ABSTRACT
The paradigmatic and syntagmatic axis of language were expanded in their functions by the Russian linguist, Roman Jakobson. He demonstrated that these aspects have a correspondence with the rhetorical figures of metaphor and metonymy. Although language alienates the subject from its natural being, it also rewards him or her with the advent of desire that puts the human on the road to taking a place in the linguistic, social community. In the example of this group, that function is momentarily interrupted and disrupts the group community. The concept of the Real is associated with trauma, and with psychosis. In Jacques Lacan’s late phase of development, it became intimately linked with the unconscious. Lacan’s exploration of this concept put him beyond structuralism. The main task was to maintain the role of the symbolic in order to contain the group’s anxiety. The sexual trauma was communicated through a number of key signifiers: pet, white suit, leash.
