Signifying Chain

signifying chain (chaÓne sigmfante, chaÓne du sigm˛ant)

   The term 'chain' is used increasingly by Lacan from the mid-1950s on, always in

   reference to the symbolic order. At first, in 1956, he speaks not of the signifying

   chain but of the symbolic chain, by which he denotes a line of descendence into

   which each subject is inscribed even before his birth and after his death, and

   which influences his destiny unconsciously (Ec, 468). In the same year he speaks

   of 'the chain of discourse' (S3, 261).

      It is in 1957 that Lacan introduces the term 'signifying chain' to refer to a

   series of SIGNIFIERs which are linked together. A signifying chain can never be

complete, since it is always possible to add another signifier to it, ad infinitum,

   m a way which expresses the eternal nature of desire; for this reason, desire is

metonymic. The chain is also metonymic in the production of meaning;

signification is not present at any one point in the chain, but rather meaning

'insists' in the movement from one signifier to another (see E, 153).

     At times Lacan speaks of the signifying chain in linear metaphors, and at

other times in circular metaphors;

 e Linearity          'The linearity that Saussure holds to be constitutive of the

chain of discourse applies to the chain of discourse only in the direction in

which it is orientated in time' (E, 154).

 ï Circularity           The signifying chain is compared to 'rings of a necklace that

is a ring in another necklace made of rings' (E, 153).

     On the one hand, the idea of linearity suggests that the signifying chain is the

 stream of speech, in which signifiers are combined in accordance with the laws

of grammar (which Saussure calls 'syntagmatic' relationships, and Lacan,

following Jakobson, locates on the metonymic axis of language). On the other

hand, the idea of circularity suggests that the signifying chain is a series of

signifiers linked by free associations, just one path through the network of

signifiers which constitutes the symbolic world of the subject (which Saussure

designates 'associative' relationships, and which Lacan, following Jakobson,

locates on the metaphoric axis of language). In truth, the signifying chain is

both of these things. In its diachronic dimension it is linear, syntagmatic,

metonymic; in its synchronic dimension it is circular, associative, metapho-

ric. The two cross over: 'there is in effect no signifying chain [diachronic

chain] that does not have, as if attached to the punctuation of each of its units,

 a whole articulation of relevant contexts [synchronic chains] suspended

"vertically", as it were, from that point' (E, 154). Lacan thus combines in

 one concept the two types of relationship ('syntagmatic' and 'associative')

which Saussure argued existed between signs, though for Lacan, the relation-

ship is between signifiers, not signs.