The Signifier

Ghiath el-Marzouk

The signifier represents the subject,
for another signifier [infinitely].

Lacan

Preliminary

This article will discuss the entity of the signifier as a physical, and therefore observable, medium whose ultimately destined goal is to represent the subject, given his/her ominously overpowering attributes (hesitation, division, and alienation) at the level of language. The article will begin the discussion with Lacan’s concept of the ‘primordial signifier’, whose initial assimilation operates in accordance with the ascriptions of the paternal metaphor, since its phallic signification seems to predetermine all types of significations of (later) signifiers along the continual path of sense production. It will, thence, re-evoke the spatial distinction between extra-linguistic signifiers (those which cast out their significations without language) and intra-linguistic signifiers (those that emit their significations within language), and will concentrate on probing the latter signifiers. Thus, upon positing de Saussure’s dichotomy ‘signifier-signified’ and its specific implications, the dichotomy to which Lacan attaches great importance from the viewpoint of his psychoanalytic method, emphasis will be placed on the unnoticed similarity in essence between de Saussure’s account of the signifier as an acoustic image and Freud’s account of the word as a sound-image, thereby stressing the very long linguistic history behind the dichotomy. De Saussure’s further dichotomy ‘syntagmatic-paradigmatic’, to which Lacan attaches greater importance, will also be elucidated, so as to illuminate de Saussure’s contention that the signifier acquires its signification only by means of its syntagmatic and/or paradigmatic relationships with other signifiers, a contention that is based on his view of language as a differential system of signs. In addition, within the structural opposition between de Saussure’s and Lacan’s logical positioning of the signifier vis-à-vis the signified, the conceptual opposition between their psychical positioning of the signifier will be underlined: while de Saussure regards the signifier as a psychically destructible term which signifies something, Lacan considers it a psychically indestructible element that signifies nothing in the real order. Then, within Lacan’s view of language as a differential system of signifiers (rather than signs), his contention that the signifier represents the subject for another signifier will be explained –hence his notion of the ‘signifying chain’, and his assertion that meaning is always in a state of flux. Since the signifying chain follows the logics of metonymy (syntagmatically) and metaphor (paradigmatically), both of these figures of speech (or tropes), which are inspired by de Saussure’s still further dichotomy ‘diachronic-synchronic’, will be accounted for with reference to Jakobson’s postulation of the two discrete axes in language processing (viz. the combinatorial axis and the substitutive axis) and their one-sided repercussions in language aphasia. Furthermore, reference will also be made to the essential disagreement between Lacan and Jakobson over the exact parallelism of both metonymy and metaphor with both displacement and condensation in Freud’s sense in the context of the dream-work specifically. Then, de Saussure’s still further dichotomy, langue-parole, to which Lacan attaches by far the greatest importance, will be illustrated in terms of the distinction that Lacan makes between langue ‘a language’ and langage ‘language’ to establish his own dichotomy langage-parole instead, thereby coining the neologism lalangue which points to the incommunicable aspects of language. His main incentive is to adduce the fact that it is langage (rather than langue) which represents the unconscious mode of language –unlike parole which exemplifies its conscious mode, thereby denoting the subject’s division between langage and parole as an ominous attribute. Finally, within his conjunction of Freud’s approach to the psyche and de Saussure’s approach to language, Lacan’s most celebrated maxim, viz. “the unconscious is structured like a language”, will be discussed with reference to its conceptual origin (or origins) in Freud’s theorization on the dream-work as well.

Exposition

As discussed in a previous article published within this series, the personal subject, contrary to the impersonal subject and the undefined (or anonymous) subject, is inherently hesitant and immanently divided (or split) between two opposite modes of representation so far as his/her being in reality is concerned: the affirmative mode of his/her personal ego in the statement (the present conscious I) at the one extreme, and the negative mode of his/her personal ego in the enunciation (the absent unconscious I) at the other extreme. For this reason, Lacan is inclined to characterize the shifter (the person uttering I) with what he calls, the ‘indexical signifier’ (rather than the ‘indexical symbol’ in Jakobson’s sense) so as to underline another important distinction between the enunciation (as a set of indices) and the statement (as a set of signifiers), given his conceptual reversal of the index in contradistinction with the signifier, and not with the symbol per se (cf. el-Marzouk, 2009a; 2009b). Recall that, from a semiotic perspective, the index seeks to establish a contiguous relationship with its referent (in which case it alludes to Peirce’s idea of the sign), and that the symbol, on the contrary, tends to constitute a discontiguous relationship with its referent (in which case it refers to de Saussure’s notion of the sign). The initial motive for Lacan’s conceptual reversal of the index vis-à-vis the signifier is, thus, to emphasize an even further significant distinction between the function of the symptom in medicine as an index of the physical disease in question and the function of the symptom in psychoanalysis as a signifier of the psychical illness under consideration –that is, the symptomatic signifier itself (Lacan, 1966a:129; 1966b:348; el-Marzouk, 2009a, note 2; 2009b, note 9). But Lacan’s principal incentive is to contend that the extent of hesitation and division is determined by the extent of speech activity: the subject is hesitant and divided between the conscious I and the unconscious I “only insofar as he/[she] speaks”(Lacan, 1966a:269; 1966b:530), thereby contending that the continuity of the existential factor is conditioned by the discontinuity of the lingual (or glossal) action: “the subject designates his/[her] being by barring everything he/[she] signifies” (Lacan, 1966a:288; 1966b:581). This contention denotes nothing less than the fact that the subject is perpetually alienated (or estranged) at the level of language, too –hence the alienation (or estrangement) is destinedly imputed to the psychical transformation whereby the ego originally identifies itself with an alter ego (Lacan, 1955-6:23). As such, the indexical signifier (or, simply, the signifier) would betray the subject’s unfortunate attributions (viz. hesitation, division, and alienation) in the same way examples of the parapraxis betray his/her true intentionality (e.g. slips of the tongue, the ear, the pen, etc.). This means that the subject’s entertained true intentions are nothing but the hidden and/or pent-up true judgements (as opposed to the revealed and/or spelled-out false judgements), the two types of judgements which were discussed in (el-Marzouk, 2008a; 2008b) and explained further in (el-Marzouk, 2009a; 2009b). Consequently, the subject does not seem to exist as a discrete individual who is integral and clear-cut at the level of language, but appears to exist rather as an indiscrete dividuum who is ambivalent and circumscribed with an arcane wilderness in spheres where he/she cannot possibly be, a dividuum whose hidden and/or pent-up secrets are exposed beyond his/her will by the signifier, by the very fact that this signifier represents him/her whenever he/she speaks a word or signifies an idea or even a thing.

