Changes

Jump to: navigation, search

Signification

5,747 bytes added, 23:12, 20 May 2019
The LinkTitles extension automatically added links to existing pages (<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://github.com/bovender/LinkTitles">https://github.com/bovender/LinkTitles</a>).
{{Top}}meaning|signification{{Bottom}}
=====Jacques Lacan=====
=====Early Work=====
In [[Lacan]]'s pre-1950s writings, the term "[[signification]]" is used in a general way to connote both [[meaning]]fulness and importance.<ref>{{Ec}} p. 81</ref>
 
=====Example=====
In 1946, for example, [[Lacan]] criticizes [[organicist]] [[psychiatry]] for ignoring "the significance of [[madness]]."<ref>{{Ec}} p. 167, 153-4</ref>
 
=====Later Work=====
=====Symbolic Order=====
In the period 1953-7 the term retains these vague [[associations]] with the realm of [[meaning]] and [[language]], and is thus located in the [[symbolic order]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 121</ref>
 
=====Latest Work=====
=====Imaginary Order=====
It is from 1957 on that [[Lacan]]'s use of the term takes on a direct reference to the [[Saussurean]] [[concept]], and shifts from the [[symbolic]] to the [[imaginary]] [[order]].
 
=====Ferdinand de Saussure=====
=====Relation between Signifier and Signified=====
[[Saussure]] reserves the term "[[signification]]" for the relation between the [[signifier]] and the [[signified]]; each sound-[[image]] is said to "signify" a concept.<ref>[[Saussure|Saussure, Ferdinand de]]. (1916) ''[[Saussure|Course in General Linguistics]]'', ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, trans. Wade Baskin, Glasgow: Collins Fontana. p. 114</ref>
 
[[Signification]] is, for [[Saussure]], an unbreakable bond; the [[signifier]] and the [[signified]] are inseparable as the two sides of a sheet of paper.
 
=====Jacques Lacan=====
=====Relation between Signifier and Signified=====
[[Image:SAUSSUREANALGORITHM.gif|right|thumb|Saussurean algorithm|The Saussurean algorithm]]
 
[[Lacan]] argues that the [[relationship]] between [[signifier]] and [[signified]] is far more precarious; he sees the [[bar]] between [[them]] in the [[Saussurean algorithm]] as representing not a bond but a rupture, a "[[resistance]]" to [[signification]].<ref>{{E}} p. 164</ref>
 
=====Primacy of the Signifier=====
Firstly, the [[signifier]] is logically prior to the [[signified]], which is merely an effect of the play of [[signifier]]s.
 
=====Slippage=====
Secondly, even when [[signified]]s are produced, they constantly [[slip]] and [[slide]] underneath the [[signifier]]; the only things that detain this movement temporarily, pinning the [[signifier]] to the [[signified]] for a brief [[moment]] and creating the [[delusion|illusion]] of a [[stable]] [[meaning]], are the [[points de capiton]].
 
=====Metaphor and Metonymy=====
[[Signification]] is, in [[Lacan]]'s [[work]], not a stable bond between [[signifier]] and [[signified]], but a [[process]] -- the process by which the play of [[signifier]]s produces the [[delusion|illusion]] of the [[signified]] via the two tropes of [[metonymy]] and [[metaphor]].
 
=====Metonymy=====
[[Signification]] is [[metonymic]] because "signification always refers to [[another]] signification."<ref>{{S3}} p. 33</ref>
 
In [[other]] [[words]], [[meaning]] is not found in any one [[signifier]], but in the play between [[signifier]]s along the [[signifying chain]] and is therefore unstable.
 
<blockquote>"It is in the [[chain]] of the signifier that the meaning insists, but none of tis elements consists in the signification of which it is at the moment capable."<ref>{{E}} p.153</ref></blockquote>
 
=====Metaphor=====
[[Signification]] is [[metaphoric]] because it involves the crossing of the [[bar]], the "passage of the signifier into the signified."<ref>{{E}} p.164</ref>
 
The fundamental [[metaphor]] on which all [[signification]] depends in the [[Name-of-the-Father|paternal metaphor]], and all [[signification]] is therefore [[phallus|phallic]].
 
=====Lacanian Algebra=====
[[Signification]] is designated by the [[symbol]] ''s'' in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]] (as in the [[notion]] '''''s''(A)''' which labels one of the main nodes in the [[graph of desire]]).
 
The notation for the [[signified]] is also ''s'', which suggests that for [[Lacan]] the term "[[signification]]" (the process by which the effect of [[meaning]] is produced) and the term "[[signified]]" (the effect of [[meaning]] itself) tend to overlap.
 
=====Signification and Meaning=====
In the late 1950s, [[Lacan]] establishes an opposition between [[signification]] and [[meaning]] (''[[meaning|sense]]'').
 
The variety of ways in which these [[terms]] have been translated into [[English]] provides difficulty for the [[English]] reader of [[Lacan]].
 
=====Speech=====
[[Signification]] is [[imaginary]] and is the province of [[speech|empty speech]]; [[meaning]] is [[symbolic]] and is the province of [[speech|full speech]].
 
=====Psychoanalytic Interpretation=====
[[Interpretation|Psychoanalytic interpretations]] go against [[signification]] and bear on [[meaning]] and its correlate, [[meaning|non-meaning]] (''[[meaning|non-sens]]'').
 
=====Production of ''Jouissance''=====
Although [[signification]] and [[meaning]] are opposed, they are both related to the production of ''[[jouissance]]''.
 
[[Lacan]] indicates this by coining two neologisms: ''[[signification|signifiance]]'' (from the words [[signification]] and ''[[jouissance]]'') and ''[[signification|jouis-sense]]'' (from ''[[jouissance]]'' and ''[[sense]]'').
 
==See Also==
{{See}}
* [[Interpretation]]
* ''[[Jouissance]]''
||
* [[Language]]
* [[Meaning]]
||
* [[Metaphor]]
* [[Metonymy]]
||
* ''[[Point de capiton]]''
* [[Signified]]
||
* [[Signifier]]
* [[Signifying chain]]
{{Also}}
 
== References ==
<div style="font-size:11px" class="references-small">
<references/>
</div>
 
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Linguistics]]
[[Category:Dictionary]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Symbolic]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:OK]]
 
__NOTOC__
Anonymous user

Navigation menu