Sliding of the signified
Sliding of the signified (French: glissement du signifié) is a key concept in Lacanian psychoanalysis that designates the fundamental instability of meaning in language. The term refers to the idea that the signified (meaning, concept) is never permanently fixed to a signifier (word, sound-image), but instead continually shifts, slides, or is deferred along a chain of signifiers. This structural indeterminacy of meaning is central to Jacques Lacan’s reworking of linguistics and psychoanalysis and underpins his theories of the unconscious, desire, and subjectivity.
Lacan’s notion of the sliding of the signified draws on structural linguistics, especially the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, but radicalizes it by situating meaning within the dynamics of the unconscious. In Lacan’s account, the unconscious is “structured like a language,” and it is precisely because meaning is unstable—because the signified slides beneath the signifier—that symptoms, dreams, slips, and formations of the unconscious are possible.
The concept has wide-ranging implications for psychoanalytic theory and practice, touching on interpretation, the nature of truth, the impossibility of complete meaning, and the ethical position of the analyst. It also marks a decisive break with ego-psychological and commonsense views of language as a transparent medium of communication.
Linguistic background
Saussure and the sign
The immediate theoretical background for the sliding of the signified lies in Saussurean linguistics. In his Course in General Linguistics, Saussure defines the linguistic sign as composed of two inseparable components: the signifier (the sound-image) and the signified (the concept). Crucially, Saussure argues that the relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary: there is no natural bond between a word and what it means.[1]
Moreover, Saussure emphasizes that meaning arises not from positive content but from differences within the linguistic system. A sign signifies what it does only because it is different from other signs. This already implies a certain instability of meaning: no sign has meaning in isolation, and meaning depends on its position within a system of differences.
Structuralism and differential meaning
Structuralist linguistics generalizes Saussure’s insight, arguing that language is a system in which elements have value only through their relations. Meaning is thus relational rather than referential. However, in classical structuralism, the signified is often treated as relatively stable within a given linguistic system, even if arbitrary.
It is at this point that Lacan intervenes. He accepts Saussure’s account of arbitrariness and difference but rejects any assumption that the signified can be stabilized at the level of the subject’s experience or psychic life. Instead, he insists that meaning is structurally unstable, and that this instability is not a defect but a constitutive feature of language and subjectivity.
Lacan’s reformulation of the sign
Inversion of the Saussurean algorithm
Lacan famously rewrites Saussure’s sign as an algorithm:
S / s
placing the signifier (S) above the signified (s) and separating them by a bar. This inversion emphasizes the primacy of the signifier over the signified. Meaning does not govern language; rather, signifiers determine what can appear as meaning, and they do so imperfectly and incompletely.
Lacan introduces this formulation in his essay “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud”, first published in 1957 and later collected in Écrits.[2]
The bar between signifier and signified marks a structural gap. The signified is not simply given by the signifier; it is produced retroactively, precariously, and always remains vulnerable to displacement.
The sliding of the signified
It is in this context that Lacan introduces the notion of the sliding of the signified. Because signifiers are linked to other signifiers in chains—through similarity, contiguity, and difference—the signified is never anchored once and for all. Instead, it slides beneath the signifier, shifting as the chain unfolds.
Lacan writes that meaning is “always in the process of sliding,” and that only certain mechanisms can temporarily arrest this movement. Without such mechanisms, language would dissolve into an endless play of equivocation and ambiguity.[2]
The sliding of the signified is thus not an accidental feature of language but its structural condition.
Point de capiton (quilting point)
Temporary fixation of meaning
To explain how meaning nevertheless appears relatively stable in everyday discourse, Lacan introduces the concept of the point de capiton (quilting point). A quilting point is a signifier that temporarily halts the sliding of the signified by anchoring meaning at a particular place in the signifying chain.
Examples of quilting points include:
- Master signifiers such as “law,” “God,” “nation,” or “father”
- Diagnostic labels in clinical discourse
- Ideological slogans that organize meaning retroactively
At a quilting point, the signified is momentarily fixed, allowing subjects to experience meaning as coherent and self-evident. However, this fixation is always provisional and contingent; it can unravel when the quilting point is questioned or displaced.
Ideology and social discourse
Lacan’s theory of the quilting point has been influential beyond psychoanalysis, particularly in ideological critique. Later thinkers influenced by Lacan argue that ideologies function by installing quilting points that stop the sliding of the signified and make social reality appear natural or inevitable.
From a psychoanalytic perspective, this stabilization of meaning is never complete. The possibility of slippage and reinterpretation always remains, and symptoms often emerge where the quilting point fails.