Clearly, therefore, the existential representation by the signifier, in this manner, indicates that the (speaking or signifying) subject has, undoubtedly, assimilated (the signification of) the signifier in spheres where he/she can possibly be. Yet it is the signifier as a physical medium per se which eventually seeks to represent him/her as an indiscrete and ambivalent dividuum, an individual who is basically neurotic by psychical nature because of his/her very capacity for processing what is known as, the ‘primordial signifier’ –unlike the psychotic individual who simply does not have, in this case, the ability to process the same primordial signifier. According to Lacan, in this context, the processing (i.e. assimilation) of the primordial signifier seems to operate in accordance with the associations of the parental function (or the ascriptions of the paternal metaphor), the function or metaphor which entails the substitution of the Name-of-the-Father, as a masculine nominal order, for the Mother’s Desire, as a feminine conational order, a mere transition to the (pristine) location that is “first symbolized by the operation of the mother’s absence [from the feminine conational order]” (Lacan, 1966a:200; 1966b:456). In such a perspective, the processing of the primordial signifier, viz. the Name-of-the-Father (or Nom-du-Père), would certainly point to the assimilation of the ethicality of the father’s tabooing function against the incestual ties whose very firstlings may arise during the Oedipal period: an assimilation that is, in effect, comparable to the appropriation of the morality of the identified’s prohibitive authority against the same incestual ties, if any, as discussed in a previous work (cf. el-Marzouk, 2007a; 2007b). For this reason, all sorts of signification that are exemplified by (later) signifiers along the continual path of sense production would be predetermined by the phallic signification of the primordial signifier, whether these significations are explicit/literal or implicit/figurative. If the processing of the primordial signifier is not foreclosed (that is, if it is assimilated by the subject), then the resultant clinical structure is proof of the disturbances of neurosis in the ‘normal’ psychopathological situation, where phallic signification is present in the psychical apparatus. If, however, the processing of the same primordial signifier is foreclosed (that is, if it is not assimilated by the subject), then the resultant clinical structure is evidence of the disturbances of psychosis in the ‘abnormal’ psychopathological situation, where phallic signification is absent from the psychical apparatus itself. Thus, the prior anchoring of a seemingly inevitable disposition to neurosis, in the ‘normal’ psychopathological situation, would be no more than a psychoanalytic expression that amounts to the nascent rooting of an attribute of alienation at the level of language, and would thence reflect the incipient moment of existence at which the subject enters into the symbolic order, an entrance which is instigated, so it seems, by the masculine symbolization of paternal nominality or by the establishment of the (nominal) symbolic father on the basis of his/her assimilation of the primordial signifier. Given that the (already discussed) false judgements are by-products of ambiguous and illusory measures (on the forced part of the present ego), and that the true judgements are by-products of unambiguous and non-illusory measures (on the unforced part of the absent ego –or the id, in sui generis terms), the personal subject’s division between the conscious I (in the statement) and the unconscious I (in the enunciation) can now be translated into his/her division between the world of signifieds in the imaginary order and the world of signifiers in the symbolic order, respectively, with the contradicting and rather resisting nature of the real order, in between, stamping the decreed impossibility of true articulation, as an accomplished psychical fact, due to both the spuriousness of all signifieds and the negativity of all signifiers.[1]

To refresh the memory once more, mention has already been made of three distinctive types of the signifier throughout the exposition in two previous works, viz. the ‘specular signifier’, the ‘symptomatic signifier’, and the ‘aporetic signifier’ (cf. el-Marzouk, 2007b; 2009b, note 2). The specular signifier, firstly, may allude to the imago which is initially introjected under the effect of imaginary identification (that is, ‘identification with the imago itself’) in the mirror stage, where the most primal assimilation of reflexive self-realization seems to be jubilantly established by the human infant (or the subject) –unlike the situation with the animal infant (or the non-subject), whose basic absorption of its own image does not appear to meet with its approval (cf. el-Marzouk, 2007b). Moreover, this primal assimilation of reflexive self-realization constitutes the nucleus of the (underdeveloped) ideal ego to act as an ideal imago and to be, later, ‘irrigated’ under the influence of imaginary projection, which, in turn, forms the nucleus of the (more developed) ego-ideal to behave as an ideal signifier and to be, then, nurtured under the effect of symbolic introjection (cf. el-Marzouk, 2008b, note 4). Thus, the imago itself seeks to inject its pictorial signification into the specular signifier, so to speak, in the ‘normal’ course of (early) ego development. The symptomatic signifier, secondly, may refer to the single character-trait which the identifier (or the subject) assimilates from the identified (or the object as such) in the intervening inversion of the Oedipus complex per se, as is the case with the little girl who was voluntarily reproducing her mother’s excruciating cough, or the case with young Dora who was ‘involuntarily’ imitating her father’s tormenting (catarrhal) cough. This single character-trait (or nur einen einzigen Zug) is considered to be a signifier which has its own specific sort of signified in virtue of being an element of a differential signifying system in its own right, a signifier that is then introjected under the influence of symbolic identification to ultimately denote ‘identification with the symptom itself’ in the post-mirror stage –in contradistinction with ‘identification with the imago’ (cf. el-Marzouk, 2007b). Hence, the symptom manifests itself as a single character-trait which tends to exert its pathological signification on the symptomatic signifier but in the ‘abnormal’ course of (later) ego development. The aporetic signifier, thirdly, may point to either of the two suspended motions in the assertiveness of anticipated certainty, logically speaking (viz. disjunctive hesitation and conjunctive hesitation), the motions which would enable the subject to know an unknown self-attribution in the presence of the other subjects (typically, two in number) who certainly exhibit the same attribution, on the one hand, and in the absence of an already known equal number of subjects who supposedly display a different attribution, on the other hand. These two suspended motions are represented as two of the premises of the logical problem that is posited as a new sophism, and are exemplified by the three prisoners with their three fastened white disks (which are selected from five identical disks differing only in colour –with the other two disks being black, in this case). Therefore, either suspended motion aims at imposing its anticipatory signification on the aporetic signifier to be ingested as a blind spot (in the optic sense), since the subject’s true deduction of his/her own white disk is based on what he/she does not see in actuality (the two black disks) rather than on what he/she actually sees (the two white disks) (cf. el-Marzouk, 2009b).

