ABSTRACT
Jacques Lacan describes the signifier as the set of material elements of language linked by a structure, the signifier is the material support of discourse: the letter or the sounds. For Lacan, then, the network of the signifier is specified by the relations of opposition between material elements at every level of structuration revealed by linguistics. The second network that of the signified, is the diachronic whole of discourse. A dominant characteristic of speech, signification, is born of taking the set of terms together and of the multiple interplay between signifier and signified. Even if the signification does progress by way of a detour through a complex network of criss-cross relationships between signifiers and signifieds, it is still possible, if the global context is taken into account, to pin down a circumscribed unit of signification at the local level of the word in the sentence.
