The Opposition and Unity of Saussure’s and Lacan’s Views on Linguistic Signs

DOI

10.2991/iccessh-19.2019.247How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Lacan; Saussure; signifier; signified; opposition; unity

Abstract

Saussure’s view on linguistic signs emphasizes the one-to-one correspondence of the signifier and the signified and their arbitrary combination. According to this view, the meaning of linguistic signs comes from the difference between the signs. Lacan revises Saussure’s view on linguistic signs by introducing linguistic activities into unconsciousness. Lacan emphasizes the dominant status of the signifier and holds that the signified slides under the signified incessantly, which leads to the indeterminacy of meaning. Saussure’s and Lacan’s views on linguistic signs are obviously opposite to each other, but Saussure’s dichotomy of speech activity between langue and parole provides the basis for their unity. Saussure gives attention to langue which is the product of the collective speech activity while Lacan concerns about parole which is the product of the individual speech activity. Therefore, the two views are both opposite and unified.

Copyright

© 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yun Chen
PY  - 2019/07
DA  - 2019/07
TI  - The Opposition and Unity of Saussure’s and Lacan’s Views on Linguistic Signs
BT  - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1109
EP  - 1113
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/iccessh-19.2019.247
DO  - 10.2991/iccessh-19.2019.247
ID  - Chen2019/07
ER  -