DISCURSIVE FORMATION 1 In <i>Language, Semantics and Ideology</i>, 'discursive formation' (DF) corresponds to a field of knowledge made up of discursive utterances which represent a way of relating to the present ideology, resulting in "what can or should be said" by a subject. The concept of subject has always been intertwined with that of DF. For Pêcheux, individuals are interpellated “as subjects of their discourse by the discursive formations which represent 'in language' the ideological formations that correspond to them".
DF's knowledges are ruled by the subject-form and, from this point of view, this subject-form is presented as quite unique, especially when Pêcheux introduces what he called 'taking up a position', a movement through which the subject takes up a position and identifies with himself, with his 'like' and with the ‘Subject’. The duplication of the subject consists of a reduplication of his identification. This reduplication indicates that, at this moment, Pêcheux understands discursive formation as a very closed and homogeneous domain.
Actually, both the subject-form and the discursive formation are very homogeneous. However, in another chapter of the same work, Pêcheux introduces three modalities of taking up a position, which relativize this reduplication of the identification. The subject is presented as divided in relation to himself, and his division is materialized in the taking up a position regarding the knowledges inscribed in the DF which affects him.
The first modality refers to what Pêcheux designated as superimposition between the subject of the discourse and the subject-form. This superimposition reveals a total identification of the subject of the discourse with the subject-form, characterizing the discourse of the 'good subject', which spontaneously reflects the Subject. It is nothing but the reduplication of the identification.
The second modality characterizes the discourse of the 'bad subject', which, through taking up a position, 'turns against' the subject-form. This second modality consists of distantiation, doubt, interrogation, challenge, revolt regarding the knowledges of the discursive formation, making the subject of the discourse counteridentify himself with some of the knowledges of the discursive formation which affects him. However, this tension between total identification and the knowledges of the DF and the counteridentification with the same knowledges occurs in the interior of the DF.
That means that the subject of the discourse questions the knowledges belonging to the discursive formation in which he is inscribed from the interior of his own discursive formation. So, the counteridentification is a work of the subject of the discourse on the sayings and meanings specific to the discursive formation with which he identifies himself, and, as a consequence, it is established as a form of resistance to the subject-form and the knowledges it organizes. The effect of reduplication of the identification of the first modality make way for an incomplete superimposition which results from a certain setback, allowing the establishment of differences and doubts, responsible for the contradiction in the scope of the discursive formation.
This second modality brings to the interior of the DF the discourse of the Other, of the alterity, resulting in a heterogeneous formation. Pêcheux adds a third modality to these two, which works under the disidentification mode, that is, the taking up of a non-subjective position, which leads to the work of transformation, to the displacement of the subject-form. That is, the subject of the discourse disidentifies himself from a discursive formation and its subject-form to move his identification to another discursive formation and its respective subject-form.
In this third modality, the subject breaks up with the discursive formation in which he was inscribed and with which he used to identify himself, and begins to identify with another discursive formation, and its respective subject-form. Financial support Project management LAS management Image editing Film crew Translation and subtitles: LABESTRAD/UFF R. Peixoto/ V.
Hanes/ G. Campos/ C. Coury Transl.
Revn: B. Caldas/ B. Tannuri/ B.
Leivas Coord.