It now becomes clear-cut that all such three types of the signifier (i.e. the specular signifier, the symptomatic signifier, and the aporetic signifier) tend to psychically operate, with their specific significations, outside the domain of language associations themselves –whether the signifier is incorporated as a self-centred imago or a single character-trait (the cough) or even a suspended motion of hesitation. For this reason, alone, the three types of the signifier were classified under what was then called ‘extra-linguistic signifiers’ (cf. el-Marzouk, 2009b, note 2), particularly when the linguistic space comes out as a threshold for symbolizing the inner world, the very threshold whereby a part of libidinal manifestation is associated with a counterpart of ego manifestation and extends even further to the level of object-representation (that is, the psychical representation of the outer ‘objective’ world). Yet the process of semantically assimilating each of such extra-linguistic signifiers does not derive its tools from a certain individuated threshold that is completely dissociated from the threshold of linguistic symbolization in itself, given the aforesaid overlapping nature of the three fundamental orders (or registers) in the process of mental functioning, as discussed earlier (see note 1). In contrast with extra-linguistic signifiers, therefore, what may now be distinctly called ‘intra-linguistic signifiers’ would suggest any of the nominated signifiers that seek to psychically operate, whatever the nominated operation may be, inside the domain of language associations themselves, such as, the signifiers that are structurally represented in the forms of nominals, pronominals, verbals, adverbials, adjectivals, and so forth, with the primordial signifier referred to above exhibiting itself (with its phallic signification) as the seemingly mythical forefather of intra-linguistic signifiers in their entirety.[2] This spatial difference between the signifiers brings to light the first famous dichotomy ‘signified-signifier’ (or signifié-signifiant), the dichotomy which de Saussure puts forward within his structuralist method, and to which Lacan attaches great importance within his psychoanalytic method, but with the express conceptual reversal of the dichotomy, as will be seen presently. According to de Saussure, in this connection, (human) language is a lingualized continuum in itself, a continuum which reflects a differential system of linguistic signs, where each sign is logically based on two contrasting cardinal components: the abstract or perceptual component that defines the signified, at the one extreme, and the concrete or sensory component that specifies the signifier, at the other extreme. De Saussure’s view of the signifier (being defined by the concrete or sensory component) is that it is, first of all, an ‘acoustic image’ by virtue of its concreteness and sensoriness, an image which constitutes an arbitrary relationship with the signified (being specified by the abstract or perceptual component). He is, thereby, refuting adamantly all the conjectural theories put forward by the philologists before the rise of (modern) linguistics, the theories which tried to explain the origin (or origins) of language as a human phenomenon in terms of the systematically onomatopoeic bond between the signifier and the signified. For instance, there is nothing in the least that can be discerned (or even recognized) as systematically onomatopoeic from the French word fouet ‘whip’ or from the Latin word fagus ‘beech-tree’, even though the former word as an exemplary signifier was derived in the twelfth century from the latter word as an exemplary signifier, too (de Saussure, 1916:66f.). As such, de Saussure’s conception of the signifier, from this angle, is well comparable with Freud’s conception of the word at the level of word-presentation per se, a level whereby “the sound-image stands for the word” in the same way “the visual [images] stand for the object” at the level of object-representation (Freud, 1915b:221, emphasis added). This clearly indicates that the relationship between the word as a sound-image (or the signifier as an acoustic image) and its meaning as mental image (or its signified as a noetic image) is also fortuitous (or arbitrary) in nature (cf. el-Marzouk, 2007b, note 3). For this very reason, it might be said, in Freud’s own words, that “the ego wears a ‘cap of hearing’ [or Hörkappe]” and, what is more, “it [the ego] might be said to wear it awry” (Freud, 1923b:363; emphasis added). If Lacan himself were in fact aware of this remarkable similarity between de Saussure and Freud, a similarity which undoubtedly would not be lost upon someone of Lacan’s extremely meticulous and voracious reading, then the figurative expression would show, as it were, that the aforesaid conscious I in the statement (the ‘person uttering I’) would not be making a false judgement upon declaring: I said that Lacan may be a synthesis of Freud and de Saussure. Notwithstanding, of course, that Freud’s theorization on word-presentation itself dates back to the early days of writing The Interpretation of Dreams (cf. Freud, 1900:403, 690f.) or even to an earlier letter Freud himself sent to his medical friend, the otolaryngologist Fliess, in1896 (cf. Freud, 1887-1902, Letter 52). Consequently, with the traditional dichotomy ‘form-content’ (or ‘expression-substance’) and its ‘contingency’ (or ‘conventionality’) in mind, it is clear that the seemingly modern dichotomy ‘signifier-signified’ (or ‘sound-meaning’) and its ‘arbitrariness’ (or ‘fortuity’) can neither be ascribed to de Saussure nor to Freud exclusively, since the raison d’être which underlies the dichotomy is as ancient as the philosophical reflection on language itself.

What seems to be characterized as original in de Saussure’s structuralist method, however, is that the signified (or meaning) is not generally derived a priori from a given prestructured reality (be it human or divine), a reality that dons the garb of experience and then sets out to demonstrate its existence outside the domain of language as a lingualized continuum, but rather the signified (or meaning) is especially engendered (or rather generated) inside the very domain of language as a purely differential system with its specific formalism and formality, a sheer system of terms that do nothing but exhibit their plain ‘differences’ from each other. This is plainly articulated in de Saussure’s oft-quoted words: “In language there are only differences without positive terms” (de Saussure, 1916:120, original emphasis). Given the arbitrary (or fortuitous) relationship between the signifier (or its sound) and the signified (or its meaning), any series of tangible instances of the signifier are, therefore, the linguistic entities which may be considered positive terms, so it appears, by dint of their potential natural orderliness. For this very reason, the originality of de Saussure’s structuralist method can also be perceived from his contention that the signifier does not establish a given relationship of any sort with the signified primarily by virtue of the arbitrary (or fortuitous) nature of the relationship, even if the signified manifests itself as the psychical counterpart of the referent per se. The signifier, on the contrary, is rather inclined to exhibit its positivity through the relationship (or relationships) it constitutes with other signifiers, and not with the signified, within the differential system of language: the associational constitution, from this perspective, tends to incarnate explicitly what is termed, the ‘syntagmatic characteristic’ and/or reincarnate implicitly its antithetical counterpart, viz. the ‘paradigmatic characteristic’ (cf. de Saussure, 1916:124f.). This associational constitution now discloses the further famous dichotomy ‘syntagmatic-paradigmatic’ itself, the dichotomy which de Saussure also puts forward within his structuralist method, and to which Lacan attaches greater importance within his psychoanalytic method. Accordingly, de Saussure’s sense of the signifier as an ‘acoustic image’ (or a ‘sound-image’ in Freud’s sense) would now be perceived as a term which acquires its signification (or its signified per se) only in terms of the syntagmatic and/or paradigmatic relationships it establishes with other signifiers, since what is called ‘reality’ in any human language is, in fact, nothing else than a construct that is prestructured (or, rather, prefabricated) by a skilful hand, whatever the actual intentionality may be, one of the many skilful hands of the language which is implemented to describe this selfsame ‘reality’. At the one extreme, the syntagmatic mode of signification is seen as a mode that functions horizontally within a finite series of differential tie-ups among contiguous signifiers and their explicit incarnation(s). For instance, in the sentence (The pauper wrote a book in his hut.), the (animate) nominal the pauper would be related forward to the (voluntary) verbal wrote which follows it, the (inanimate) nominal a book would be related backward to the (voluntary) verbal wrote which precedes it, and so on. At the other extreme, the paradigmatic mode of signification is viewed as a mode which operates vertically this time within a (potentially) infinite series of differential tie-ups among discontiguous signifiers, instead. For example, in the sentence just cited, the (animate) nominal the pauper acquires its signification (or its signified per se) in virtue of its phonemic contrast with other discontiguous signifiers and their implicit reincarnation(s), signifiers which belong the same categorization in the totality of the language system. Thus, the first signifier (S₁) is the (animate) nominal the pauper not the president or the dog, the second signifier (S₂) is the (voluntary) verbal wrote not the (compulsory) verbal enacted or the (survival) verbal crunched, the third signifier (S₃) is the (inanimate) nominal a book not a law or a bone, and so forth. This potentially infinite series continues until it ‘finally’ reaches that very expressive level where the specific signification of the sentence in question is realized in its entirety, and until the sentence manifests itself in semantic contradistinction with (The president enacted a law in his palace.) or (The dog crunched a bone in its kennel.) or, ultimately, any other sentence conveying to the hearer (or the reader, for that matter) the idea of doing something in a place that belongs to the doer of the activity (technical details are left aside, for ease of exposition).

