in interpretation, through which the real is
secured."
As I said, here we are following Lacan into a zone which is not

very clearly marked out and where the circuits cross. I racked my
brains over this sentence, saying to myself that at a given moment,
this sentence could be of use tome as a compass in this quite tricky
zone, where we sometimes let ourselves be ledwith a bit of reti
cence once we notice thatwe are in the midst of absolutely taking
down the entire house thatwe've constructed.
It is interesting to tackle things like that. First, it'spractical. If
there's no dialogue, there's no interpretation. Ifwe want to make
room for interpretation,we have to push a bit on the
pas-de-dia
logue. Don't take up all the room! Stated differently:we have to put
a limiton some part of the pas-de-dialogue, to not be confined to
saying that it'sover, since in any event something like interpretation
is stillgoingon.
There must be a limit to the autistic monologue of jouissance.
And Ifinditvery illuminating
to say,"Analyticinterpretation
estab

lishes the limit." Interpretation, on the contrary, has an infinitepo

savor the
tentiality.We infinityof interpretation; it'swhat feeds li
braries. As long as interpretation is interpretation of meaning, just
one more signifierwill suffice, itdoesn't matter which one - we
could choose itwith discernment - in order to re-interpret after
wards.
You can feel it in Lacan's commentary. Open the dictionary at

random, and take a word . . .whole numbers. The whole number
and psychoanalysis: on that point we could write whole volumes.
Or, you could follow current events, which allow for perpetual re
interpretation. In other words, when interpretation has to do with
meaning, far from a limit, interpretation creates the un
establishing
limited. Here, we are taking things completely to the opposite slope.
Not only does this line of argument position analytic interpretation
as finite, but itsays interpretation "finitizes." interpretation
Analytic
makes finite.
What I also
like in the idea that analytic interpretation estab
lishes limits, that itsituates interpretation as an ending rather than
is
as a renewal, that is to say, the opposite of what a practice of inter
pretation might be. There isalso in this sentence the notion that it is
not meaning that is secured by interpretation, as itwould normally
be in the context of the firsttriad. It is instead the Real that is secured
by interpretation.
What can we do with this notion? Inwhat is the Real secured
by interpretation?This notion leads us toward thinking that, in speech

as PDD, as pas-de-dialogue, in themonologue of I'apparole, there is
no Real, or in any case, on this level, the Real is not secured.
What can this really mean? What is Lacan aiming atwith such
things as these? At this point, we are not entirely sure that Lacan is
addressing himself to us.We try to make believe, we try to make it
seem as ifhe is addressing himself to us.
This monologue, ifwe start free associating - which we can
nonetheless do as a certain exercise of I'apparole, of saying anything
whatever - the entire thesis of Lacan, inEncore forexample, shows
that saying anything always leads to the pleasure principle, to the
Lustprinzip. That is to say: "There, where Itspeaks, Itenjoys." [LA ou

ga parle ga jouit.] It is the commentary of the It [gal. Especially be

cause we put prohibitions, inhibitions, prejudices, etc., inparenthe
ses once It really begins to run at this level, there is a satisfaction of
speech. That means everything isgoing swimmingly.

Which is why, when Lacan introduces the notion of the
jouissance of speech, he reflects on "saying," "everything works,"
etc. It's the same point of view as the one he sets forth in his Televi
sion when he says "The subject is happy." Whatever his misfortunes
may be, at the level of the unconscious he isalways happy, that is to

say, drive always functions suitably, unlike desire.
What does thismean? - other than that, at this level, there is
no Impossible. At the level of drive, at the levelwhere the
subject is
happy, at the level where, there where It speaks, Itenjoys, every
thing is dandy, everything succeeds. In this regime, we can't be as
sured any of Real-as-Impossible. At this level, there is reality as
apprehended by the apparatuses of jouissance, that is to say,

phantasmatic reality.There isphantasmatic "meaning" [signification],
there is even an anything-goes interpretation of l'apparole, but no
Real is assured. At the level where the subject is happy, the Real is
not secured.
This indicates what the place of analytic interpretation could
be, since itwould intervene on the opposite slope of the pleasure
principle. We would need to formulate, along the lines ofwhat Lacan

