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"[[speech]]" ([[Fr]]. ''[[parole]]''))
The [[French]] term ''[[parole]]'' presents considerable difficulty to the English translator because it does not correspond to any one English word.
In 1954, [[Lacan]] discusses speech with reference to St Augustine's De locutionis significatione <ref>{{S1}} p.247-60</ref>
Like the words uttered by God in Genesis, [[speech]] is a "symbolic invocation" which creates, ex nihilo, "a new order of being in the relations between men."<ref>{{S1}} p. 239}}</ref>
[[Full speech]] articulates the symbolic dimension of language, whereas [[empty speech]] articulates the imaginary dimension of [[language]], the [[speech]] from the [[ego]] to the [[counterpart]].
<blockquote>"Full speech is a speech full of meaning [sens]. Empty speech is a speech which has only signification."<ref>{{L}} 1976--7; Ornicar?, nos 17/18: 11}}</ref></blockquote>
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[[Speech|Empty speech]] is not the same as [[truth|lying]]; on the contrary, [[truth|lies]] often reveal the [[truth]] about [[desire]] more fully than many [[truth|honest]] [[statement]]s.<ref>{{S11}} p.139-40</ref>
It is never possible to articulate in [[speech]] the whole [[truth]] of one's [[desire,]] because of a fundamental "incompatibility between desire and speech."<ref>{{E}} p.275}}</ref>.
<blockquote>"I always tell the truth; not the whole truth, because we are not capable of telling it all. Telling it all is materially impossible."<ref>{{L}} 1973a: 9}}</ref></blockquote>
[[Speech|Full speech]], then, is not the articulation in [[speech]] of the whole [[truth]] about the [[subject]]'s [[desire]], but the [[speech]] which articulates this truth as fully as possible at a particular [[time]].
[[Speech]] is the only means of access to the [[truth]] about [[desire]].
<blockquote>"Speech alone is the key to that truth."<ref>{{E}} p.172}}</ref></blockquote>
Moreover, [[psychoanalytic theory]] claims that it is only a particular kind of [[speech]] that leads to this [[truth]]; a [[speech]] without [[conscious]] [[master|control]], known as [[free association]].
