ABSTRACT
Torturers take possession of language in order to modify all of its words and bend them in a way as to make them correspond to the neo-language of which they see themselves the masters, while the language of the victims, although they might have to adopt certain words as used by the torturers, cannot be reduced simply to that. Experienced in the body, it will shape the awareness and the memory of the events that occur and, in so doing, it will shape the individual's identity during and after the events. The visual, tactile or sound image is generated by the body, emitted and immediately received by the affected body: it is the body which becomes both a body-as-source, bearing witness to the reality of persecution, and a body-as-target, which is being subjected to torture.
