De uma língua chinesa à outra: articulações possíveis entre língua, escrita e psicanálise

Abstract

This research investigates how the Chinese language and writing system influenced Jacques Lacan’s teaching and contributed to key conceptual developments in psychoanalysis, particularly regarding the notions of the signifier and the letter. To this end, we trace Lacan’s engagement with French sinology, emphasizing the influences mediated by Paul Demiéville, Marcel Granet, and François Cheng. We also examine the historical and political factors that shaped European interest in China, in order to contextualize Lacan’s approach to the study of the Chinese language. Subsequently, we explore the structural specificities of the Chinese language and writing system, which allow for both resonances with signifier theory and a distinct relationship with the status of the letter, considering the conceptual effects that emerged during Lacan’s engagement with the language. Throughout this journey, we follow Lacan’s symbolic path toward China, even though he never physically visited the country, to highlight how he uniquely appropriated elements of the Chinese language and script to both support and displace central aspects of his teaching. As we aim to demonstrate, this gesture may produce shifts in analytic listening and open new interpretive possibilities for psychoanalysis. After all, psychoanalysis is concerned with precisely this: the singular way each subject makes use of language.