4.

From 1971 on, the shift from LINGUISTICS to mathematics as the paradigm of
scientificity is accompanied by a tendency to emphasise the poetry and ambiguity of
language, as is evident in Lacan’s increasing interest in the ‘psychotic language’
of James
Joyce (see Lacan, 1975a; 1975–6). Lacan’s own style reflects this change as it
becomes
ever more densely populated with puns and neologisms. Lacan coins the term lalangue
(from the definite article la and the noun langue) to refer to these non-
communicative
aspects of language which, by playing on ambiguity and homophony, give rise to a
kind
of jouissance (S20, 126). The term ‘language’ now becomes opposed to lalangue.
Lalangue is like the primary chaotic substrate of polysemy out of which language is
constructed, almost as if language is some ordered superstructure sitting on top of
this
substrate: ‘language is without doubt made of lalangue. It is an elucubration of
knowledge [savoir] about lalangue’ (S20, 127).