ABSTRACT
Jacques Lacan has orchestrated his semiotic 'Return to Freud' through a thorough reconceptual-isation of Saussurean linguistics. This chapter highlights Lacan's contribution to a novel take on psychosocial semiosis that insists on the pivotal role of language and discourse in the constitution of human reality, registering, at the same time, the complex encounter between symbolic and real, as well as the importance of retroactivity in trying to grasp it. It follows Lacan's shift of focus from language to affect and jouissance, placing emphasis on the articulations between the two fields. Both Lacan's conceptualisation of the symbolic, especially the importance he assigns to the role particular signifiers play in structuring whole fields of signification, as well as his highlighting of the role of jouissance, have influenced enormously the study of political discourse and ideology. Thus, the chapter concludes by briefly alluding to some of the political implications of Lacanian semiotics, discussing empirical examples.