Sliding of the signified and the unconscious
The unconscious as a chain of signifiers
Lacan’s claim that “the unconscious is structured like a language” must be understood in light of the sliding of the signified. The unconscious does not contain fixed meanings waiting to be decoded; rather, it consists of chains of signifiers whose meanings are mobile and overdetermined.
Dreams, slips of the tongue, and symptoms operate through mechanisms such as:
- Condensation, which corresponds to metaphor
- Displacement, which corresponds to metonymy
Metonymy, in particular, is closely linked to the sliding of the signified, since it involves the movement of meaning along contiguous signifiers rather than its substitution by a single new meaning.[2]
Overdetermination and equivocation
Because the signified slides, any given signifier can support multiple meanings simultaneously. This is the basis of overdetermination: a symptom or utterance is determined by several signifying chains at once, none of which exhaust its meaning.
Analytic interpretation does not aim to uncover a single, hidden signified behind the signifier. Instead, it works with equivocation, homophony, and ambiguity, allowing new meanings to emerge through the movement of the signifying chain.
Desire and the sliding of meaning
Desire as metonymy
Lacan famously defines desire as metonymic. Desire does not aim at a final object that would satisfy it once and for all; instead, it moves from object to object, sustained by lack. This metonymic movement of desire parallels the sliding of the signified in language.
Just as meaning is never fixed, desire is never fulfilled. Each object stands in for something else, and satisfaction is deferred. The sliding of the signified thus provides the linguistic model for the structure of desire itself.[3]
Objet petit a and failed anchoring
The Lacanian concept of objet petit a can be understood as a correlate of the sliding of the signified. Objet a is not a stable object but the cause of desire, arising from the failure of signification to deliver a final meaning or object.
Where the signified fails to anchor, objet a emerges as a remainder, sustaining desire precisely through its elusiveness.
Clinical implications
Interpretation and equivocation
In psychoanalytic practice, the sliding of the signified has decisive consequences for interpretation. Interpretation is not the imposition of a definitive meaning but an intervention in the signifying chain. By emphasizing equivocation or introducing a new signifier, the analyst can displace existing meanings and open new pathways for desire and subjectivation.
Lacan cautions against interpretations that aim to “explain everything,” as such explanations attempt to halt the sliding of the signified too definitively and risk closing down the analytic process.
Symptom formation and rigidity
Symptoms often function as rigid points where the sliding of the signified has been excessively fixed. A symptom can be understood as a frozen metaphor, a place where meaning has congealed in response to anxiety or conflict.
Analysis aims not to eliminate sliding but to restore mobility to the signifying chain, allowing the subject to relate differently to their symptom and desire.
Psychosis and unanchored meaning
In Lacanian approaches to psychosis, difficulties with the anchoring of meaning are central. When key quilting points (such as the Name-of-the-Father) are foreclosed, the sliding of the signified may proceed unchecked, leading to experiences of overwhelming meaning, neologisms, or delusional certainty.
Here, the problem is not too much ambiguity but too little symbolic anchoring, demonstrating again that the sliding of the signified must be neither fully arrested nor fully unleashed.
Philosophical and theoretical resonances
Difference from hermeneutics
Unlike hermeneutic approaches that seek deeper or truer meanings behind texts, Lacanian theory insists that there is no ultimate signified to be uncovered. Meaning is always produced within language and remains subject to slippage.
This position aligns Lacan with certain strands of structuralism and post-structuralism, while retaining a specifically clinical orientation.
Relation to deconstruction
The sliding of the signified has often been compared to deconstructive notions of différance. While Lacan and later deconstructive thinkers share an emphasis on the instability of meaning, Lacan situates this instability within the dynamics of desire, jouissance, and the unconscious rather than in textuality alone.
Criticisms and debates
Some critics argue that Lacan’s emphasis on the sliding of the signified undermines the possibility of communication or shared meaning. Others contend that it risks relativism or obscurantism.
Defenders respond that Lacan does not deny the existence of meaning, but rather insists on its structural contingency. Meaning functions precisely because it is never fully secure.
Summary
The sliding of the signified names a fundamental property of language as understood in Lacanian psychoanalysis: meaning is never fixed, complete, or self-identical, but continually displaced along chains of signifiers. This instability underlies the structure of the unconscious, the dynamics of desire, and the logic of psychoanalytic interpretation.
Rather than representing a failure of language, the sliding of the signified is what makes speech, symptom, and subjectivity possible.
See also
References
- ↑ Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics (1916). Trans. Wade Baskin. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lacan, Jacques. “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud” (1957). In: Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977.
- ↑ Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1996.