From the syntagmatic-paradigmatic dichotomy, therefore, it can be seen that de Saussure, within his structuralist method, proffers a symmetrically significant standing to both the signifier and the signified in a kind of perpetual or, rather, timeless presence (Signified/Signifier). In this case, there is no logical difference between the two entities as long as this form of presence is not worn out by the course of time, and inasmuch as the arbitrary (or fortuitous) relationship between them represents a regularly mutual interdependence which necessarily entails an unfragmentable unification, as it is now to be understood. Thus, with the express structural reversal of such symmetrically significant standing, Lacan, within his psychoanalytic method, stresses the logical priority of the signifier and its logical ascendancy over the signified in a sort of non-perpetual presence or, rather, timeful absence (Signifier/signified). He is, thereby, deliberately accentuating an immovable barrier between the two entities, on the one hand, and subsequently disintegrating their interdependence and fragmenting their unification, on the other hand. As such, there is a logical difference between the two entities as long as the form of presence in question is worn out by the course of time, and inasmuch as the arbitrary (or fortuitous) relationship between them is governed by an historical coincidence that is superseded by another historical coincidence. From this viewpoint, Lacan seeks to liberate the signifier, so it appears, from any fixed or fixated form of bondage with the signified, as is the case with the linguistic sign referred to above, since the signified, being an abstract component in itself, is nothing more than a mere sample of the many (historical) by-products of the signifier as an ‘acoustic image’, the signifier which acts as the physical component of transmission in the totality of the language system. With this sharp structural opposition between de Saussure’s and Lacan’s logical positioning of the signifier vis-à-vis the signified, the underlying conceptual opposition between their psychical positioning of the latter entity (i.e. the signifier) can now be discerned more transparently: while the Saussurean signifier manifests itself as a psychically destructible term because it signifies something at every moment of articulation, the Lacanian signifier exhibits itself as a psychically indestructible element because it signifies nothing at the moment of articulation, given the seemingly destined impossibility of true articulation in the real order itself, as mentioned earlier (see note 1). Hence, as Lacan puts it in his words, “Every real signifier is, as such, a signifier that signifies nothing: the more the signifier signifies nothing, the more indestructible it is” (Lacan, 1955-6:185). If, however, the signifier signifies something which directly reflects its real intentionality, then this signification does coincide with what the subject’s true desire signifies at the unconscious level (the absent unconscious I), and thence does nothing but remain as one of his/her ensconced enigmas at the conscious level (the present conscious I). Yet this ensconced enigma (or invisible puzzle) can well be extrapolated, albeit with extreme difficulty, from particular manifestations of unconsciousness, such as dreams, parapraxes, jokes, symptoms, and the like –not to speak of the predeterminism of the wishful (or conative) signification in question by the phallic signification that is associated with the primordial signifier, as discussed above (see, also, note 2). It appears, therefore, that de Saussure’s account of language as a differential system is now subjected to a form of ideational reduction in Lacan’s account, and thus the differential system is reduced to the entity of the signifier per se rather than the entity of the sign as a combination of the signifier and the signified. This means that the entity of the signifier per se seeks to represent the subject’s being for another signifier within a seemingly endless ‘signifying chain’ –unlike the entity of the sign which intends to represent something for someone. Lacan avers: “Any node in which signs are concentrated [on], in so far as they represent something, may be taken for a ‘someone’. What must be stressed at the outset is that a signifier is that which represents a subject for another signifier” (Lacan, 1964:207). What is more, this endless signifying chain of signifiers manifests itself as a direct expression of the constant absence (or, rather, persistent lack) of any stable or fixed signification at the conscious level, on the one hand, and as an indirect expression of the perpetual insatiation of the subject’s true desire at the unconscious level, on the other hand. Such perpetual insatiation and persistent lack would indicate nothing but Lacan’s dogged assertion which dates back to more than two and a half millennia, the assertion that meaning is always in a state of flux (Lacan, 1956-7:288f.).[3] Therefore, with the exception of proper names, which do not tend to change (or alter) their ‘meanings’ at any moment of articulation, the endless signifying chain of signifiers would seem to display a vague proclivity towards what is known as ‘language processing’ in accordance with the logics of metonymy and metaphor, thus following the logics of syntagmas and paradigmas in de Saussure’s sense, respectively.

As for the logic of metonymy, at the one extreme, this figure of speech (or trope) operates syntagmatically (or horizontally) in order to conjoin a set of two (or more) unconscious signifiers which may be explicitly dissimilar, with the resultant conjunction process abiding by the laws of syntagmatic (or horizontal) contiguity. Along with the psychical effects of the endless signifying chain of signifiers referred to above, the logic of metonymy, according to Lacan, seeks to represent a non-recurrent synchronic movement from one unconscious signifier to another unconscious signifier incessantly, thereby indicating that signification (which is predetermined by the phallic signification of the primordial signifier) would, by all means, be unremittingly procrastinated. Given that the structure of (true) desire is, in and of itself, a metonymic structure at the level of unconsciousness (see Lacan’s oft-quoted injunction that “desire is a metonymy” (Lacan, 1966a:175; 1966b:439)), it is quite evident, therefore, that the very sense of the perpetual insatiation of the subject’s (true) desire mentioned above would correspond with the very sense of the unremitting procrastination of (phallic) signification, which is indicated by the synchronic movement at the same level. As a figure of speech (or trope) in any human language, the logic of metonymy (which is derived, via Latin, from the Greek compound word metaonoma ‘name alteration’) points to the ‘altering’ or ‘changing’ procedure whereby the habitual name of a given animate or inanimate object is substituted for the habitual name of another animate or inanimate object that is related to it, provided that the substitute embodies a particular attribution and the substituted incarnates a general attribution in the unmarked situation (for example, The Sail stands for the general ‘ship’; The Stage stands for the general ‘theatre’; and so on). In this unmarked situation, therefore, metonymy is well comparable to synecdoche, a further figure of speech (or trope) which implies the same ‘altering’ or ‘changing’ procedure, except that the substitute reveals a partial attribution and the substituted betrays a total attribution or vice versa (for instance, thirty head stands for ‘thirty cattle’, the army stands for ‘a soldier’, and so forth). Hence, the laws of syntagmatic (or horizontal) contiguity under consideration can be grasped more perspicuously, especially with respect to what is prescribed by the structure of (true) desire: just as The Sail, with its particular attribution, establishes a metonymic relationship with ‘the ship’, with its general attribution (that is, the two objects are apparently contiguous but explicitly dissimilar), so, too, the structure of (true) desire would dictate that one unconscious signifier constitute a metonymic rapport with another unconscious signifier without (the two) being necessarily contingent upon any phonemic or semantic similitude. This means, in other words, that the metonymic characterization which is attributed to the structure of (true) desire does necessitate the absence of any stabilized or fixated connection that is predictable between the substance of desire (i.e. the desiring substance or even the desiring subject) and the object of desire (i.e. the desired object itself) –unlike the connection between the needing substance (or subject) of need and its needed object, a connection that is well stabilized and well fixated, and is thence well predictable, simply because it is left to the ‘mercy’ of a purely biological determinism. In consequence, the term ‘metonymy’, with its characteristics of explicit dissimilarity and its concomitant laws of syntagmatic (or horizontal) contiguity, appears to be, in Lacan’s writings, nothing else than an alternative term to Freud’s concept of ‘displacement’ in the interpretive context of the dream-work specifically. As such, displacement manifests itself as an underlying mechanism whereby a certain oneiric image tends to symbolize another certain oneiric image which evidently follows it, even though the two oneiric images in question are quite remote from each other (cf. Freud, 1900:414f.; 1915-7:208f., etc.).

