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"[[language]]" ([[Fr]]. ''[[langue]]'', ''[[langage]]'')
It is important to note that the English word "[[language]]" corresponds to two French words: ''[[langue]]'' and ''[[langage]]''.
These two words have quite different meanings in [[Lacan]]'s work: ''[[langue]]'' usually refers to a specific [[language]], such as French or English, whereas ''[[langage]]'' refers to the system of [[language]] in general, abstracting from all particular languages.
It is fundamentally the general structure of [[language]] (''[[langage]]''), rather than the differences between particular languages ('''[[langue]]s'') that interests [[Lacan]].
When reading [[lacan]] in English it is therefore essential to be aware of which term is used in the original French; most of the time the French term will be ''[[langage]]''.
==One==
Between 1936 and 1949 references to [[language]] are sparse, but they are significant; already in 1936, for example, [[Lacan]] emphasizes that [[language]] is constitutive of the psychoanalytic experience,<ref>{{Ec}} p.82</ref> and in 1946 he argues that it is impossible to understand [[madness]] without addressing the problem of [[language]].<ref>{{Ec}} p.166</ref>
[[Lacan]]'s comments on [[language]] at this time do not contain any references to a specific linguistic theory, and instead are dominated by philosophical allusions, mainly in terms derived from [[Hegel]].
Thus [[language]] is seen primarily as a mediating element which permits the [[subject]] to attain recognition from the other.<ref>{{E}} p.9</ref>
ABove and beyond its use for conveying information, [[language]] is first and foremost an appeal to an interlocutor; in [[Jakobson]]'s terms, [[Lacan]] stresses the connative function above the referential.
Thus he insists that [[lanugage]] is not a nomenclature.<ref>{{Ec}} p.166</ref>
==
==Two==
From 1950 to 1954 [[language]] begins to occupy the central position that it ill hold in [[Lacan]]'s work thereafter.
In this period, [[Lacan]]'s discussion of [[language]] is dominated by references to [[Heideggerian]] [[phenomenology]] and, mor eimportantly, to the [[anthropology]] of [[language]] ([[Anthropology|Maus, Malinowski, and Lévi-Strauss]].
[[Language]] is thus seen as structuring the social laws of exchange, as a symbolic pact, etc.
There are also occasional references to rhetoric, but these are not elaborated.<ref>{{E}} p.169</ref>
There are a few allusions to [[Saussure]],<ref>{{S1}} p.248</ref> but in his famous "[[Rome Discourse]]" [[Lacan]] establishes an opposition between ''[[parole]]'' and [[''language|langage]]'' (and not, as [[Saussure]] does, between ''[[parole]]'' and ''[[language|langue]]''.<ref>{{L}}. "''Fonction et champ de la parole et du langage en psychanalyse.''" 1953a. In {{E}} p.237-322. ("The function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis.") In {{E}}. p.30-113</ref>
