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=====Jacques Lacan=====
=====Early Work=====
In [[Lacan]]'s pre-1950s writings, the term "[[signification]]'' is used in a general way to connote both [[meaning]]fulness and importance.<ref>{{Ec}} p.81</ref>
=====Example=====
In 1946, for example, [[Lacan]] criticizes organicist [[psychiatry]] for ignoring "the significance of madness."<ref>{{Ec}} p.167, 153-4</ref>
=====Later Work=====
=====Symbolic Order=====
In the period 1953-7 the term retains these vague associations with the realm of [[meaning]] and [[language]], and is thus located in the [[symbolic order]].<ref>{{S4}} p.121</ref>
=====Latest Work=====
=====Imaginary Order=====
It is from 1957 on that [[Lacan]]'s use of the term takes on a direct reference to the [[Saussurean]] concept, and shifts from the [[symbolic]] to the [[imaginary]] order.
=====Ferdinand de Saussure=====
=====Relation between Signifier and Signified=====
[[Saussure]] reserves the term "[[signification]]" for the relation between the [[signifier]] and the [[signified]]; each sound-image is said to "signify" a concept.<ref>[[Saussure|Saussure, Ferdinand de]]. (1916) ''[[Saussure|Course in General Linguistics]]'', ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, trans. Wade Baskin, Glasgow: Collins Fontana. p.114</ref>
[[Signification]] is, for [[Saussure]], an unbreakable bond; the [[signifier]] and the [[signified]] are inseparable as the two sides of a sheet of paper.
=====Jacques Lacan=====
=====Relation between Signifier and Signified=====
[[Image:SAUSSUREANALGORITHM.gif|right|thumb|Saussurean algorithm|The Saussurean algorithm]]
[[Lacan]] argues that the relationship between [[signifier]] and [[signified]] is far more precarious; he sees the [[bar]] between them in the [[Saussurean algorithm]] as representing not a bond but a rupture, a "resistance" to [[signification]].<ref>{{E}} p.164</ref>
=====Primacy of the Signifier=====
Firstly, the [[signifier]] is logically prior to the [[signified]], which is merely an effect of the play of [[signifier]]s.
=====Slippage=====
Secondly, even when [[signified]]s are produced, they constantly [[slip]] and slide underneath the [[signifier]]; the only things that detain this movement temporarily, pinning the [[signifier]] to the [[signified]] for a brief moment and creating the [[delusion|illusion]] of a stable [[meaning]], are the [[points de capiton]].
=====Metaphor and Metonymy=====
[[Signification]] is, in [[Lacan]]'s work, not a stable bond between [[signifier]] and [[signified]], but a process -- the process by which the play of [[signifier]]s produces the [[delusion|illusion]] of the [[signified]] via the two tropes of [[metonymy]] and [[metaphor]].
==See Also==
* [[Index]]
* [[Language]]
* [[Metaphor]]
* [[Materialism]]
* [[Signifier]]
* [[Signified]]
* [[Signifying Chain]]
* [[Shifter]]
* [[Subject]]
* [[Symbol]]
== References ==
<references/>
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Linguistics]]
[[Category:Dictionary]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Symbolic]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:OK]]
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