-
suggests only suggests! he would have had the apparatus of the
-
thing, but we have to reconstitute it that analytic interpretation
introduces the impossible.
In this driven, fatal success - even in the midst of misfortune,
itworks, the subject is happy - at the level determined here, ana
lytic interpretation underscores the failure present in the success of
l'apparole. Lacan indicates this failure in Encore: that all this happi
ness doesn't allow us to assure the Real of the sexual
relationship. I
won't develop this idea, I'm only indicating itsplace in this context.
There are consequences ifwe
take things from this angle. If
analytic interpretation is that throughwhich the Real is secured, then
itisof theorderof formalization,we acknowledge thatonlymath
if
ematical formalization reaches a Real. This iswhat Lacan explores.

This exploration implies that, like formalization, analytic inter

even evokes
pretation makes itselfinto the opposite ofmeaning. Lacan
what we could call mis-interpretation, non-sense [contre-sens].
Moreover, ambiguity is precisely taking things the other way.
Ifone wished - let's hope - to give analytic interpretation a
place back in the second triad, itwould have to have the value of
formalizing l'apparole. This means that analytic interpretation, as

formalization, accepts, assumes, supports, a certain "It doesn't mean
anything."
Interpretation is a somewhat special mode. All interpretation
consists in formulating "It means something else," while here, the
reduction to the "Itmeans nothing" [ga ne veut rien dire] is the hori
zon.8 We could even say that, in analytic interpretation, the extrac
tion of "Itwants to enjoy" [ga veutjouir] passes through an "Itdoesn't
mean anything" [ga ne veut rien dire], and that the unconscious, to
the contrary- this iswhy we can misrecognize it in this status-
masks this "Itwants to enjoy" by the "Itwants to say." And therefore,
inorder to recover the "Itwants to enjoy", we must go through the
"Itwantsto say nothing."
That implies still something else, which is not untimely, if it
can be constructed. Following the example of formalization, inter
pretation in the second triad is rather on the side of writing than of
speech. In any case, itmust be constructed by vying with thewritten

work, insofar as formalization presupposes thewritten work.
Iam about at the end today. Iwill continue next week.
31 January 1996
Translated byM. Downing Roberts
[Translator's Note: Iwould like to thank Juliet Flower MacCannell for her very gener
ous and invaluablehelpwith thetranslation
of thispaper.]
1 [TN. The neologisms ?'apparole, ?a?angue, and lituraterre are left untranslated
throughout this essay, following the convention used by Jacqueline Rose in her
translation of Lacan's Seminar XX: Encore. For more details about the term
see Rose's discussion inFeminine (New York: W. W. Norton
?a?angue, Sexuality,

& Company, 1985), 46n11. For Lacan's use of the term inEncore, see Le S?minaire
XX: Encore (Paris:?ditionsdu Seuil, 1975), 126.]
2 [TN. Here Miller hypenates vouloir-dire, and so I have chosen the somewhat
literal phrase "wanting-to-say" as an of vouloir-dire, which is
English rendering
the usual French way of saying "to mean" e.g, "I mean the red one," would be:
Jeveux dire le rouge.This choice also bringsout theway inwhich Millerwill
juxtapose vouloir-dire with volont?-de-dire and later, vouloir-jouir. Obviously,
Miller's use of vouloir-dire also carries the resonance of "meaning" and "to mean,"
but he often uses the word sens to convey
"meaning" in a literalway; while the
"vouloir" o? "vouloir-dire" retains an element of desire, or wanting-to-say.]
3 [TN. See: Somaize, Le Dictionnaire des Pr?cieuses, (Paris: P. Jannet, 1856). See
also Jacques Lacan, Seminar I, Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 (New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), 286n.]
4 [TN. "request" is used here to render the Lacanian term of art demande, because
the point at issue revolves around a mapping of drive into the coordinate system
of intersubjective communication.]
5 [TN. See Jacques Lacan, Le S?minaire XX: Encore (Paris: ?ditions du Seuil, 1975),
95-105.]
6 [TN. Although Miller says l'?tant-sous-la-main, the terms Heidegger uses in Be
and Time are vorhanden, or Vorhandenheit, which are rendered in the
ing
Macquarrie-Robinson translation as "present-at-hand" and "presence-at-hand."]
7 [TN. From Racine's ritan ?cus (1670):
Act II, Scene II:
[...]
Narcisse: vous l'aimez?
N?ron: excit? d'un d?sir curieux,

