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The [[concept ]] of the parade of [[signifiers ]] was formulated by Jacques [[Lacan ]] in relation to his [[thesis ]] that "the [[unconscious ]] is [[structured ]] like a [[language]]" and more specifically to his conception of unconscious [[desire]]. The [[speaking ]] [[subject ]] constantly expresses something of his or her desire by way of [[demand]]. Thus the parade of signifiers is structurally linked to the flow of [[speech]]. Since a single [[signifier ]] never signifies anything as such, it is necessarily linked to [[others ]] that [[form ]] a [[chain ]] of signifiers and, in fact, [[discourse]], or a march of signifiers.

The series of signifiers that parades through speech has its source in the [[necessity ]] of demand, which is always fundamentally a demand for the lost [[object ]] (''das [[Ding]]''). This demand is repeated as a demand for the object of [[desire, ]] [[object a]], the object that remains forever [[lacking]]. In this [[sense]], since desire is always inscribed between [[need ]] and demand, it can have no [[other ]] outcome than to make itself heard in the indeterminate series of signifiers that march through the signifying chain.

Through the [[intervention ]] of the signifiers of the [[Name]]-of-the-[[Father]], the [[structuring ]] [[character ]] of the paternal [[metaphor ]] imposes a regulated [[order ]] on this signifying parade. The [[absence ]] of such regulation, which results from the [[foreclosure ]] of the signifiers of the Name-of-the-Father, causes the chain of signifiers to disintegrate, as [[psychotic ]] pathologies clearly show.

# [[Lacan, Jacques]]. (1978) The four fundamental [[concepts ]] of [[psychoanalysis ]] (Alan [[Sheridan]], Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original [[work ]] published 1964)# ——. (1998). Le Séminaire-Livre V, Les [[Formations ]] de l'[[Inconscient ]] (1957-58). [[Paris]]: Seuil.# ——. (2002a) The [[instance ]] of the [[letter ]] in the unconscious, or [[reason ]] since [[Freud]]. InÉcrits: A selection ([[Bruce Fink ]] Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1957)# ——. (2002b) The [[subversion ]] of the subject and the [[dialectic ]] of desire in the [[Freudian ]] unconscious. InÉcrits: A selection (Bruce Fink Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1960)