Sunday, 8 January 2012
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Eradicating Poverty
How can we end child poverty?
‘Poverty’ is not a neutral term – it implies an unfair, unacceptable state about which something must be done. Nor is poverty ‘always with us’. It is higher in the UK than in comparable countries, which means we can be more effective in tackling it.Poverty rates in the UK are driven by entrenched inequalities of income, wealth and power. Policy makers need to combat these inequalities in order to build a fairer and more sustainable future for the UK.
The child poverty pledge – reaching 2020
The Government has pledged to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020. Although there has been some progress, policy is still off track and Budget 2010 did little to narrow the gap. We are widely expected to miss the 2010 mark by around 1 million children.In the longer term more effort is needed to attain the 2020 goal and to help children thrive in childhood and in their later lives.
- Paid work is not a secure route out of poverty for many people, so improvements are needed in pay, access to childcare, and ensuring that parents can balance parenting and employment responsibilities. Bad and discriminating employers need to be tackled, and educational inequalities reduced to ensure that all children leave school well qualified to engage in the modern economy.
- Alongside ensuring that work works to tackle poverty, the state has a role in ensuring tax is fair and that we invest more in children through child benefit. Tax credits and disability benefits need to be adequate and reach those who need them.
- Moves to improve family incomes and to narrow inequalities are crucial to break the damaging ‘chicken and egg’ cycle between educational inequality and poverty.
Ten steps from Ending Child Poverty: a manifesto for success
1. Protect jobs2. Mend the safety net
3. Move away from means tests
4. Remove barriers to work
5. Stop in-work poverty
6. Put in place a child-first strategy for childcare
7. End the classroom divide
8. Provide fair public services for those who need them most
9. End poverty premiums in taxes and services
10. Ensure a decent home for every family
Monday, 7 November 2011
my journal : language - its much more than a kit!
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT:
It's Much More Than a Kit
BY PATRICIA L. HUTINGER
When those of us who work with
children younger than 6 think about
language development and the activ-
ities we should plan to enhance
children's language development,
sometimes we think only of adding
more vocabulary. Although a wide
vocabulary is useful for a young
child, sometimes the child who is
highly verbal, talking about "infini-
ty" and other abstract concepts, is
only demonstrating something
Piaget calls "school varnish." It is
misleading to assume that the child
who has a fantastic vocabulary also
has developed the underlying con-
cepts that go with all the big words
he or she uses. Language develop-
ment is much more than the acquisi-
tion of new words.
While theorists do not agree about
the. relationship between language
and thought, practically speaking,
we know enough to plan activities
for children that will help them
develop a flexible use of language.
Sometimes teachers and administra-
tors are bombarded by educational-
materials salesmen who promote
their products as the answer to a
language program. But language
development takes people, not kits.
A good language program is not as
complicated as is sometimes
thought.
Simple Steps
We all use the language other
people in our community use to
communicate all kinds of informa-
tion in most of our waking hours. So
do the children in our care! Some-
times we don't feel like talking.
Children feel the same way! Some-
times we don't want to respond to a
question with a complete sentence;
instead we respond with a short
phrase. We are more inclined to
carry on a long, complex conversa-
tibn when we initiate that conversa-
tion ourselves. Children have similar
inclinations!
Probably the most effective steps
teachers and other caregivers can
take toward enhancing children's
language development are simple
ones. They don't require a cash
outlay, or new curricular materials,
but they do make time demands
upon you.
I. Accept each child as a very
special, worthwhile, unique human
being.
2. Listen to each child when he or
she talks to you (and when a child
doesn't talk, listen to the behavior).
3. Take the time to talk to each
child, using complex, elaborated
language.
4. Provide rich varied experiences
so that each child will have some-
thing to talk about. Then, allow
children plenty of time to observe
what is happening.
5. Make sure the child has many
opportunities to hear language from
other people, rather than hearing
language primarily from a mechani-
cal source (radio, television, me-
chanical talking toys, and head
phones).
After you've looked over the
above suggestions, you will probably
agree that they won't cost you or
your school any more money. They
may, however, mean rescheduling
your time and your priorities. It is
more important that you spend time
listening to what a child is trying to
communicate to you than it is to
separate out the language patterns
that are not yet "mature," correcting
the child's grammar. Communica-
tion is far more important than
whether or not the young chiM uses
the correct verb form each time he or
she speaks.
