A Study of Metaphor and Metonymy in Lacan

Abstract

In this paper I want to set forth and explain the linguisitc theory of the French psycho-analyst Jacques Lacan. More concretely, I want to show how Lacan's theory revolutionizes the traditional (metaphysical) understanding of metaphor and metonymy and what the role of language, of metaphor and metonymy, is in Lacan's psycho-analysis. Like so many structuralists and post-structuralists, like so many thinkers in France, Lacan goes back to the Swiss linguist of the beginning of the twentieth century, Ferdinand de Saussure. Lacan's linguistic theory originates in a reading of de Saussure's Cours de linguistique generale, a reading that at the same time radicalizes de Saussure's insights. If one reads de Saussure in a certain way, language becomes a game of differences. What follows is a reading of de Saussure as it is found in some of Lacan's texts (a reading, by the way, that someone like Jacques Derrida will at least partially subscribe to).