ist notion of language as initially formulated by Saussure. As Lacan states: “Firstly
there is a synchronic whole, which is language as a simultaneous system of struc-
tured groups of opposition, thenthere is what occurs diachronically, over time, and
which is discourse.”^40 (The reader should be reminded that, at this stage, the no-
tions of speech and discourse tend to overlap insofar as (a) discourse stresses the
intersubjective dimension of language; and (b) “what distinguishes speech from
... language” is the fact that “to speak is first of all to speak to others.”)^41 More
specifically, what is at stake is a reelaboration of the Saussurian notion of the sign
as the basic unity of language. According to Saussure, the sign is composed of two
interdependent components: ( 1 ) the signified, corresponding to the conceptualele-
ment—and not to the real object denoted by a referent; ( 2 ) the signifier, corre-
sponding to the phonologicalelement—however, the signifier does not simply
correspond to the sound of an actual act of speech but is, rather, an “acoustic im-
age” of that sound. Signifier and signified are linked together in a bi-univocalway,
and thus form a sign. Saussure represents this relationship with the following
schema:
Furthermore, Saussure attributes two fundamental characteristics to the sign:( 1 ) The sign cannot be isolated from the system of which it is part—that is, as
Lemaire notes, “only the entire system of language gives the sign its specificity [its
linguistic value] as opposed to the other signs.”^42 (The same applies to the signi-
fied and the signifier considered independently of one another.) In other words,
language is a differentialsystem in which the signification inherent to one sign
emerges exclusively through the oppositionthat exists between all signs.
( 2 ) The phonological and the conceptual components of the sign—the signifier
and the signified—are linked together in an arbitraryway. Since it is the linguis-
tic structure as such that confers on the sign a specific linguistic value, the link be-
tween the two components of the sign can be only epiphenomenal, correlative
47
Schema 2.1
SignifiedSignifier