On The Theory Of Signifier In Lacan’s Psychoanalysis

Jacques Lacan is a renowned psychoanalyst,theorist and thinker.In 1953,the coined the famous slogan “Return to Freud”.He introduced the prevalent structural linguistics into Freud’s theory of the unconscious and interpreted the unconscious from a new perspective.The paper first introduces the origins of Lacan’s theory of signifier.His theory of signifier is mainly influenced by the Saussure’s structural linguistics,the Jakobson’s metaphor and metonymy,the Lévi-Strauss’ symbolic system of social and cultural structure and the view of “the signifier precedes and determines the signifying”,as well as Freud’s theory of condensation and displacement.Meanwhile the characteristics of signifier and its two operating rules are explored.This paper mainly focuses on the mirror stage theory and formation of the self.Lacan argues that the“self” of the imaginary is the result of the first alienation of the subject,therefore it is an illusion in chapter 2.And then I illustrate the unconscious subject of Lacan in chapter 3.Lacan believes that language constructs the subjectivity of human and at the same time that implies alienation of the subject,which always expresses itself in the field of the Other,so the real subject is the unconscious subject who speaks without being aware of it.The alienation of the subject also implies the split of the subject.Lacan describes this splitting subject as the subject of speech and the subject of statement,and the unconsciousness of the subject can only be revealed getting through the subject of speech.This paper mainly focuses on the ideological-historical orientation of Lacan’s concept of the subject in chapter 4.Lacan rejects the subject of self-consciousness in the Cartesian sense and considers it a false subject.He reveals that the human subject is both an unconscious subject and a subject of desire from the perspectives of both the unconscious and desire.In addition,Lacan argues that the subject is always in pursuit of unsatisfiable desires and desires’ pleasure from the process,thus this also reveals another dimension of the subject,namely,the subject of jouissance.In short,Lacan reveals the complexity of the human subject.I focus on Derrida and Holland who critique Lacan’s theory of signifier in chapter 5.On the one hand,Derrida critiques Lacan’s theory of signifier mainly from three aspects: the narrator,the materiality of signifier and the Logos-Philistocentrism.On the another hand,Holland critiques Lacan’s theory of signifier mainly from three aspects: linguistics,language psychology and the theory of mirror stage.