Abstract

PRADO, Coraci Helena do. Reflections about word, meaning and memory in Freud and Saussure. Ciênc. cogn. [online]. 2009, vol.14, n.1, pp. 195-207. ISSN 1806-5821.

This paper presents a study regarding word, meaning and memory in Freud and Saussure. It is a reflection on the relationship that such elements, inside each theoretical basis, set among themselves, with language and the external reality. It is also focused on the extent to which the two authors' theories are close or fall apart. The results show that some nearness is possible between the Freudian Psychology and the Saussurian Linguistics, concerning the support for the philosophical distinction between the word and the thing, contained in the notion of representation; the association of psychic elements in the process of representation, that is, an acoustic image and a concept or a visual image; the assumption either of enclosure of meaning in the limit of the word or of openness, either of mental associations or of objectual representations. Nevertheless, some differences emerge, regarding the sort of relationship between the physiological and psychic processes: parallel and simultaneous, in the Freudian representation; independent and in a temporal sequence, in the Saussurian representation; and, mainly, differences concerning the essentially distinct conceptions of unconscious in the association psychic processes: a psychic place where associations are realized, according to Freud; a way in which a word evokes others in the process, according to Saussure.

Keywords : language; unconscious; Freud; Saussure.

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