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==Theory==
[[Lacan]]'s [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|work]] has transformed [[psychoanalysis]], both as a '''theory''' and as a '''practice'''.
In the 1950s, [[Lacan]] emphasized the role of [[language]] (and the [[symbolic order]]) in [[psychoanalysis]] and formulated his most important thesis: that ''the unconscious is structured like a language''.
(This was an extraordinarily innovative period for Lacan and he introduced many of the concepts that would preoccupy him for the rest of his career.)
[[Lacan]] drew on a field of study known as '''[[Structuralism]]''' and on '''[[linguistics|linguistic theory]]'''.
[[Claude Lévi-Strauss]]'s ''elementary [[structure]] of kinship'' provided the basis for [[Lacan]]'s conception of the [[symbolic]] [[order]] and the formation of the [[unconscious]].
[[Lévi-Strauss]]'s [[structuralism|structural anthropology]] was facilitated by the work of the Swiss [[linguistics|linguist]] [[Ferdinand de Saussure]] (1857-1913) and it was through [[Lévi-Strauss]] that [[Lacan]] began to read [[linguistics]].
In the process he made radical and far-reaching changes to [[Saussure]]'s concept of the [[linguistics|linguistic]] [[sign]], completely reversing any conventional understanding of the relationship between the [[speech|speaking]] [[subject]] and [[language]].
Finally, we will look at the Russian [[linguistics|linguist]] [[Roman Jakobson]]'s (1896-1982) work on [[metaphor]] and [[metonymy]], as this was crucially important for [[Lacan]]'s conceptualization of [[desire]].
[[Lacan]]'s conception of the [[subject]] as constituted in and through [[language]].
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Further information about [[{{PAGENAME}}]] can be found below:
* {{Z}} ''[[Looking Awry|Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture]]''. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991. pp. 5–6, 21, 28–29, 33–39, 65, 75, 88, 90–91, 95–96, 98, 103, 108–110, 118–119, 125–126, 128–132, 135–139, 151–153, 158, 161–169
