to the link between the phonological and the conceptual elements of all other
signs.Despite adopting this notion of the sign, Lacan simultaneously subverts it in three
fundamental ways:^43( 1 ) The signifier logically precedes and causes the signified. This is clearly exem-
plified by Lacan’s rectification of the Saussurian schema which he in fact represents
by means of the algebraic notation S/s (signifier over signified). This means that
the conceptual nature of the signified is the product of the signifying action of
the signifiers. Lacan calls significationthe process whereby the concatenation of sig-
nifiers generates the signified: “The signifier doesn’t just provide an envelope, a re-
ceptacle for signification. It polarizes it, it structures it, and brings it into
existence.”^44 In other words, the notion of linguistic value cannot directly be ap-
plied to the signified as such, but only to signification insofar as it is structured by
the signifier.^45 In parallel, the supremacy of the signifier over the signified corre-
sponds to the autonomy of the differential, oppositional order of the Symbolic that
transcends the apparently unitary and static order of the Imaginary.
( 2 ) The link between signifier and signified ceases to be bi-univocal. Lacan indeed
affirms that “the relationship between signifier and signified is far from being one-
to-one.”^46 This is inextricable from the preeminence attributed to the signifier, and
can easily be demonstrated by two straightforward matters of fact: first of all, we
know that language evolves over time; a given signifier of a given language can
historically adopt different functions.^47 Secondly, the discrete elements, the signi-
fying words that compose a sentence, do not generate any signification per seif con-
sidered at the level of the sentence; they do so only retroactively, after the sentence
is terminated.^48 This demonstrates that the signified can never be referred to one
single signifier but is, rather, the product of a complex interrelation between sig-
nifiers: “It is in the chain of the signifier that meaning [sens] insistsbut none of the
elements of the chain consistsin the signification [signification] of which it is at that
moment capable.”^49 Elsewhere, Lacan is therefore able to conclude that “the rela-
tionship between the signified and the signifier always appears fluid, always ready
to come undone”:^50 it would be profoundly mistaken to believe that the signifier
merely represents the signified. To cut a long story short, one could argue that
Lacan destroys the unity of the Saussurian sign: the bar in the algebraic notation S
over s marks an actual division that is overcome only in an indirect way.
( 3 ) Structure and subject are not mutually exclusive concepts. For Lacan, the struc-
turalist approach to language is important insofar as it implicitly assists us in track-the subject of the symbolic (other)