As for the logic of metaphor, at the other extreme, this figure of speech (or trope) functions paradigmatically (or vertically) instead, so as to combine a set of two (or more) unconscious signifiers that may be implicitly similar, with the resultant combination process complying, in this case, with the laws of paradigmatic (or vertical) discontiguity. Thus, in contradistinction to the conjunction process of metonymic association, the process which conjoins given unconscious signifiers within a single endless signifying chain (hence the apparent flow of the syntagmatic (or horizontal) relationships involved), the combination process of metaphoric association combines one unconscious signifier in one endless signifying chain with another unconscious signifier in another endless signifying chain (hence the manifest overflow of the paradigmatic (or vertical) relationships entailed). This indicates that the logic of metaphor, according to Lacan, tends to represent, hither, not a synchronic movement but a diachronic one, a recurrent movement which proceeds from one unconscious signifier (with its already metonymic attribution) to another unconscious signifier (with its already metonymic attribution, too). The former unconscious signifier appears to succumb to repression (viz. secondary repression) and disappears from the conscious sight, so to say, while the latter unconscious signifier seems to return again and don the garb of a psychogenic (or psychopathological) symptom at a later phase of development. Given that the structure of the symptom is, in and of itself, a metaphoric structure at the level of the unconscious (see Lacan’s injunction that “the symptom is a metaphor” (Lacan, 1966a:175; 1966b:439)), it is quite clear, therefore, that such a recurrent diachronic movement would ultimately reflect the seemingly intermittent repetition of the fluctuating magnitudes of the parental function (or the vacillating degrees of the paternal metaphor), as discussed earlier. This seemingly intermittent repetition would reflect, in turn, the recurrence of a past psychogenic (or psychopathological) symptom that is semantically reducible to the limit (or limits) of the phallic signification of the primordial signifier per se, the mythical forefather of all signifiers, as also explained earlier (see note 2). As a figure of speech (or trope) in any human language, the logic of metaphor (which is also derived, via Latin, from the Greek compound word metaphora ‘transference’) refers to the very ‘transference’ procedure whereby a given animate or inanimate object is substituted for, or employed in place of, another animate or inanimate object that is connected with it, provided that  this connection is based on an implicit resemblance between the substitute and the substituted in the unmarked situation (for example, Juliet is the sun; He is a lion; and so on). In this unmarked situation, therefore, metaphor is well analogous with simile, a further figure of speech (or trope) which implies the selfsame ‘transference’ procedure, except that the resemblance between the substitute and the substituted is explicitly marked by the use of the comparative adverbials as or like (for instance, Juliet is like the sun; He is like a lion; and so forth). Hence, the laws of paradigmatic (or vertical) discontiguity in question can be discerned more transparently with respect to what is prescribed by the structure of the symptom: just as Juliet, with its animateness, may well establish a metaphoric relationship with the sun, with its inanimateness (that is, the two objects are explicitly discontiguous but implicitly similar), so too the structure of the symptom may dictate that one unconscious signifier constitute a metaphoric rapport with another unconscious signifier which is psychically repressed (i.e. it functions in absentia) –unlike the case of the aforesaid metonymic rapport between any set of two (or more) unconscious signifiers which are apparently contiguous but explicitly dissimilar, the rapport that would operate in praesentia instead. Consequently, the term metaphor, with its characteristics of implicit similarity and its concomitant laws of paradigmatic (or vertical) discontiguity, seems to be, in Lacan’s writings as well, nothing more than an alternative term to Freud’s concept of ‘condensation’ in the interpretive context of the dream-work specifically. As such, condensation exhibits itself as another intrinsic mechanism whereby two (or more) simple oneiric images are combined, namely, those oneiric images which converge in the conjuring up of something of an animate or inanimate object, and are therefore fused and cohered into a single composite oneiric image (cf. Freud, 1900:383f.; 1915-7:205f., etc.).

Cleary, therefore, the logic of metonymy (with its syntagmas) and the logic of metaphor (with its paradigmas) are diametrically opposed logics in language processing in the universal sense. As such, the newly designated dichotomy ‘metonymy-metaphor’, which is in essence inspired by de Saussure’s further prominent dichotomy ‘synchronic-diachronic’ (see above), proves to be the most significant dichotomy in the Lacanian psychoanalytic method, especially with regard to the (mental) associational functioning(s) of unconscious signifiers. In fact, de Saussure’s dichotomy (as well as its structuralist entailment) has already inspired Jakobson, in the same manner, upon the latter’s assumption that there exist two distinctive compositional axes in language processing in the selfsame universal sense, viz. the combinatorial axis and the substitutive axis: on the one hand, the combinatorial axis operates syntagmatically (or horizontally) in accordance with the aforementioned characteristics of dissimilarity and laws of contiguity; and on the other hand, the substitutive axis functions paradigmatically (or vertically) in conformity with the aforesaid characteristics of similarity and laws of discontiguity (cf. Jakobson, 1956). Thus, in the normal case of language processing, the ‘undivided’ speaker (who is, in Lacan’s sense, a divided subject in the ‘normal’ clinical structure of neurosis) is inclined to implement given sets of metonymies under the combinatorial axis, on the one side, and to employ other given sets of metaphors under the substitutive axis, on the other side. Such normality of language processing, insofar as the two compositional axes imply what may be ‘expressible’ specifically, is incarnated as an inevitable consequence of what Bergson aptly calls the ‘inexpressible’ (or l’inexprimable) in the sense that human language, in any form of (universal) expression, is in fact unable to express the objects of intuition in precise and adequately expressive terms, for which reason the speaker (or the writer) is instigated to implement various figures of speech (or tropes), such as, metonymy, synecdoche, metaphor, simile, etc. (cf. Bergson, 1934:205). In the abnormal case of language processing, on the contrary, particularly in the aberrant development of what is known as ‘language aphasia’, Jakobson observes that either of the two compositional axes is functionally debilitated, thereby leading to the functional prevalence of the other (and not necessarily to the reinforcement of its functioning): the aphasiac who suffers from a dissimilarity-contiguity disorder is liable to use sets of metaphors (or their analogues, similes) predominantly via the substitutive axis, and the (counter) aphasiac who suffers from a similarity-discontiguity disorder is disposed to use sets of metonymies (or their analogues, synecdoches) predominantly via the combinatorial axis (cf. Jakobson, 1956:239f.). It is, thence, inviting to suggest that these two types of aphasic disorders may now be classified under what Freud more aptly terms, the ‘first-order aphasia’ (or ‘verbal aphasia’), where “only the associations between the separate elements of the word-presentation are disturbed”. This is because the first-order aphasia is so distinguished from what he far more aptly terms, the ‘second-order aphasia’ (or ‘asymbolic aphasia’), where “the association between the word-presentation and the object-presentation is disturbed [instead]”, not to speak, naturally, of his last (rather modified) term, the ‘third-order aphasia’ (or ‘agnostic aphasia’), in which the disturbance appears to occur in the association between the object and its presentation, or even perhaps between the word and its (re)presentation (cf. Freud, 1915b:222). Thus, returning to the normal case of language processing in the universal sense, Lacan seems to willingly agree with Jakobson on his characterization of the two associative factors of metonymy and metaphor with the two driving forces of the combinatorial axis and the substitutive axis, respectively. Such a characterization can be evidently seen from the subject’s statement (I am careful), for instance, where the signifiers am and careful establish a metonymic relationship under the combinatorial axis, and the signifiers careful and (possibly) careless constitute, in turn, a metaphoric rapport under the substitutive axis –this is not in dispute. However, Lacan appears to more willingly disagree with Jakobson over the exact and precise parallel of metonymy and metaphor with the Freudian terminology just mentioned: while Jakobson equates metonymy with both displacement and condensation, and equates metaphor even further with both identification and symbolization (Jakobson, 1956:258), Lacan on his part would simply compare metonymy with displacement, and would merely compare metaphor with condensation, as seen.[4] As a result, Lacan emphasizes the priority of metonymic association and its logical dominion over metaphoric association on the (quite perceivable) assumption that displacement itself may well be activated as a logically ordered precondition for condensation to start its ‘expressible’ (or even ‘inexpressible’) activity, simply because “the coordination of signifiers has to be possible [in language processing] before ‘transferences’ of the signified are able to take place” (Lacan, 1955-6:229).