The Development of
Syntax or Grammar
When linguists talk about syntax
or grammar, they are not talking
about the kind of grammar you
studied when you were in elementary
school or high school. Rather, they
are talking about a description of the
way the child puts words together--
there is no right or wrong way. The
child develops his or her own
grammatical system. He or she
learns language by imitating some
things, but there is much more
involved than that. The child learns
44 0092-4199/78/1300-0044500.95 9 1978 by Human Sclences Press DAY CARE AND EARLY EDUCATION
When the child begins to use
negation (and it happens early!),
expect to hear things like "No sit
there" and "Wear mitten no." The
correct form will appear without
adult correction. The form the
child's questions take also is interest-
ing and will eventually be trans-
formed into utterances that are
much like adults'; but in the begin-
ning, the child will ask questions
such as "What the boy hit?" "Where
I should put it?" and "What he can
ride in?" Again, attend to the
meaning, not to the form, or the way
the child is asking a question.
Questions that require a yes-or-no
answer are much easier than the
"Who," "When," "Why," "What"
variety. The yes-no questions are
usually formed correctly earlier.
Evaluation of the Child's
Language Development
A measure of Mean Length
Utterance (MLU) derived from
samples of the young child's spon-
taneous speech may be more useful
in diagnosing and prescribing than
are scores on the various language
scales of a more formal nature.
Roger Brown's work outlines proce-
dures for MLU (A First Language:
The Early Stages [Cambridge: Har-
vard University Press, 1973]). The
MLU and an accompanying analysis
of the child's language patterns
provides specific information about
the child's communication. Lan-
guage samples are individual mea-
sures, and are somewhat time-
consuming. It is important to note,
however, that an actual record of
what a child does say gives you a lot
more information for making curric-
ular decisions than does a test score.
Also of interest is the development
of tests such as the Say What I Say
test (developed by Madalene Bar-
nett), which focuses on the child's
ability to imitate various grammati-
cal structures and also provides a
fairly accurate assessment of the
child's production ability as well as
his or her syntactic patterns.
What Can Teachers Do?
There are several things you can
do, and probably are doing already
to some extent, that enhance the
child's language development.
Use Expansion. When a young
child makes an utterance that is not
grammatically complete (for an
adult), such as "dog bark," use the
utterance, but expand it to an adult
grammatical form: "Yes, the dog is
barking" or "Yes, that dog barked."
Use Extension. Expand the child's
utterance, as above, but add some
new information, for example: "Yes,
the dog is bark!ng, but he won't hurt
you" or "Yes, the dog is barking
because he's mad at the other dog."
Use Questions That Are Open-
ended (Divergent). For example,
instead of asking, ',Do you hear that
noise?" (which requires a "Yes" or
"No" from the child), ask, "What do
you think might make that noise?"
Ask questions that help the child
begin to make predictions: "I wond-
er what would happen if we let these
ice cubes sit here in the dish?"
Practice using divergent questions,
rather than those that have only one
right answer (convergent).
Record Your Own Language. Use
a tape recorder (or a video tape, if
available) during the day, to record
your own language. Play it back
after school. Listen to your ques-
tions, to your sentence structure,
your pronunciation. Consciously
work on improving your ability to
expand, extend, and ask questions.
Do you use non-standard dialect, yet
reprimand children when they speak
in the same dialect?
Courtney Cazden is spending a
great deal of time studying the
language development of young
children. She suggests that teachers
ask themselves the following ques-
tions (the list below is taken, with
some rephrasing, from her book
Child Language and Education
[Chicago: Holt, Rinehart & Win-
ston, 1972]):
1. Is this a back-and-forth mono-
logue On my part?
2. Are my questions open-or
closed-ended?
3. Am I moralizing, that is, am I
telling children how they should be
thinking and feeling instead of
accepting the way they do think and
feel?
4. Do I really listen to children?
Or do I jump in with an answer as
soon as I think I've guessed what
they mean, or even with an answer
that fits my own preconceptions or
needs for control?
5. Is my language production
geared to the children's understand-
ing, and does it at the same time
expand the children's existing lan-
guage, giving them new words for
more complex operations?
6. Do I finish sentences, or do I
leave children hanging?
7. Do I avoid using pat phrases
over and over again?
8. Do I involve children in activi-
ties that lend themselves easily to
promoting--and that might even
necessitate--verbal interactions?
DAY CARE AND EARLY EDUCATION
9. Is there a maximum chance for
children to converse with each oth-
er?
