ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Lacan famously said, “The unconscious is structured like a language.” He meant that the unconscious is made up of “chains of repressed signifiers” that relate to one another through their own rules of metaphor and metonymy.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Unconscious is structured like a Language The sound or image is called a signifier. The concept is called a signified. Meaning is produced not only by the relationship between the signifier and the signified but also, crucially, by the position of the signifiers in relation to other signifiers (in a given context).

Detailed explanation-3: -For Lacan, the unconscious is language, the Other, so unconscious thought can only be conceived with the same linguistic structure as conscious thought. Unconscious thought is present in conscious thought as an absence.

Detailed explanation-4: -Lacan’s comments on language at this time do not contain any references to a specific linguistic theory, and instead are dominated by philosophical allusions, mainly in terms derived from Hegel. Thus language is seen primarily as a mediating element which permits the subject to attain recognition from the other.

Detailed explanation-5: -The ideas of Jacques Lacan are too often idealised or vilified. This article sets out to give a just appraisal of his famous aphorism: “The Unconscious is structured like a language”.