Da Silva Junior, Nelson

Mother Tongue: Identity Alienation, Sexuality, and Contingency - 2017.


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The “mother tongue” is a concept often referred to in defense of identity assertions. In this psychoanalytic deconstruction essay of the alienating power of this notion, we aim to discuss the notion of “mother tongue” from the point of view of the Lacanian concepts of alienation and separation, and then from the one stated by formulas of sexuation, from which springs the principle “there is no sexual relationship.” We seek to highlight the Lacanian thought on these topics while comparing it with that of other thinkers such as Heidegger, Derrida, Hannah Arendt, and Barbara Cassin. This path will lead us to the idea of an illusory complementarity that is in play both in language and in love.