Cette nuit je l'ai vue arriver en ces lieux,
Triste, levant au ciel ses yeux mouill?s de larmes,
Qui bri Noient au travers des flambeaux et des armes:
Belle, sans ornements, dans le simple appareil
D'une beaut? qu'on vient d'arracher au sommeil.
Que veux-tu? Je ne sais si cette n?gligence,

Les ombres, les flambeaux, les cris et le silence,
Et le farouche aspect de ses fiers ravisseurs
Relevoient de ses yeux les timides douceurs.
(Racine,Oeuvres compl?tes (Paris:Pl?iade, 1950),405.]

8 [TN. See note 2, above. ?a ne veut rien dire is the usual way of saying, "That
means or "That's nonsense."]
nothing,"


Jacques Alain Miller The Monologue of L Parole PDF

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THE MONOLOGUE OF L'APPAROLE

Author(s): Jacques-Alain Miller and M. Downing Roberts

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A small plan of the labyrinth.

ingdeliveredat theDepartmentof Psychoanalysisof ParisVIII. [French]textestab

Qui Parle vol. 9, No. 2, Spring/Summer 1996

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are also familiarwith "The Agency

Some years later,under the heading of the "Agency of the Let

regime of analytic interpretation conditioned by it.

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Let's trytoweigh - as I started to do last time- the gymnas

guage, as Lacan approaches itat the beginning of his teaching, is a

ning of his teaching, structure ispar excellence linguistic structure.

Firstly, the unconscious is structure. It is not a matter of a con

Secondly, the unconscious is language. These discernible ele

language, which, when

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This is also essentially trans-individual -

concept of speech [/aparole] which, itself, isessentially diachronic

poses on his Hegel his own version of Austin's speech-act.

designates, at least in "The Agency of the Letter," the signifier in its

ing as the effect of this or that combination, or of this or that substi

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But the problematic of interpretation plays between this signifying

position of effect, theway we find it in "The Agency of the Letter."

Is this enough? Does itaccount forwhat the triad at the begin

ingonly as an effect,whereas, in necessity - a necessity that Lacan

There are bound to be some people here who have thought

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However complex, refined, varied, itmay be, the structure of

nomenology of the elementary analytic experience supports it.

say.We believe we want-to-say, and when we perceive, fromwithin,

to-say,well, the analyst is there inorder to point out that thiswant

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complexified, multiplied, and canceled by Lacan, remains a will-to

Doubtless, Lacan's barred subject is not the will to

questions, and finally disproves. But the subject remains a will-to

ing today the will-to-say. Speech always carries with it a strategy

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the minimal text of the analytic interpretation as long as itwere to

Speech, the speech of that firsttriad, isalways taken inby such

speech of the analysand par excellence, insofar as it is that speech

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speech which dries up interpretation,which silences the performer,

say about psychotic speech? Here, it is speech itselfwhich takes

ering structure-language and its essential phenomenon, meaning,

analytic clinic moves around in these coordinates, of course with

Lalangue, as Ibegan to illustrate, to touch on, last time, doesn't

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be discernable in language, are not as discernable as we thought.

sentially alluvial. It ismade of alluvia accumulated out of misunder

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as the principle, themotor of the speaking

pendous attempt, which consisted inmaking drive a form of mes

cabulary that Lacan writes inparallel with the treasure of lalangue.

We notice therefore, from the position that I invite you to take

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To modelthe drive on speech was doubtless tomake itsplace

wanting-to-say. This isdone with extreme subtlety, and not without

place of the concept of /aparole. L'apparole is not something that

monologue. Here I'm proposing l'apparole as the concept which