Julia Kristeva and the Psychological Dynamics of Writing

Abstract

B y tapping into latent emotional dynamics, Julia Kristeva's poststructuralist psy chology offers a provocative means to modify emphasis of academic discourse on cognitive order. Cogni tive psychology has provided us with protocols and processing models that examine diverse ways writers solve problems. Recent sociocognitive orientations con tinue to ident ify observation-based discourse patterns that writers use to construct meaning within the broader context of a and cultural context, of language, of discourse conventions (Flower, 1 994, p. 52). With sophisticated conceptual maps and experimental savvy, sociocognitivists adeptly investigate interacting subprocesses in constructing negotiated meaning. Berkenkotter and Huckin ( 1 995) demonstrate with precision that microlevel studies of . . . processes, can also be interpreted (from macrolevel) as communicative acts within a discursive network or system (p. ix). Moving bey ond controversy over value of these findings, I would like to counterpose organized sociocogn itive psychology with poststructuralist psychology of Kristeva. Most humanists believe that writers are more than serial processors. James Berlin ( 1 988) argues persuasively for a social-epistemic rhetoric, within which language is recognized as a social phenomenon that is a product of a particular historical moment (p. 488). Berlin critiques attention cognitivists have paid to mapping heuristics of writing while regarding mind as a straightfor­ ward set of structures that performs in a rational manner, adjusting and reorder­ ing functions in service of goals of individual (p. 482). Berlin i s right t o see that [t]here is n o universal, eternal, and authentic self'; instead, [t] he self is always a creation of a particular historical and cultural moment (p. 489). Clearly we create meaning through a complex synthesis of history, culture, and intellect. However, by widening our i nvestigations to psychoanalysis, those of us who theorize about and teach composition may come to understand more fully that writing emanates not only from intellect and ideological situatedness, but al so from deep-seated emotions and fantasies. Writing theorists need to take a more comprehensive look at ways personal casting and emotional tonality influence writing. Kristeva's reconfiguration of symbolic discourse offers us one provocative way to look beyond cognitive, sociocognitive, and epistemic boundaries to new ways of understanding mysteries of composing.