It appears, therefore, that Lacan’s principal thesis which allocates logical priority to metonymic association over metaphoric association, from this very standpoint, is no more than a self-evident corollary of the logical ascendancy that he intentionally assigns to the signifier over the signified (Signifier/signified) –as being contrary to the symmetrically significant status of the two entities (Signified/Signifier) in de Saussure’s sense, as discussed above. Yet, both Lacan and de Saussure seem to be in apt agreement upon logically prioritizing the structural (i.e. concrete) dimension of language over its conceptual (i.e. abstract) dimension, since the combination of the signifier and the signified, according to the latter, “produces a form, not a substance” (de Saussure, 1916:113; original emphasis). With this conspicuous injunction that ‘language’, as a human phenomenon, should be anatomized from the perspective of its internal structure, Lacan tends to be convinced by the even more conspicuous injunction that Freud’s approach to the human psyche and de Saussure’s approach to human language should be looked upon as complementary to each other: whereas Freud intends to discover the language of the unconscious and what it may construct meta-psychologically, de Saussure, in turn, seeks to explore the unconscious of language and what it may procure meta-collectively. This apropos interdisciplinary viewpoint, lastly, brings to light de Saussure’s further eminent dichotomy, langue-parole (roughly, ‘language-speech’), the dichotomy to which Lacan attaches by far the greatest importance within his psychoanalytic method. As mentioned earlier, de Saussure, within his structuralist method, considers langue to be no more than a differential system of signs, an abstract, nonphysical system which comprises, in its designed totality, all of the possible linguistic habits that have survived in a given society or (speech) community –unlike his aforesaid notion of parole as a natural realization shown to be almost in full conformity with that differential system per se, a concrete, physical realization which does include, in its designated partiality, any observable set of linguistic acts (or actions) that are produced by the individual in the same society or (speech) community (cf. de Saussure, 1916:77). Since Lacan, on his part, regards human language as a differential system of signifiers, in accordance with his idea of it (that is, language) as a representational phenomenon in the first place, he then makes a further distinction between langue ‘a language’ as a concrete, sensible system with its conceived particularity (e.g. Arabic, English, French, etc.), on the one hand, and so-called langage ‘language’ as an abstract, perceptible system with its conceivable generality (i.e. the universal language which embraces the superstructure of all human languages), on the other hand. In consequence, Lacan resorts quite wilfully to the establishment of his specified psychoanalytic dichotomy langage-parole as a substitute for de Saussure’s specific structuralist dichotomy langue-parole (cf. Lacan, 1966a:30f.; 1966b:197f.).[5] Lacan’s principal incentive to establishing this alternative dichotomy is the full conviction that it is the ‘input’ of langage (i.e. the silent language), rather than that of langue, which would inmostly represent the unconscious mode of human language with its taciturnity –unlike the ‘output’ of parole (i.e. the seemingly loquacious language) which would only outmostly exemplify the conscious mode of human language with its vociferance instead. This means that the aforementioned (personal) subject’s division between the unconscious I (in the enunciation) and the conscious I (in the statement) can now be translated into his/her division or fissure between the inmostness of taciturn langage and the outmostness of vociferant parole, respectively, given their respective translation into the world of signifiers (in the symbolic order) and the world of signifieds (in the imaginary order). Thus, in the instance (I am careful) just cited, the signifier careful would establish an integral constituent of the subject’s same statement (I am careful) as a conscious by-product of parole, while the (possible) antonymous signifier careless would, in this case, constitute an integrated component of his/her analogous enunciation (I am careless) as an unconscious by-product of langage. As a result, Lacan’s single-minded tendency towards the more conspicuous injunction that Freud’s approach to the human psyche (that is, his aspiration to discover the language of the unconscious) and de Saussure’s approach to human language (that is, his ambition of exploring the unconscious of language) should be scientifically accommodated to each other is, in fact, a very considerable attempt, on Lacan’s part, to further demonstrate his most celebrated (and often misconstrued) maxim that “the unconscious is structured like a language” (Lacan, 1955-6:167; 1964:20; original emphasis), the maxim that has already been quoted in the interpretive context of the dream-work (see note 4).

