Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

pulsionnel

English translation:

pulsional

    The asker opted for community grading. The question was closed on 2010-06-27 10:54:09 based on peer agreement (or, if there were too few peer comments, asker preference.)
Jun 23, 2010 15:37
13 yrs ago
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French term

pulsionnel

French to English Medical Psychology psychoanalysis
Une lecture pulsionnelle

Lacan's "pulsionnel" is usually translated as "drive-ridden". "Lecture pulsionnelle" gives 59 Google results; there are none for "drive-ridden reading". The author doesn't want to use "instinctive" or any such compromise. He would agree with "pulsional". There is 1 Google result for "pulsional reading". Any other ideas anyone? Thank you!
Proposed translations (English)
4 +1 pulsional

Discussion

Branka Arrivé (asker) Jun 23, 2010:
The author opts for "une lecture pulsionnelle de...". Does "pulsional reading" sound OK then?
SMcG (X) Jun 23, 2010:
Yes, more context would be helpful. But as well as Lacan, also many hits in English for 'pulsional' in translations of texts of Jean-François Lyotard, also see this text about Roland Barthes: 'Gesture, Pulsion, Grain: Barthes' Musical Semiology'.

http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php...
philgoddard Jun 23, 2010:
Could we have some context in French please - we need more than three words. Also, I Googled "Lacan pulsional" and got plenty of hits - what's wrong with that?

Proposed translations

+1
1 hr
Selected

pulsional

"Like the Lacanian school with which he was at one time associated, Vergote has generally translated Freud's Trieb as "pulsion" and Wunsch as "desire." More recently, however, Vergote (1997) suggests that the composite term "pulsional desire" (Triebwunsch / désir pulsionnel) most accurately captures what he believes to be the intended meaning of Freud's term Trieb.

"Vergote's apparent appropriation of Lacanian terminology can therefore be misleading. In fact, both the terms "pulsion" and "desire" have a somewhat different meaning for each thinker. As for Vergote's use of the term "representation" (vorstellung), it signifies for him not so much an interior image as the interiorization of experiences of contact that both form and inform the psychism. "Representations of pulsional desire" thus denotes a structural unity integrating a quasi-natural necessity (pulsion) with an open finality (desire)."

You say you've only found one Google hit for "pulsional reading", but that doesn't mean it's not the right term in this context. It just means that this is only the second time these words have been juxtaposed online!

Lacan and co. always make me think of the emperor's new clothes...
Peer comment(s):

agree SMcG (X) : "a pulsional reading..." sounds fine to these ears (and eyes)
1 hr
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