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: ([[Fr]]. ''[[chaîne signifiante]]'', ''[[chaîne du signifiant]]'')
==Jacques Lacan==
The term "[[chain]]" is used increasingly by [[Lacan]] from the mid-1950s on, always in references to the [[symbolic order]].
At first, in 1956, he speaks not of the [[signifying chain]] but of the ''[[symbolic]]'' [[chain]], by which he denotes a line of descendence into which each [[subject]] is inscribed even before his before and after his death, and which influences his destiny [[unconscious|unconsciously]].<ref>{{Ec}} p.468</ref>
In the same year he speaks of "the chain of discourse."<ref>{{S3}} p.261</ref>
The [[chain]] is also [[metonymy|metonymic]] in the production of [[meaning]]; [[signification]] is not present at any one point in the [[chain]], but rather [[meaning]] "insists" in the movement from one [[signifier]] to another.<ref>{{E}} p.153</ref>
=====Linearity Versus Circularity=====
[[Lacan]] speaks of the [[signifying chain]] in linear [[metaphor]]s and circular [[metaphor]]s.
=====Linearity=====
=====Metaphoric Axis of Language=====
On the other hand, the idea of circularity suggests that the [[signifying chain]] is a series of [[signifier]]s linked by [[free association]]s, just one path through the network of [[signifiers]] which constitutes the [[symbolic]] [[world]] of the [[subject]] -- which [[Saussure]] calls "[[associative]]" relationships, and [[Lacan]], following [[Jakobson]], locates on the [[metaphoric]] axis of [[language]].
=====Diachronic and Synchronic Dimensions=====
In truth, the [[signifying chain]] is both of these things.
<blockquote>"There is in effect no signifying chain [diachronic chain] that does not have, as if attached to the punctuation of each of its units, a whole articulation of relevant contexts [synchronic units] suspended 'vertically', as it were, from that point."<ref>{{E}} p.154</ref></blockquote>
[[Lacan]] thus combines in one concept the two types of relationship ("[[syntagmatic]]" and "''associative''") which [[Saussure]] argued existed between [[signssign]]s, though for [[Lacan]], the relationship is between [[signifiers]], not [[signssign]]s.
== See Also==
* [[Diachrony]]
* [[Language]]
* [[Metaphor]]
* [[MaterialismMetonymy]]
* [[Sign]]
* [[Signification]]
* [[SignifiedSignifier]]* [[Signifying ChainSymbolic order]]* [[SubjectSynchrony]]
== References ==
