ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that Sigmund Freud is considering the "language of the dream", that is, that of thing-presentation, but also that of body language. It also shows that he has already gone into the question of the non-verbal forms of language in hysteria and obsessive neurosis, that is, in the neurotic universe. The attribution of the quality of language endowed with meaning is extended for Freud to acts, whatever the pathology or the psychic functioning of the subjects in question. The verbal language apparatus, and the verbal binding that it makes possible, transforms the relationship that the subject entertains with his affects as with his mimicry, gestures, postures, and acts. The hypothesis advanced as a complement to Freud's is that the subjective experiences will tend to express themselves in forms of non-verbal language that borrow their privileged forms of expressiveness and associativity from the body, the soma, motility, and the act.
