Metaphor and Metonymy in Jacques Lacan's Discourse

Abstract

The article discusses in detail the concept of language and speech proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure, as well as Jacques Lacan's interpretation of these concepts within the framework of psychoanalytic theory. Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the founders of structural linguistics, introduces a key distinction between language (la langue) as a social system of signs and speech (parole) as an individual act of using this system. Language, according to Saussure, is an abstract structure that exists independently of specific users, whereas speech is the concrete manifestation of this structure in communicative acts. He also emphasizes the importance of a synchronic approach to the study of language, which focuses on the simultaneous relationships between the elements of the system, as opposed to a diachronic approach that investigates the historical changes of language. Jacques Lacan builds on Sossur's ideas and integrates them into his psychoanalytic theory, seeing language as central to the formation of the subject and his unconscious. Lacan develops the notion of lalangue, a special aspect of language that transcends the structural system and involves unconscious processes. He argues that the relationship between signifier and signified in language is not fixed; instead, it is characterised by a constant ‘deferral’ of meaning (the concept of différance, close to the ideas of Jacques Derrida). This leads to the fact that meaning never reaches final finality, and language becomes a dynamic system in which meaning is constructed through chains of signifiers. Particular attention is paid to the mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy, which Lacan regards as the basic processes of signification. Metaphor is concerned with the substitution of one signifier for another, creating new meanings, while metonymy is the displacement of meaning along a chain of signifiers. These processes illustrate the workings of the unconscious, which, according to Lacan, is structured as language. The unconscious manifests itself through ruptures and gaps in language, which reflects the symbolic order and nature of the subject. Lacan emphasises that the subject is formed within a symbolic order where language plays a key role in its identification and relationship with the Other. However, the subject never fully coincides with itself because of a structural ‘deficit’ in language that reflects the absence or loss of the primary object of desire. This absence becomes the basis for the formation of unconscious desires and fantasies.