10. Do I take action to involve
children in verbal communications
when there is the opportunity?
11. Is my verbal interaction relat-
ed to the real world and the child's
real world?
Cazden goes on to say: "Drilling
children in linguistic forms can turn
the kids off in a hurry, just as
quickly as asking them to produce
correct answers to questions. You
can teach a child to use the correct
words in the right places, such as
'under,' 'over,' 'around,' 'into,' 'or.'
But if you want more than a
mechanical repertoire of words, if
you want understanding and
transferability, be sure the words are
attached to action or demonstra-
tions of what the sounds actually
mean in the context of the child's
experiential field and are not em-
bedded in abstractions" (ibid,
p.l16).
Finally, the most important ques-
tion to ask yourself: Does the
interaction between me and the child
take place in the context of mutual
trust and respect, based on my
genuine friendliness, love, uncondi-
tional acceptance, warmth, em-
pathy, and interest?
Some Experiences to Enhance
Language Development
The activities listed below are
usually a part of the early-childhood
curriculum. They are simple, al-
though they often require a great
deal of planning. Nevertheless, they
might be called "well-known but
overlooked secrets" of language
development. Classroom teachers
often are doing the very things that
will lead to enriched language
development, yet fear that they are
not doing enough directed work.
Knowledge of what is expected in
normal language development pro-
vides a justification for these activi-
ties.
1. Read to children every day. Be
sure the stories are good ones, at the
child's level. Ask the children's
librarians if you need help. They
have lots of good information.
2. Write down the things children
tell you about their pictures. Re-
member, we don't talk in the same
way that books are written.
3. Make books of each child's
work, of photographs of the child's
family, the class and its activities,
and other things of interest. Fasten
the pages together with rings, or sew
them together. Use cloth pages
sometimes. Talk about the books.
4. Take trips to interesting places:
the bowling alley, the shoe-repair
shop, the bakery, the zoo, a farm, a
small airport and then a big airport,
a trip on a train, a trip on a bus,
different kinds of stores. When you
get back, draw about the trip. Tell
about it. Recreate it in creative
dramatics. Effective trips can be
quite simple but need careful plan-
ning.
5. Arrange things so that children
have many opportunities to see
operations from beginning to end.
For example, make butter (shake up
whipping cream in a sealed fruit jar,
wash, add salt if desired)--it's more
fun if you can visit the farm and
bring back whole milk, but that
might not be possible. Make apple-
sauce from apples (better yet if you
can pick the apples). Make cloth
from yarn (woven, knitted, crochet-
ed). Make peanut butter. Grow
pumpkins, and make pumpkin pie
or pumpkin bread, as well as jack-o-
lanterns. Children often are not
aware of the origins of things we
take for granted.
6. Visit community affairs such as
4-H fairs, craft shows, antique-auto
shows, new-car shows, farm-
equipment displays.
7. Provide plenty of raw
materials--paper, paint, crayons,
clay, boxes--and time to work with
them.
8. Encourage children to talk
about whatever they are making, but
don't keep asking them, "What is
it?" Try Haim Ginott's "descriptive
reinforcement" too (Between Parent
and ChiM [New York: Avon Books,
1965]).
9. If you have a tape recorder,
children can use it to communicate.
Young children like to hear them-
selves talk when the tape is replayed.
Young children's experience with
CB radios can be an interesting
dramatic-play starting point. Record
group singing sometimes, too.
10. Encourage music activities.
Children can make up their own
songs as they are playing. Songs
often use language in an expressive,
exciting way.
Conclusion
Planning for the optimal language
development of the children in an
early-childhood setting requires
interaction with people: children
must be comfortable in communi-
cating with adults and their peers. If
the long-range objective is to raise
children who can function in a
democracy and communicate their
ideas, then attention to the charac-
teristics of developing language is
important. Children must have
many opportunities to use language
and to have interesting experiences
so that they really do have some-
thing to talk about. Teachers and
other caregivers can provide condi-
tions conducive to optimal language
development. []
It's Much More Than a Kit
BY PATRICIA L. HUTINGER
When those of us who work with
children younger than 6 think about
language development and the activ-
ities we should plan to enhance
children's language development,
sometimes we think only of adding
more vocabulary. Although a wide
vocabulary is useful for a young
child, sometimes the child who is
highly verbal, talking about "infini-
ty" and other abstract concepts, is
only demonstrating something
Piaget calls "school varnish." It is
misleading to assume that the child
who has a fantastic vocabulary also
has developed the underlying con-
cepts that go with all the big words
he or she uses. Language develop-
ment is much more than the acquisi-
tion of new words.
