Kristeva’s distinction of semiotic and symbolic is intended to overcome the dualism of traditional linguistic theories, the dualism of body and language, or matter and language. For Kristeva, the “semiotic” is the way drives are organized or “discharged” in language, and thus includes everything that is meaningful in language but which is not part of the signifying or representational aspect of language. The “symbolic” is the realm of meaning as traditionally understood, the realm of structure, grammar, semantics.

Kristeva argues that meaning is not found in either one or the other, but in the dialectical interaction of both. This is at odds with both traditional and structuralist views of language. If, as is often suggested in language theory, language represents experience, then there is a built-in duality that is virtually impossible to overcome. Language mirrors, copies, captures, or in some other way connects to bodily experience, but how?

Structuralism has the opposite problem. With the language/body connection difficult to account for, structuralism retreats into a self-enclosed linguistic realm in which signs refer only to other signs.

Kristeva’s semiotic-symbolic connection builds the body into language use. Kelly Oliver says, “Kristeva describes the meaning of words as combinations of dynamic bodily drive force of effect and stable symbolic grammar.” Further, “for Kristeva meaning is not the unified product of a unified subject; rather, meaning is Other and as such makes the subject other to itself. Meaning is not constituted by a transcendental ego; meaning is constituted within a biosocial situation. Infants are born into a world where words already have meanings. Meaning is constituted through an embodied relation with another person. In this sense, meaning is Other; it is constituted in relation to an other and it is beyond any individual subjectivity. Insofar as meaning is constituted in relationships - relationships with others, relationships with signification, relationships with our own bodies and desires - it is fluid. And the subject for whom there is meaning is also fluid and relational.”

Oliver again: “through the semiotic element, bodily drives manifest themselves in language. Instead of lamenting what is lost, absent, or impossible in language, Kristeva marvels at this other realm that makes its way into language. The force of language is living drive force transferred into language. Signification is like a transfusion of the living body into language.”