With the indubitable contention that dreams, even if they become chimeras or confused dreams, are the manifestations of the unconscious (along with jokes, parapraxes, and symptoms), it can now be evidently seen from the initial intention of Lacan’s set maxim that the language of the unconscious, first and foremost, seems to operate in terms of enigmas and conundrums in places where, and at times when, they could not possibly be. In fact, this initial intention is not new in itself: it has already been expressed and stressed by Freud himself in the interpretive context of the dream-work, in particular, upon his figurative implementation of the so-called ‘rebus’ (that is, the pictorial representation of the signifier which suggests its composite syllables), thereby stressing further the semantic analogy between the structure of the dream and the structure of the rebus. In this respect, Freud avers: “we can only form a proper judgement of the rebus if […] we try to replace each separate element by a syllable or word that can be presented by that element in some way or other. The words which are put together in this way are no longer nonsensical but may form a poetical phrase of the greatest beauty and significance. A dream is [thence] a picture-puzzle of this sort” (Freud, 1900:382). Moreover, the criticisms that are levelled against Lacan’s set maxim, most of which tend to resonate Benveniste’s criticism of Freud’s obscure article “The antithetical sense of primal words” (or Gegensinn der Urworte) (cf. Benveniste, 1966:68f.), appear, in effect, to have been based both on sheer misunderstanding of the mechanism(s) which underlie(s) the system of human (or natural) language, in general, and on utter ignorance of Freud’s An Outline of Psychoanalysis, the very last work which indicates more clearly that the set dictum is actually his, and not Lacan’s, one may say incontestably. Notice, in this context, how Freud ascribes the semantic dimension of the dream to the developmental aspect of speech itself in his own words: “Dreams [even if muddled] make an unrestricted use of linguistic symbols, the meaning of which is for the most part unknown to the dreamer. […] They probably originate from earlier phases in the development of speech” (Freud, 1938b:398f.; emphasis added). And in this respect, above all, the same Freudian set dictum (along with de Saussure’s structuralist linguistics) may also have exerted its direct conceptual influence on Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist anthropology, who declares with conviction that the myth, even with its pure imaginativeness, must reflect a linguistic structure, in one shape or another, within a differential system of what he terms ‘mythemes’ on the analogy of phonemes (and therefore signs, by extension –see above), given the remarkable congruency that exists essentially between myths and dreams in their temporal vagueness and spatial ambiguity (cf. Lévi-Strauss, 1963; 1978). Thus, what the set maxim or dictum in question implies can now be discerned more unambiguously: just as the myth is structured like a language by dint of being narratable, so too the dream is structured like a language in virtue of being relatable. Hence, Lacan deliberately coins the neologism lalangue to denote those things and ideas that are beyond both narration and relation (as is the analogous case with the aforesaid term l’inexprimable ‘the inexpressible’ in Bergson’s sense), thereby suggesting salubriously that the subject’s tenacious tendency towards playing on the ambiguousness of the unconscious signifier, as a preordained fact, would no doubt result in a sort of psychical-lingual satyriasis and nymphomania that would, in turn, harbour a kind of lingual enjoyment/pleasure or the lingualness of jouissance per se (another neologism coined by Lacan to also suggest an amalgam of ‘play’ and ‘orgasm’ simultaneously) (cf. Lacan, 1972-3:126). What seems to principally have motivated Lacan’s neologisms such as these is, in fact, his lengthy erudite seminar on Joyce, whose last work Finnegans Wake is unparalleled with its psychotic language that rebels against all forms of writing and with its polysemous signifiers that are intractable for any reader in any ‘language’. For this reason, alone, Lacan considers the style of the work in question a style that is instinct with what he terms, ‘stuffed signifiers’ (such as, the stuffed signifier bootiful whose ingredients are at least three less stuffed signifiers: boot, booty, and (puerile) beautiful, etc.) (cf. Lacan, 1975; 1975-6; Fink, 2004:83). Joyce’s last work Finnegans Wake appears, therefore, to incarnate with its psychotic language the unconscious epic of the mind where the events occur in the darkness of the night –unlike his second last work Ulysses which seems, quite the opposite, to embody with its neurotic language the conscious epic of the body where the events take place in the lightness of the day.

From the above detailed discussion of the entity of the signifier, it can be ostensibly seen that this entity, as well as the light it can see, tends to preempt unsparingly the psychical significance of the subject’s entire being (i.e. his/her existence and his/her cogitation alike), a preemption which commences its free indulgence, so to say, not only at the very moment the subject speaks a word or signifies an idea or a thing, but also when he/she does not know what to utter unintentionally, or even when he/she does not articulate a word quite intentionally and purposefully. Hence, such unfortunate preemptiveness reveals, in and of itself, the genesis of the seemingly unbridgeable lacuna (or, rather, the insurmountable impasse) between what the unwilling subject means to state in the statement consciously (via the conscious I) and what the willing subject means to enunciate in the enunciation unconsciously (via the unconscious I), since the language of desire (as well as the language(s) of what all versions of desire may enfold) does not, in fact, function through visible linguistic structures at the level of ‘visible’  parole, but rather it operates through invisible linguistic structures at the level of ‘invisible’ langage, otherwise it will certainly be doomed to ineffability (inexpressibility or unsayability or unvoiceability) in ‘avisible’ lalangue. For this very reason, Lacan adopts the jussive injunction that the analyst should never take what the unwilling analysand means to say consciously (via the conscious I) at face value, but should focus attention, instead, upon all manifestations of the unconscious signifier (via the unconscious I), given their inherent characteristics of trans-individuality, and therefore their unavailability at the analysand’s disposal (cf. Lacan, 1966a:49; 1966b:214; Fink, 1997:20f.). Accordingly, Lacan illustrates how the psychical significance of the subject’s entire being is unsparingly preempted by the unconscious signifier per se through his quite stimulating analysis of Poe’s story “The purloined letter” (cf. Lacan, 1966b:6f.). This very unique story is about a ‘secret letter’ which manifests itself as a fortuitous symbol of the unconscious signifier, a letter that was personally addressed to the queen and was, then, forcibly stolen by a minister in the king’s absence. The letter, or even a trace of it, could not be recovered by any of the policemen who went in quite long search of it and in thorough examination of where it might be, thereby assuming that the minister had hidden it in a place which no one actually knew (except for him). Yet, the letter itself could at last be found by a ‘shrewd’ detective, but guess where? –in the most obvious place which even the ‘blind’ could see: on open display in a letter rack dangling from the mantelpiece in the minister’s house. Given that the letter was never, in fact, opened (and subsequently read) throughout the whole story, this deliberate narrative negation (or ‘denial’, in the psychological sense) clearly signifies that all the fictional characters within the narration (including the factual character of the reader as such) could not succeed in determining the import of the letter in the first place. It is, therefore, the entity of the unconscious signifier itself (or the entity of the secret letter itself) not that of the signified (or that of the import) which would be the concrete rather than abstract force that determines the (entire) psychical significance of the characters (and the reader). This means that the human being does not initially exist as an independent being and then enters into the world(s) of signifiers as a dependent being. The human being comes into existence only in and through the world(s) of signifiers, since it is the realms of words per se which create the realms of things. But how can the realm of the word exhaust the meaning of the word (or drain the meaning of meaning) in anything except the mental action that engenders it and does instigate it? Lacan replies: “It was certainly the Word [verbe] that was in the beginning, and we live in its creation, but it is our mental [esprit] action that continues this creation by constantly renewing it. And we can only think back to [that] action by allowing ourselves to be driven ever further ahead by it” (Lacan, 1966a:61; 1966b:225)

In the light of this attempted exposition, it can be seen that the signifier manifests itself, within the Lacanian psychoanalytic method, as an entity that is associated with a more comprehensive signification than the sort of signification it is associated with in accordance with the Saussurean structuralist method. In this case, it seems that the signifier is not just an entity which is merely based on the concrete (or physical) part of the sign, but also an entity that contains, as one of its numerous by-products, the entity of the signified itself, the entity which is based on the abstract (or psychical) part in contrast. What is more, the signifier also exhibits itself as an entity that has an inevitable and quite overbearingly representative function: upon representation hitherward, it overpowers ruthlessly the entire psychical significance of the subject’s being in its entirety (i.e. his/her existence and his/her thinking alike). In this case, too, it appears that the subject’s being is what it is within the deluge of innumerable antithetical dichotomies (or even dualisms), and it is what it is from the perspective of signifiers which may inter into the system of consciousness at the one end, and which may be firmly embedded in the system of unconsciousness at the other end. This is because the signifier is, in and of itself, an entity that represents the subject’s being in spheres where he/she can or cannot possibly be, a representation which cannot, in the real order, but stamp his/her symbolic identity through the medium of the symbolic order, whether he/she likes it or not.