While theorists do not agree about
the. relationship between language
and thought, practically speaking,
we know enough to plan activities
for children that will help them
develop a flexible use of language.
Sometimes teachers and administra-
tors are bombarded by educational-
materials salesmen who promote
their products as the answer to a
language program. But language
development takes people, not kits.
A good language program is not as
complicated as is sometimes
thought.
Simple Steps
We all use the language other
people in our community use to
communicate all kinds of informa-
tion in most of our waking hours. So
do the children in our care! Some-
times we don't feel like talking.
Children feel the same way! Some-
times we don't want to respond to a
question with a complete sentence;
instead we respond with a short
phrase. We are more inclined to
carry on a long, complex conversa-
tibn when we initiate that conversa-
tion ourselves. Children have similar
inclinations!
Probably the most effective steps
teachers and other caregivers can
take toward enhancing children's
language development are simple
ones. They don't require a cash
outlay, or new curricular materials,
but they do make time demands
upon you.
I. Accept each child as a very
special, worthwhile, unique human
being.
2. Listen to each child when he or
she talks to you (and when a child
doesn't talk, listen to the behavior).
3. Take the time to talk to each
child, using complex, elaborated
language.
4. Provide rich varied experiences
so that each child will have some-
thing to talk about. Then, allow
children plenty of time to observe
what is happening.
5. Make sure the child has many
opportunities to hear language from
other people, rather than hearing
language primarily from a mechani-
cal source (radio, television, me-
chanical talking toys, and head
phones).
After you've looked over the
above suggestions, you will probably
agree that they won't cost you or
your school any more money. They
may, however, mean rescheduling
your time and your priorities. It is
more important that you spend time
listening to what a child is trying to
communicate to you than it is to
separate out the language patterns
that are not yet "mature," correcting
the child's grammar. Communica-
tion is far more important than
whether or not the young chiM uses
the correct verb form each time he or
she speaks.
The Development of
Syntax or Grammar
When linguists talk about syntax
or grammar, they are not talking
about the kind of grammar you
studied when you were in elementary
school or high school. Rather, they
are talking about a description of the
way the child puts words together--
there is no right or wrong way. The
child develops his or her own
grammatical system. He or she
learns language by imitating some
things, but there is much more
involved than that. The child learns
44 0092-4199/78/1300-0044500.95 9 1978 by Human Sclences Press DAY CARE AND EARLY EDUCATION
When the child begins to use
negation (and it happens early!),
expect to hear things like "No sit
there" and "Wear mitten no." The
correct form will appear without
adult correction. The form the
child's questions take also is interest-
ing and will eventually be trans-
formed into utterances that are
much like adults'; but in the begin-
ning, the child will ask questions
such as "What the boy hit?" "Where
I should put it?" and "What he can
ride in?" Again, attend to the
meaning, not to the form, or the way
the child is asking a question.
Questions that require a yes-or-no
answer are much easier than the
"Who," "When," "Why," "What"
variety. The yes-no questions are
usually formed correctly earlier.
Evaluation of the Child's
Language Development
A measure of Mean Length
Utterance (MLU) derived from
samples of the young child's spon-
taneous speech may be more useful
in diagnosing and prescribing than
are scores on the various language
scales of a more formal nature.
Roger Brown's work outlines proce-
dures for MLU (A First Language:
The Early Stages [Cambridge: Har-
vard University Press, 1973]). The
MLU and an accompanying analysis
of the child's language patterns
provides specific information about
the child's communication. Lan-
guage samples are individual mea-
sures, and are somewhat time-
consuming. It is important to note,
however, that an actual record of
what a child does say gives you a lot
more information for making curric-
ular decisions than does a test score.
Also of interest is the development
of tests such as the Say What I Say
test (developed by Madalene Bar-
nett), which focuses on the child's
ability to imitate various grammati-
cal structures and also provides a
fairly accurate assessment of the
child's production ability as well as
his or her syntactic patterns.
What Can Teachers Do?
There are several things you can
do, and probably are doing already
to some extent, that enhance the
child's language development.
Use Expansion. When a young
child makes an utterance that is not
grammatically complete (for an
adult), such as "dog bark," use the
utterance, but expand it to an adult
grammatical form: "Yes, the dog is
barking" or "Yes, that dog barked."
