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===Ferdinand de Saussure===

[[Lacan]]'s frequent references to the "[[letter]]" must be seen within the context of [[Saussure]]'s discussion of [[language]]. In his ''[[Saussure|Course in General Linguistics]]'', [[Saussure]] privileges [[speech|spoken]] [[language]] above [[writing|written]] [[language]], on the grounds that the former appears before the latter both in the [[time|history]] of [[human|humanity]] and in the life of the individual. [[Writing]] is conceived of as a mere secondhand representation of [[speech|spoken]] [[language]], and the [[signifier]] is conceived of as purely an acoustic image and not as a graphic one.<ref>[[Saussure|Saussure, Ferdinand de]]. ''[[Saussure|Course in General Linguistics]]'', 1916. Ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, trans. Wade Baskin, Glasgow: Collins Fontana.</ref>

When [[Lacan]] takes up [[Saussure]]'s work in the 1950s, he adapts it freely to his own purposes. He thus conceives of the [[letter]], not as a mere graphic representation of a sound, but as the [[materialism|material basis]] of [[language]] itself.

<blockquote>"By ''letter'' I designate that material support that concrete discourse borrows from language."<ref>{{E}} p. 147</ref></blockquote>

The [[letter]] is thus connected with the [[real]], a [[materialism|material substrate]] that underpins the [[symbolic order]]. The concept of [[materialism|materiality]] implies, for [[Lacan]], both the indivisibility and the idea of locality; the [[letter]] is therefore "the essentially localized structured of the signifier."<ref>{{E}} p. 153</ref>