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[[Lacan]] borrows the term "[[code]]" from [[Roman Jakobson]]'s theory of [[communication]].
The term '[[code]]' derives from [[Roman Jakobson]]'s theory of [[communication]].
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[[Jakobson]] presents his opposition "[[code]] vs [[message]]" as an equivalent of [[Saussure]]'s ''[[langue]]'' vs ''[[parole]]''.
However, [[Lacan]] draws an important distinction between the concepts of [[language]] and [[code]].<ref>{{E}} p84</ref>
[[Code]]s are the province of [[animal]] [[communication]], not of [[intersubjectivity|intersubjective]] [[communication]].
Whereas the elements of a [[language]] are [[signifier]]s, the elements of a [[code]] are ''[[indices]]''.
The fundamental difference is that there is a fixed bi-univocal (one-to-one) relationship between an [[index]] and its [[referent]], whereas there is no such relationship between a [[signifier]] and a [[referent]] or between a [[signifier]] and a [[signified]].
Because of the bi-univocal relation of [[indices]] and [[referent]]s, [[code]]s lack what [[Lacan]] regards as the fundamental feature of [[human]] [[language]]s: the potential for ambiguity and equivocation.<ref>Lacan, 1973b</ref>
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[[Lacan]] is not always consistent in maintaining this opposition between [[code]] and [[language]].
In the [[seminar]] of 1958-9, for example, when presenting the [[elementary cell]] of the [[graph of desire]], he designates one point as the [[code]], which he also designates as the place of the [[Other]] and the battery of [[signifier]]s.
In this case, it is clear that the term "[[code]]" is being used in the same sense as the term "[[language]]," namely, to designate the set of [[signifier]]s available to the [[subject]].</ref>
==See Also==
* [[Language]]
* [[Signifier]]
* [[Signified]]
* [[Index]]
* [[Referent]]
==References==
<references/>
==Message==
[[Of Structure as an Inmixing of an Otherness Prerequisite to Any Subject Whatever]]
Somebody spent some time this afternoon trying to convince me that it would surely not be a [[pleasure]] for an English-speaking audience to listen to my bad accent and that for me to speak in [[English]] would constitute a risk for what one might call the transmission of my [[message]]. Truly, for me it is a great case of [[conscience]], because to do otherwise would be absolutely contrary to my own concept of the [[message]]: of the [[message]] as I will explain it to you, of the [[linguistic]] [[message]]. Many people talk nowadays about messages everywhere, inside the organism a hormone is a message, a beam of light to obtain teleguidance to a plane or from a satellite is a message, and so on; but the [[message]] in [[language]] is absolutely different. The message, our message, in all cases comes from the [[Other]] by which I understand "from the place of the Other." It certainly is not the common [[little other|other]], the [[little other| other]] with a lower-case <i>o</i>, and this is why I have given a capital <i>O</i> as the initial letter to the [[Other]] of whom I am now speaking.