Use Extension. Expand the child's
utterance, as above, but add some
new information, for example: "Yes,
the dog is bark!ng, but he won't hurt
you" or "Yes, the dog is barking
because he's mad at the other dog."
Use Questions That Are Open-
ended (Divergent). For example,
instead of asking, ',Do you hear that
noise?" (which requires a "Yes" or
"No" from the child), ask, "What do
you think might make that noise?"
Ask questions that help the child
begin to make predictions: "I wond-
er what would happen if we let these
ice cubes sit here in the dish?"
Practice using divergent questions,
rather than those that have only one
right answer (convergent).
Record Your Own Language. Use
a tape recorder (or a video tape, if
available) during the day, to record
your own language. Play it back
after school. Listen to your ques-
tions, to your sentence structure,
your pronunciation. Consciously
work on improving your ability to
expand, extend, and ask questions.
Do you use non-standard dialect, yet
reprimand children when they speak
in the same dialect?
Courtney Cazden is spending a
great deal of time studying the
language development of young
children. She suggests that teachers
ask themselves the following ques-
tions (the list below is taken, with
some rephrasing, from her book
Child Language and Education
[Chicago: Holt, Rinehart & Win-
ston, 1972]):
1. Is this a back-and-forth mono-
logue On my part?
2. Are my questions open-or
closed-ended?
3. Am I moralizing, that is, am I
telling children how they should be
thinking and feeling instead of
accepting the way they do think and
feel?
4. Do I really listen to children?
Or do I jump in with an answer as
soon as I think I've guessed what
they mean, or even with an answer
that fits my own preconceptions or
needs for control?
5. Is my language production
geared to the children's understand-
ing, and does it at the same time
expand the children's existing lan-
guage, giving them new words for
more complex operations?
6. Do I finish sentences, or do I
leave children hanging?
7. Do I avoid using pat phrases
over and over again?
8. Do I involve children in activi-
ties that lend themselves easily to
promoting--and that might even
necessitate--verbal interactions?
DAY CARE AND EARLY EDUCATION
9. Is there a maximum chance for
children to converse with each oth-
er?
10. Do I take action to involve
children in verbal communications
when there is the opportunity?
11. Is my verbal interaction relat-
ed to the real world and the child's
real world?
Cazden goes on to say: "Drilling
children in linguistic forms can turn
the kids off in a hurry, just as
quickly as asking them to produce
correct answers to questions. You
can teach a child to use the correct
words in the right places, such as
'under,' 'over,' 'around,' 'into,' 'or.'
But if you want more than a
mechanical repertoire of words, if
you want understanding and
transferability, be sure the words are
attached to action or demonstra-
tions of what the sounds actually
mean in the context of the child's
experiential field and are not em-
bedded in abstractions" (ibid,
p.l16).
Finally, the most important ques-
tion to ask yourself: Does the
interaction between me and the child
take place in the context of mutual
trust and respect, based on my
genuine friendliness, love, uncondi-
tional acceptance, warmth, em-
pathy, and interest?
Some Experiences to Enhance
Language Development
The activities listed below are
usually a part of the early-childhood
curriculum. They are simple, al-
though they often require a great
deal of planning. Nevertheless, they
might be called "well-known but
overlooked secrets" of language
development. Classroom teachers
often are doing the very things that
will lead to enriched language
development, yet fear that they are
not doing enough directed work.
Knowledge of what is expected in
normal language development pro-
vides a justification for these activi-
ties.
1. Read to children every day. Be
sure the stories are good ones, at the
child's level. Ask the children's
librarians if you need help. They
have lots of good information.
2. Write down the things children
tell you about their pictures. Re-
member, we don't talk in the same
way that books are written.
3. Make books of each child's
work, of photographs of the child's
family, the class and its activities,
and other things of interest. Fasten
the pages together with rings, or sew
them together. Use cloth pages
sometimes. Talk about the books.
4. Take trips to interesting places:
the bowling alley, the shoe-repair
shop, the bakery, the zoo, a farm, a
small airport and then a big airport,
a trip on a train, a trip on a bus,
different kinds of stores. When you
get back, draw about the trip. Tell
about it. Recreate it in creative
dramatics. Effective trips can be
quite simple but need careful plan-
ning.
5. Arrange things so that children
have many opportunities to see
operations from beginning to end.
