Page 166 - Culture Media Language Working Papers in Cultural Studies

TEXTS, READERS, SUBJECTS 155

The constitution of subjects is always specific in respect of each subject…
and this can be conceived of in terms of a single, original (and mythic)
interpellation—the entry into language and the symbolic—which
constitutes a space wherein a complex of continually interpellated subject
forms interrelate, each subject form being a determinate formation of
discursive processes. The discursive subject is therefore an interdiscourse,
the product of the effects of discursive practices traversing the subject
throughout its history.

The important point about this formulation is the distinction it holds between the
constitution of ‘the subject’ as a general (original and mythic?) moment—
constituting ‘a space’—and the (second) moment when the subject-in-general is
interpellated in the subject forms (the discursive subject positions) which are
provided by the existing complex of discourses that make up the discursive
formation (the interdiscourse) of specific social formations. Pêcheux therefore
opens out what precisely ‘screen theory’ is at pains to close up—the space, the
difference, between the formation of subjects-for-language and the recruitment
of specific subjects to the subject positions of discursive formations through the
process of interpellation. Thus whereas ‘screen theory’ poses the problem of the
‘politics of the signifier’ (the struggle over ideology in language) exclusively at
the level of ‘the subject’, Pêcheux locates it at the intersection between
constituted subjects and specific discursive positions—that is, at the site of
interpellation. This is a critical distinction.
In ‘screen theory’ there can be no struggle at the site of the interface between
subject and text (discourse), since contradictory positions have already been
predetermined at the psychoanalytic level. Pêcheux takes over some part of this
theory of the formation of the subject without, however, assuming that the struggle
over meaning/interpretation in any subject/text encounter is already determined
outside the conditions of ‘reading’ itself. To put this in Althusserian terms,
whereas ‘screen theory’ assumes every specific reading to be already determined
by the ‘primary’ structure of subject positions, Pêcheux treats the ‘outcomes’ of
a reading as an over-determination. The two structures involved (constitution of
‘the subject’/interpellation into specific discursive positions) are articulated, but
are not identical, not mere replications of each other.
This links closely to the argument advanced by Laclau concerning the
centrality of interpellation to the functioning of ideological discourses and the

*This article was originally based on work undertaken with Charlotte Brunsdon to
extend the theoretical terms of the argument in Everyday Television: ‘Nationwide’
(BFI 1978), particularly in relation to the problem of audiences. This version
incorporates material from the 1977–8 Media Group’s longer, forthcoming critique
on recent theories of discourse and ideology. It also incorporates comments from
Dorothy Hobson, Adan Mills and Alan O’Shea, and was extensively revised for
publication by Stuart Hall.