Parasitic Language

This paper presents initial thoughts about the phenomenon of parasitic language. This is a language which clings to the other’s linguistic patterns and in doing so produces a double manifestation of omnipotence and impotence; a language that forges a linguistic “prosthesis,” and while allowing for a false manifestation of language and thinking, constitutes thoughts as foreign objects that are mechanically and artificially “stuck” to the speaking subject. The early roots of this language, as illustrated in a detailed analytical case description, inhere in the infiltration of language by multi-generational traumatic traces. This turns language itself into a scene of simultaneous repetition of the act of salvation and the act of annihilation.