For example, make butter (shake up
whipping cream in a sealed fruit jar,
wash, add salt if desired)--it's more
fun if you can visit the farm and
bring back whole milk, but that
might not be possible. Make apple-
sauce from apples (better yet if you
can pick the apples). Make cloth
from yarn (woven, knitted, crochet-
ed). Make peanut butter. Grow
pumpkins, and make pumpkin pie
or pumpkin bread, as well as jack-o-
lanterns. Children often are not
aware of the origins of things we
take for granted.
6. Visit community affairs such as
4-H fairs, craft shows, antique-auto
shows, new-car shows, farm-
equipment displays.
7. Provide plenty of raw
materials--paper, paint, crayons,
clay, boxes--and time to work with
them.
8. Encourage children to talk
about whatever they are making, but
don't keep asking them, "What is
it?" Try Haim Ginott's "descriptive
reinforcement" too (Between Parent
and ChiM [New York: Avon Books,
1965]).
9. If you have a tape recorder,
children can use it to communicate.
Young children like to hear them-
selves talk when the tape is replayed.
Young children's experience with
CB radios can be an interesting
dramatic-play starting point. Record
group singing sometimes, too.
10. Encourage music activities.
Children can make up their own
songs as they are playing. Songs
often use language in an expressive,
exciting way.
Conclusion
Planning for the optimal language
development of the children in an
early-childhood setting requires
interaction with people: children
must be comfortable in communi-
cating with adults and their peers. If
the long-range objective is to raise
children who can function in a
democracy and communicate their
ideas, then attention to the charac-
teristics of developing language is
important. Children must have
many opportunities to use language
and to have interesting experiences
so that they really do have some-
thing to talk about. Teachers and
other caregivers can provide condi-
tions conducive to optimal language
development. []
Jacques Lancan
Lacan's version of psychosexual development is, therefore, organized around the subject's ability to recognize, first, iconic signs and, then, eventually, language. This entrance into language follows a particular developmental model, according to Lacan, one that is quite distinct from Freud's version of the same (even though Lacan continued to argue—some would say "perversely"—that he was, in fact, a strict Freudian). Here, then, is your story, as told by Lacan, with the ages provided as very rough approximations since Lacan, like Freud, acknowledged that development varied between individuals and that stages could even exist simultaneously within a given individual:
0-6 months of age. In the earliest stage of development, you were dominated by a chaotic mix of perceptions, feelings, and needs. You did not distinguish your own self from that of your parents or even the world around you. Rather, you spent your time taking into yourself everything that you experienced as pleasurable without any acknowledgment of boundaries. This is the stage, then, when you were closest to the pure materiality of existence, or what Lacan terms "the Real." Still, even at this early stage, your body began to be fragmented into specific erogenous zones (mouth, anus, penis, vagina), aided by the fact that your mother tended to pay special attention to these body parts. This "territorialization" of the body could already be seen as a falling off, an imposition of boundaries and, thus, the neo-natal beginning of socialization (a first step away from the Real). Indeed, this fragmentation was accompanied by an identification with those things perceived as fulfilling your lack at this early stage: the mother's breast, her voice, her gaze. Since these privileged external objects could not be perfectly assimilated and could not, therefore, ultimately fulfill your lack, you already began to establish the psychic dynamic (fantasy vs. lack) that would control the rest of your life. 6-18 months of age. This stage, which Lacan terms the "mirror stage," was a central moment in your development. The "mirror stage" entails a "libidinal dynamism" caused by the young child's identification with his own image (what Lacan terms the "Ideal-I" or "ideal ego"). For Lacan, this act marks the primordial recognition of one's self as "I," although at a point "before it is objectified in the dialectic of identification with the other, and before language restores to it, in the universal, its function as subject" . In other words, this recognition of the self's image precedes the entrance into language, after which the subject can understand the place of that image of the self within a larger social order, in which the subject must negotiate his or her relationship with others. Still, the mirror stage is necessary for the next stage, since to recognize yourself as "I" is like recognizing yourself as other ("yes, that person over there is me"); this act is thus fundamentally self-alienating. Indeed, for this reason your feelings towards the image were mixed, caught between hatred ("I hate that version of myself because it is so much better than me") and love ("I want to be like that image"). This "Ideal-I" is important precisely because it represents to the subject a simplified, bounded form of the self, as opposed to the turbulent chaotic perceptions, feelings, and needs felt by the infant. This "primordial Discord" is particularly formative for the subject, that is, the discord between, on the one hand, the idealizing image in the mirror and, on the other hand, the reality of one's body between 6-18 months ("the signs of uneasiness and motor unco-ordination of the neo-natal months" "The mirror stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation—and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure of spatial identification, the succession of phantasies that extends from a fragmented body-image to a form of its totality that I shall call orthopaedic—and, lastly, to the assumption of the armour of an alienating identity, which will mark with its rigid structure the subject's entire mental development" This misrecognition or méconnaissance (seeing an ideal-I where there is a fragmented, chaotic body) subsequently "characterizes the ego in all its structures" . In particular, this creation of an ideal version of the self gives pre-verbal impetus to the creation of narcissistic phantasies in the fully developed subject. It establishes what Lacan terms the "imaginary order" and, through the imaginary, continues to assert its influence on the subject even after the subject enters the next stage of development.
