Signifier/Signified

From Metapedia

Ferdinand the Saussure is the father of semiotics, which is the study of signs. Saussure focused his studies in the linguistic sign, which he said is a “two-sided psychological entity” (Saussure, 71) composed of a concept and a sound-image. The concept is the signified while the sound-image is the signifier. According to Saussure there are two basic principles of the sign. The first principle is what he denominates the “arbitrary nature of the sign,” which means that the relationship between the signifier and the signified is unmotivated. Nothing about the union of the letters d-o-g necessarily mean the concept “dog.” However, when we read the word “dog” the concept of a four-legged animal who barks comes to mind. The fact that the nature of the sign is arbitrary accounts for the different sound-images that a single concept will have depending on the language spoken (dog, perro, chien). The second principle that Saussure talks about is the linearity of the signifier, which essentially means that in auditory signs, the elements of the signifier will be presented in succession, during a limited span of time. Jacques Lacan adapted Saussures sign into the following algorithm: S/s. In Lacan’s account of the sign, the signifier goes over the signified, and the horizontal bar that separates them is interpreted by Lacan as a “barrier resisting signification” (Lacan, 740). Signifiers, however, only have meaning in relation to other signifiers, and this is what Lacan calls “the signifying chain.” The elements of the signifier by themselves are meaningless. The combination of these elements in specific ways allowed by the rules of language, gives them meaning. Lacan’s contribution to Saussurean linguistics is the primacy that he gives to the signifier. For Lacan, it is the signifier that determines the signified and not vice-versa. Signifieds resist our attempts to delimit them (Chandler, WWW) and we are faced with “an incessant sliding of the signified under the signifier” (Lacan, 743). A clear example of this process is given through metaphor (where one word is replaced for another) and through metonymy (where meaning is only attained through the relation of different signifiers; in the word-to-word connection) (Lacan, 744-745). The bond between signifiers and signifieds is at best temporary and since signs only signify with respect to other signs, we can say that “the fixing of the chain of signifiers is socially situated” (Chandler, WWW).