The signifier occupies a pivotal and contested position across the depth-psychology corpus, drawing its force from Saussurean structural linguistics before being radicalized by Lacanian psychoanalysis and deconstructed by Derrida. In Lacan's seminars and Écrits, the signifier is not merely one half of the Saussurean sign but the primary operative unit of the unconscious: it precedes and constitutes the subject, governs desire through chains of substitution and metonymy, and finds its exemplary instance in the phallus as the signifier of lack. The unconscious chain is composed entirely of signifiers, and desire emerges precisely in the gaps between them. Benveniste, working from a different structural tradition, interrogates the signifier/signified couple as only one dimension of linguistic signifiance, insisting on the insufficiency of the semiotic level alone and the necessity of the semantic-discursive order. Derrida, in turn, deconstructs the classical semiological presupposition that the signifier defers a full presence toward which it asymptotically moves, arguing that no originary signified anchors the chain. The tensions among these positions — whether the signifier is a structural unit, a psychical operator, or the trace of a deferred presence that was never present — constitute the central theoretical drama around this term throughout the corpus.
la structure essentiellement localisée du signifiant… seules les corrélations du signifiant au signifiant y donnent l'étalon de toute recherche de signification
Lacan's Écrits establishes the signifier as a locally structured, self-referential unit whose correlations with other signifiers — not with any signified — set the standard for all pursuit of meaning.
, Écrits, 1966thesis
the organ is not taken up, brought, approached, except as transformed into a signifier and that, because it is transformed into a signifier, it is in this that it is cut off
Lacan argues that the phallus enters the symbolic order only as a signifier, and that this transformation into signifier is precisely what institutes castration and lack.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015thesis
the real presence threatens the whole signifying system… this need to fill in the signifying interval as such
Lacan shows that the real irrupts through the intervals between signifiers, and that obsessional neurosis is constituted precisely by compulsive efforts to close those intervals.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015thesis
this einziger Zug, this single trait, is, by that alone, given as such, as signifier. Not at all… In order to say that it is a signifier, more is needed: we require its subsequent utilisation
Lacan distinguishes the single identifying trait (einziger Zug) from the signifier proper, insisting that a mark becomes a signifier only through its subsequent deployment in a differential chain.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015thesis
the sign, which defers presence, is conceivable only on the basis of the presence that it defers… the substitution of the sign for the thing itself is both secondary and provisional
Derrida identifies the classical semiological logic by which the signifier is defined as secondary deferral of a full presence, a logic he undertakes to dismantle.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982thesis
The pyramid becomes the semaphor of the sign, the signifier of signification.
Derrida reads Hegel's pyramid as the master trope for the sign itself — a monument that encrypts the soul within matter — making it the meta-signifier of signification as death-in-life.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982thesis
Every signifying battery can always say everything because what it cannot say will signify nothing at the locus of the Other and because everything that signifies for us always happens at the locus of the Other.
Lacan argues that the signifying system is structurally complete relative to the Other, because that which falls outside signification is simply not registered as meaningful at the locus of the Other.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015supporting
it is the instrument thanks to which the two personages, masculine and feminine can extroject themselves… the father, under the form of the not too cross ego-ideal, should be a signifier
Lacan treats the paternal function as a signifier — the Name-of-the-Father — that mediates the subject's relation to the ego-ideal and enables subjective positioning with respect to the Other.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015supporting
this desire of Socrates, which he knows to exist in another connection because it is on this that he bases himself, to see it as sign. It is moreover why Socrates refuses. Because this is of course only a short-circuit.
Lacan uses Alcibiades's demand to illustrate the crucial distinction between sign and signifier: desire presented as sign is a neurotic short-circuit that bypasses the properly signifying chain.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015supporting
there is an original force at work behind the great separations of units that appear to us eternally divided, such as 'form' and 'meaning', 'signifier/signified'.
Benveniste locates the signifier/signified opposition within the broader category of signifiance, treating the dyad not as a brute given but as the product of an original force of differentiation.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012supporting
the notion of sign is in solidarity with the semiotic considerations… the linguistic sign is put on the same plane as the non-signifying signs of other systems
Benveniste critiques the Saussurean sign — and thus the signifier — for being leveled with non-linguistic signs, arguing this conflation obscures the semantic dimension proper to language.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012supporting
une propriété que cet élément possède en tant que signifiant, de constituer une unité distinctive, oppositive, délimitée par d'autres unités
Benveniste defines the signifier's meaning-function in Saussurean terms — as a differential, oppositional unit that derives its identity from its relation to other units within the system.
, Problèmes de linguistique générale, I, 1966supporting
why is the metaphysical concept of truth in solidarity with a concept of the sign, and with a concept of the sign determined as a lack of full truth?
Derrida interrogates the complicity between truth as full presence and the sign (signifier) as constitutive lack, positioning the sign's deficiency as a structural feature of Western metaphysics.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982supporting
Far from abandoning the 'sign', signifiance includes it in 'discourse' as an intersubjective illocutionary act which transmits 'ideas'.
Benveniste's concept of signifiance incorporates rather than discards the Saussurean signifier, embedding it within the discursive-enunciative order as a component of intersubjective meaning-making.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012supporting
the semiotic (from semeion 'sign', characterised by its 'arbitrary' link — the result of a social convention — between
Benveniste introduces the semiotic/semantic distinction, situating the classical signifier within the semiotic register governed by arbitrariness and convention, over against the semantic register of discourse.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012supporting
the phallus as signifier has a place, it is very precisely that of supplying at the point… the sign of absence
Lacan identifies the phallus as the privileged signifier whose function is to occupy and mark the site of absence within the signifying chain.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015supporting
signifiance… refers to the general condition of being meaningful… It is tempting to find another English word, such as 'signification' or 'meaningfulness'
The editorial apparatus contextualizes Benveniste's term signifiance as a category that exceeds and reframes the signifier/signified dyad, emphasizing the general condition of meaningfulness over any single unit.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012aside