18 months to 4 years of age. The acquisition of language during this next stage of development further separated you from a connection to the Real (from the actual materiality of things). Lacan builds on such semiotic critics as Ferdinand de Saussure to show how language is a system that makes sense only within its own internal logic of differences: the word, "father," only makes sense in terms of those other terms it is defined with or against (mother, "me," law, the social, etc.). As Kaja Silverman puts it, "the signifier 'father' has no relation whatever to the physical fact of any individual father. Instead, that signifier finds its support in a network of other signifiers, including 'phallus,' 'law,' 'adequacy,' and 'mother,' all of which are equally indifferent to the category of the real" (164). Once you entered into the differential system of language, it forever afterwards determined your perception of the world around you, so that the intrusion of the Real's materiality becomes a traumatic event, albeit one that is quite common since our version of "reality" is built over the chaos of the Real (both the materiality outside you and the chaotic impulses inside you). By acquiring language, you entered into what Lacan terms the "symbolic order"; you were reduced into an empty signifier ("I") within the field of the Other, which is to say, within a field of language and culture (which is always determined by those others that came before you). That linguistic position, according to Lacan, is particularly marked by gender differences, so that all your actions were subsequently determined by your sexual position (which, for Lacan, does not have much to do with your "real" sexual urges or even your sexual markers but by a linguistic system in which "male" and "female" can only be understood in relation to each other in a system of language).
The Oedipus complex is just as important for Lacan as it is for Freud, if not more so. The difference is that Lacan maps that complex onto the acquisition of language, which he sees as analogous. The process of moving through the Oedipus complex (of being made to recognize that we cannot sleep with or even fully "have" our mother) is our way of recognizing the need to obey social strictures and to follow a closed differential system of language in which we understand "self" in relation to "others." In this linguistic rather than biological system, the "phallus" (which must always be understood not to mean "penis") comes to stand in the place of everything the subject loses through his entrance into language (a sense of perfect and ultimate meaning or plenitude, which is, of course, impossible) and all the power associated with what Lacan terms the "symbolic father" and the "Name-of-the-Father" (laws, control, knowledge). Like the phallus' relation to the penis, the "Name-of-the-Father" is much more than any actual father; in fact, it is ultimately more analogous to those social structures that control our lives and that interdict many of our actions (law, religion, medicine, education).Note After one passes through the Oedipus complex, the position of the phallus (a position within that differential system) can be assumed by most anyone (teachers, leaders, even the mother) and, so, to repeat, is not synonymous with either the biological father or the biological penis.
Nonetheless, the anatomical differences between boys and girls do lead to a different trajectory for men and women in Lacan's system. Men achieve access to the privileges of the phallus, according to Lacan, by denying their last link to the Real of their own sexuality (their actual penis); for this reason, the castration complex continues to function as a central aspect of the boy's psychosexual development for Lacan. In accepting the dictates of the Name-of-the-Father, who is associated with the symbolic phallus, the male subject denies his sexual needs and, forever after, understands his relation to others in terms of his position within a larger system of rules, gender differences, and desire. (On Lacan's understanding of desire, see the third module.) Since women do not experience the castration complex in the same way (they do not have an actual penis that must be denied in their access to the symbolic order), Lacan argues that women are not socialized in the same way, that they remain more closely tied to what Lacan terms "jouissance," the lost plenitude of one's material bodily drives given up by the male subject in order to access the symbolic power of the phallus. Women are thus at once more lacking (never accessing the phallus as fully) and more full (having not experienced the loss of the penis as fully). Regardless, what defines the position of both the man and the women in this schema is above all lack, even if that lack is articulated differently for men and women.
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