Scholarly record

“FRENCH THEORY” AND LANGUAGE CRITICISMS

Anna Kostikova

Abstract

Topicality. The emancipated modern communication presumes the new language of everyday life that supports the tolerance and the open mind and pluralisms of all groups of society. The understanding of this new language, its philosophical basics and its actual application remains insufficiently studied. This report attempts to apply postmodern philosophy of language to the analysis of contemporary feminisms and gender studies of communication. Aim: to reconstruct the logic and basic philosophical concepts of contemporary cultural transformations in human relations. Hypothesis: the ideas of language of “maternity”, the “feminine writing”, “female literature” and the notions of “repetition”, “difference”, “abjection” and others are the keys for the understanding of contemporary political and cultural practices changing the “colonial” order. Discussion: The report is focused on the so-called linguistic breakthrough with the discursive methods of constructing subjectivity. The subject in thus specific linguistic practices does not play the passive role anymore. The new approach to the discursive practice means at the same time the new understanding of the phenomenon of subject. That is “the-subject-in-process” as J. Lacan claimed with his idea if “divid” and the “carnaval of identifications”. Or, again, Julia Kristeva, or L. Irigaray suggests that the semiotic stage of the subject's formation, being beyond the control of conscious stereotypes (symbols that emerge later on), might most adequately and pluralistically express the infinite, polyvariant (or multivariant) desire that, as Lacan states, constitutes the basis of subjective identity. The philosophical feminist critique was shaped by the search for language practices that escape such relationships and are distinct from those dominating the contemporary scene. Method: Historical reconstruction of postmodern philosophy in the context of feminist and post-feminist critics of language. Results: development of understanding of contemporary feminisms and post-feminisms. The establishment a correlation between postmodernism and feminism gives us sufficient ground for some conclusions: feminist postmodernism or feminist poststructuralism does not appear to be merely a practical philosophy, and the feminist movement does not boil down to a set of women's sociopolitical or scientific activities but rather represents a broad theoretical approach to many areas. This conclusion is of critical importance when we evaluate the real prospects for women's struggle for liberation from male domination, the theoretical backing of which struggle is increasingly coming from male postmodernists.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2018/4.1/S18.048

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