Sign

sign (signe) Lacan defines the sign as that which 'represents something

for someone', in opposition to the SIGNIFIER, which is 'that which represents a

subject for another signifier' (S11, 207). By engaging with the concept of the

sign, Lacan sets his work in close relation to the science of semiotics, which

has grown rapidly in the twentieth century. Two main lines of development

 can be discerned within semiotics: the European line associated with Ferdi-

nand de Saussure (which Saussure himself baptised with the name of 'semi-

ology'), and the North American line associated with Charles S. Peirce.

     l. According to Saussure, the sign is the basic unit of LANGUAGE (ÕQRguÄ).

The sign is constituted by two elements: a conceptual element (which Saussure

calls the signified), and a phonological element (called the signifier). The two

elements are linked by an arbitrary but unbreakable bond. Saussure repre-

sented the sign by means of a diagram (Figurel7; see Saussure, 1916: 114).

    In this diagram, the arrows represent the reciprocal implication inherent in

signification, and the line between the signified and the signifier represents

umon.

    Lacan takes up the Saussurean concept of the sign in his 'linguistic turn' in

psychoanalysis during the 1950s, but subjects it to several modifications.

Firstly, whereas Saussure posited the reciprocal implication between the

signifier and the signified (they are as mutually interdependent as two sides

of a sheet of paper), Lacan argues that the relation between signifier and

signified is extremely unstable (see suP). Secondly, Lacan asserts the exis-

tence of an order of 'pure signifiers', where signifiers exist prior to signifieds;

this order of purely logical structure is the unconscious. This amounts to a

destruction of Saussure's concept of the sign; for Lacan, a language is not

composed of signs but of signifiers.

    To illustrate the contrast between his own views and those of Saussure,

Lacan replaces Saussure's diagram of the sign with an algorithm (Figurel8)

which, Lacan argues, should be attributed to Saussure (and is thus now

sometimes referred to as the 'Saussurean algorithm' - see E, 149).

    The S in Figure 18 stands for the signifier, and the s for the signified; the

position of the signified and the signifier is thus inverted, showing the primacy

of the signifier (which is capitalised, whereas the signifier is reduced to mere

lower-case italic). The arrows and the circle are abolished, representing the

absence of a stable or fixed relation between signifier and signified. The BAR

between the signifier and the signified no longer represents union but the

resistance inherent in signification. For Lacan, this algorithm defines 'the

topography of the unconscious' (E, 163).

    2. According to Peirce, the sign is something which represents an object to

some interpretant (the term 'object' can mean, for Peirce, a physical thing, an

event, an idea, or another sign). Peirce divides signs into three classes:

'symbols', 'indices' and 'icons', which differ in the way they relate to the

object. The symbol has no 'natural' or necessary relationship to the object it

refers to, but is related to the object by a purely conventional rule. The INDEX

has an 'existential relation' to the object it represents (i.e. the index is always

spatially or temporally contiguous to the object). The icon represents an object

by exhibiting its form via similarity. Peirce's distinctions between icons,

indices and symbols are analytical and not intended to be mutually exclu-

sive. Hence a sign will almost always function in a variety of modes; personal

pronouns, for example, are signs which function both Symbolically and

indexically (see Peirce, 1932: 156-73; Burks, 1949).

    Lacan takes up Peirce's concept of the index in order to distinguish between

the psychoanalytic and medical concepts of the symptom, and to distinguish

between (animal) codes and (human) languages. Lacan also develops the

concept of the index along the lines set down by Roman Jakobson in the

concept of the SHIFTER, to distinguish between the subject of the statement and

the subject of the enunciation.