3.

Between 1955 and 1970 language takes centre stage and Lacan develops his classic
thesis that ‘the unconscious is structured like a language’ (S11, 20). It is in
this period that the names of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson come to the
fore in
Lacan’s work.
Lacan takes up Saussure’s theory that language is a structure composed of
differential
elements, but whereas Saussure had stated this of langue, Lacan states it of
langage.
Langage becomes, for Lacan, the single paradigm of all structures. Lacan then
proceeds
to criticise the Saussurean concept of language, arguing that the basic unit of
language is
not the sign but the SIGNIFIER. Lacan then argues that the UNCONSCIOUS is, like
language, a structure of signifiers, which also allows Lacan to formulate the
category of
the symbolic with greater precision. In 1969 Lacan develops a concept of DISCOURSE
as a kind of social bond.