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==Jacques Lacan==
===Symbolic Chain===
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>
===Chain of Signifiers===
===Diachronic and Synchronic Dimensions===
In truth, the [[signifying chain]] is both of these things. In its [[diachrony|diachronic]] dimension it is linear, [[syntagmatic]], [[metonymic]]; in its [[synchrony|synchronic]] dimension it is circular, associative, [[metaphoric]]. The two cross over:
<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>
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