Summary

In short, the signifier, with its concrete mediation, does not represent the (personal) subject as an undivided, discrete and clear-cut being, but rather it represents him/her as a divided, indiscrete and ambivalent being, given that the aforesaid inauspicious attributes (viz. inherent hesitation, immanent division, and perpetual alienation) take possession of his/her psychical significance, as well as what it may obtain, at the level of language. And given that all sorts of significations of (later) signifiers are predetermined by the phallic signification of the primordial signifier, the subject’s ability to assimilate this very sort of signifier is embodied as further evidence of his/her neurosis in the ‘normal’ psychopathological cases, whereas the subject’s inability to assimilate the same sort of signifier is incarnated as another proof of his/her psychosis in the ‘abnormal’ psychopathological cases. Hence, the (predetermining) primordial signifier comes to light as the mythical forefather of what was called ‘intra-linguistic signifiers’, the signifiers which emit their significations inside the domain of language, and which stand in spatial contrast with what was named ‘extra-linguistic signifiers’, those signifiers that cast out their significations outside the domain of language. From the minute explanation of de Saussure’s famous dichotomy ‘signifier-signified’, to which Lacan attaches great importance (but upon deliberately subjecting its concept to certain important psychical modifications), it can be seen that there is a remarkable conceptual convergence between de Saussure’s account of the signifier as an acoustic image and Freud’s account of the word as a sound-image, thereby highlighting the long history which lies behind this dichotomy. But the conceptual divergence between de Saussure and Lacan in the selfsame dichotomy would bear upon the logical positioning of its two entities: while de Saussure offers a symmetrically significant standing to the signifier and the signified, Lacan underlines the logical priority of the former entity, and thus its logical ascendancy, over the latter entity. Moreover, de Saussure’s further prominent dichotomy ‘syntagmatic-paradigmatic’, to which Lacan attaches greater importance, throws light on de Saussure’s contention that the signifier  may acquire its particular signification (or its particular signified per se) only by means of its syntagmatic and/or paradigmatic relationships with other signifiers, given his view of language as a differential system of signs –and nothing else. Therefore, within the quite discernible structural opposition between de Saussure’s and Lacan’s logical positioning of the signifier vis-à-vis the signified, the conceptual opposition between their psychical positioning of the signifier, in particular, is also perceivable: whereas de Saussure regards the signifier as a psychically destructible term because it signifies something, Lacan considers it a psychically indestructible element simply because it signifies nothing in the real order, given the  destined impossibility of true articulation in this order. As a result, within Lacan’s view of language as a differential system of signifiers (rather than signs), he adopts the adamant contention that the signifier seeks to represent the subject for another signifier, a representation which leads to the formation of an endless signifying chain, thereby underlining the ancient assertion that meaning (as well as its derivations) is always in a state of flux. In language processing, in particular, this endless signifying chain seems to follow both the logic of metonymy, which operates syntagmatically (or horizontally) at the one extreme, and the antithetical logic of metaphor, which functions paradigmatically (or vertically) at the other extreme.

Now that the new dichotomy ‘metonymy-metaphor’ forms a diametrical opposition in the normal course of language processing (the dichotomy which is originally inspired by de Saussure’s further eminent dichotomy ‘synchronic-diachronic’), the two figures of speech (or tropes) are further characterized with the two compositional axes that Jakobson postulates in the same course, respectively: the combinatorial axis which acts syntagmatically (or horizontally) and the substitutive axis that works paradigmatically (or vertically). In the abnormal course of language aphasia, on the contrary, the mental debilitation of either compositional axis would result in the mental predominance of the other (and not necessarily in its mental reinforcement): if the combinatorial axis is mentally debilitated for some reason, then the aphasiac tends to employ metaphors predominantly via the substitutive axis, and vice versa. Whereas Lacan agrees with Jakobson’s formulation of the two compositional axes as such, the former disagrees with the latter over the exact conceptual parallelism of metonymy and metaphor in language processing with Freud’s terms (displacement and condensation) in the interpretive context of the dream-work: at the one end, Jakobson affiliates metonymy with both displacement and condensation, and metaphor with both identification and symbolization; and at the other end, Lacan associates metonymy with displacement only and metaphor with condensation only. Accordingly, Lacan is underpinning the logical priority of metonymic association (or displacement) over metaphoric association (or condensation), a logical priority which is a self-evident corollary of the logical ascendancy that he assigns to the signifier over the signified –in contrast with the symmetrically significant status of the two entities in de Saussure’s sense. Yet there is a concurrence between both Lacan and de Saussure in the logical prioritization of the structural (i.e. concrete) dimension of language over its conceptual (i.e. abstract) dimension,  a concurrence whereby Lacan draws on, and attaches by far the greatest importance to, de Saussure’s still further eminent dichotomy langue-parole (roughly, ‘language-speech’), so as to make a further distinction between langue ‘a language’ as being a specific, concrete system and langage ‘language’ as being a general, abstract system, and to subsequently establish his dichotomy langage-parole, and not langue-parole (with the neologism lalangue pointing to those intractable aspects of language that are incommunicable). Lacan’s main incentive to such a distinction is his contention that it is the input of langage (the silent language), rather than that of langue, which would represent the unconscious mode of language –unlike the output of parole which would only exemplify its conscious mode. This indicates that the subject’s division between the unconscious I (in the enunciation) and the conscious I (in the statement) can now be translated into his/her division or fissure between the inmostness of langage and the outmostness of parole, respectively, not to mention his/her respective division between the world of signifiers in the symbolic order and the world of signifieds in the imaginary order. Thus, upon his full conviction that Freud’s approach to the human psyche (i.e. his intention to discover the language of the unconscious) and de Saussure’s approach to human language (i.e. his pursuit of exploring the unconscious of language) should be reconciled with each other, Lacan’s most celebrated maxim that “the unconscious is structured like a language” seems, in fact, to be quite misconstrued, since its origins are well traceable in Freud’s theorization on the dream-work specifically. Here, the dream, as one of the four manifestations of the unconscious (the others being the joke, the parapraxis, and the symptom), is also structured like a language (i.e. a set of phonemes) in virtue of being relatable, just as the myth, in Lévi-Strauss’s sense, is structured like a language (i.e. a set of mythemes) by dint of being narratable –hence, Lacan’s neologism lalangue exhibits itself as a ‘continuum’ which refers to those recalcitrant aspects of language that are beyond relation or narration, as is the case with l’inexprimable ‘the inexpressible’ in Bergson’s sense. Finally, the signifier manifests itself as an entity which preempts unsparingly the psychical significance of the subject’s entire being at the very moment he/she speaks, or does not speak, a word or he/she signifies, or does not signify, an idea or a thing, a preemption which marks the constitution of the unbridgeable gap between what the unwilling subject means to state consciously and what the willing subject means to enunciate unconsciously. This is because the language of desire does not, in fact, function through visible linguistic structures at the level of parole, but rather it would operate through invisible linguistic structures at the level of langage (otherwise it will be doomed to ineffability or incommunicability in lalangue). In consequence, the human being does not initially exist as an independent being and then enters into the worlds of signifiers as a dependent being. The human being comes into being only in and through the worlds of signifiers, since it is the realms of words per se which create the realms of things. And “it was certainly the Word [verbe] that was in the beginning”.

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