Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
Językoznawstwo baner

Online First

Articles

Language and affect in a posthumanist perspective. The case of Gilles Deleuze and Jan Slaby

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25312/j.10414  [Google Scholar]
Published: 2026-04-14

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between affective experience and language within a posthumanist framework. The aim of the study is to reconstruct and interpret selected concepts developed by Gilles Deleuze and Jan Slaby in the context of introducing affect into social discourse. The study employs a philosophical and comparative analysis of theoretical approaches. It focuses on the process through which internal affective intensities are transformed into linguistic expression, including stages such as experience, awareness, naming, and discursive objectification. The analysis demonstrates that affect and language are mutually constitutive: affective experience initiates the production of meaning, while language enables its stabilization and communi­cability. It is also shown that traditional anthropocentric models of meaning are insufficient to account for this relationship, as they overlook its processual and dynamic character. From a posthumanist perspective, meaning emerges as the result of ongoing negotiation between experience and its expression. The article argues that integrating affect theory with linguistic analysis provides a more comprehensive account of meaning-making processes and the role of language in shaping experience.

References

  1. Barry P. (2017), Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, Manchester: Manchester University Press. [Google Scholar]
  2. Barthes R. ([1968] 1977), The Death of the Author, [w:] S. Heath (red.), Roland Barthes: Image Music Text, London: Fontana Press, s. 142–149. [Google Scholar]
  3. Bergson H. (1988), Matter and Memory, New York: Zone Books. [Google Scholar]
  4. Bowden S. (2017), The Intensive Expression of the Virtual: Revisiting the Relation of Expression in Difference and Repetition, „Deleuze Studies”, nr 11(2), s. 216–239. [Google Scholar]
  5. Braidotti R. (2014), Po człowieku, Warszawa: PWN. [Google Scholar]
  6. Brassier R. (2011), Concepts and Objects, [w:] L. Bryant, N. Srnicek, G. Harman (red.), The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism, Melbourne: re.press Melbourne, s. 47–65. [Google Scholar]
  7. Brown S.D., Tucker I. (2010), Eff the Ineffable: Affect, Somatic Management, and Mental Health Service User, [w:] M. Gregg, G.J. Seigworth (red.), The Affect Theory Reader, Durham– London: Duke University Press, s. 229–249. [Google Scholar]
  8. Carroll L. (2001), O tym, co Alicja odkryła po drugiej stronie lustra, Warszawa: Grupa Wydawnicza Bertelsmann Media. [Google Scholar]
  9. Clough P. (2007), Introduction, [w:] P. Clough, J. Halley (red.), The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, s. 1–33. [Google Scholar]
  10. DeLanda M. (2011), Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy, London–New Delhi–New York–Sydney: Bloomsbury. [Google Scholar]
  11. Deleuze G. (1990), Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, New York: Zone Books. [Google Scholar]
  12. Deleuze G. (1994), Difference and Repetition, London: Athlone. [Google Scholar]
  13. Deleuze G. (1997), On Four Poetic Formulas that Might Summarize the Kantian Philosophy, [w:] tegoż, Essays. Critical and Clinical, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, s. 27–35. [Google Scholar]
  14. Deleuze G. (2011), Logika sensu, Warszawa: PWN. [Google Scholar]
  15. Derrida J. (2010), Dissemination, New York: Continuum. [Google Scholar]
  16. Dijk T.A. van, Kintsch W. (1983), Strategies of Discourse Comprehension, New York–London: Academic Press. [Google Scholar]
  17. Finch G. (1998), How to Study Linguistics, London–New York: Palgrave. [Google Scholar]
  18. Foucault M. (2006), Słowa i rzeczy. Archeologia nauk humanistycznych, Gdańsk: Słowo/ Obraz Terytoria. [Google Scholar]
  19. Heaney C. (2018), Pursuing joy with Deleuze: Transcendental empiricism and affirmative naturalism as worldly practice, „Deleuze and Guattari Studies”, nr 12(3), s. 374–401. [Google Scholar]
  20. Kartezjusz (2002), Rozprawa o metodzie właściwego kierowania rozumem i poszukiwania prawdy w naukach, Kraków: Zielona Sowa. [Google Scholar]
  21. Kłos-Czerwińska P. (2015), Discourse: An Introduction to van Dijk, Foucault and Bourdieu, Wrocław–Washington: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Filologicznej we Wrocławiu. [Google Scholar]
  22. Kłos-Czerwińska P. (2018), Koncepcja czasu, sensu i sprawczości w pracach Maurice’a Blanchota oraz Gillesa Deleuze’a, „Sensus Historiae. Studia Interdyscyplinarne”, nr XXXII(3), s. 95–106. [Google Scholar]
  23. Massumi B. (1995), The Autonomy of Affect, „Cultural Critique”, nr 31, s. 83–109. [Google Scholar]
  24. Massumi B. (2002), Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. [Google Scholar]
  25. Mills S. (2016), Gilbert Simondon. Information, Technology and Media, London–New York: Rowman & Littlefield. [Google Scholar]
  26. Sedgwick Kosofsky E., Frank A. (1995), Shame in the Cybernetic Fold: Reading Silvan Tomkins, [w:] E. Sedgwick Kosofsky, A. Frank (red.), A Shame and its Sisters. A Silvan Tomkins Reader, New York: Duke University Press, s. 1–28. [Google Scholar]
  27. Serres M. (1982), The Origin of Language: Biology, Information Theory, and Thermodynamics [w:] J.V. Harari, D. Bell (red.), Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy, Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University, s. 71–83. [Google Scholar]
  28. Simondon G. (1964), L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. [Google Scholar]
  29. Slaby J. (2012), Affective Self-Construal and the Sense of Ability, „Emotion Review”, nr 4(2), s. 151–156. [Google Scholar]
  30. Slaby J. (2020), Atmospheres – Schmitz, Massumi, and Beyond, [w:] F. Riedel, J. Torvinen (red.), Music as Atmosphere: Collective Feelings and Affective Sounds, New York: Routledge, s. 274–285. [Google Scholar]
  31. Spinoza B. (1954), Etyka w porządku geometrycznym dowiedziona, Warszawa: PWN. [Google Scholar]
  32. Stiegler B. (2014), Symbolic Misery, vol. 1: The Hyperindustrial Epoch, Cambridge: polity. [Google Scholar]

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Similar Articles

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.