英：linguistics; 法：linguistique
尽管拉康对于语言 (LANGUAGE)的兴趣可以追溯至1930年代早期，当时他曾在自己的博士论文中分析过一位精神病女性的作品 (Lacan, 1932), 然而直到1950年代早期，他才开始根据那些衍生自特定语言学理论的术语来明确阐述他自己的语言观，而直至1957年，他才详细着手于语言学。
拉康的“语言学转向”(linguistic turn)受了克德・列维-斯特劳斯的人类学著作的启发：早在1940年代，列维-斯特劳斯便已经开始把结构语言学的方法应用于那些非语言性的文化资料 (神话、亲属关系等)，从而诞生出了“结构人类学”(structural anthropology)。在这么做之时，列维-斯特劳斯即宣告了一项野心勃勃的计划，让语言学在其中能够为所有的社会科学 (SCIENCES)提供一种科学性的范例：“相对于那些社会科学而言，结构语言学肯定会扮演一种革命性的角色，举例而言，就如同核物理学相对于物理力学所扮演的角色那样”(Lcvi-Strauss, 1945:33).
拉康追随列维-斯特劳斯的指示而转向了语言学，以便给精神分析的理论提供一种它在先前所缺乏的概念严格性。拉康认为，这一概念严格性之所以缺乏，只不过是因为结构语言学出现得太迟，以至于弗洛伊德在当时无法对其加以运用：“‘1910年的日内瓦' (Geneva1910)与‘1920年的彼得堡' (Petrograd1920)便足以说明弗洛伊德为什么会缺乏这一特殊的工具”(E, 298)。然而，拉康指出，当我们根据语言学理论来重新阅读弗洛伊德的时候，以其他方式无从显示的某种一致性的逻辑便被揭示了出来；实际上，弗洛伊德甚至可以被看作早已预期了现代语言学理论的某些要素 (E, 162)。
正如上文引述的参照 (“1910年的日内瓦”与“1920年的彼得堡”)所表明的那样，拉康同语言学的交锋几乎完全是围绕着瑞士语言学家费尔迪南·德·索绪尔 (1857一1913)与俄国语言学家罗曼·雅各布森 (1896一1982)的著作而进行的。至于对其他那些有影响的语言学家的提及，诸如诺姆·乔姆斯基、莱昂纳德·布鲁姆菲尔德以及爱德华·萨不尔2等人，在拉康的著作中则几乎完全是缺席的。拉康聚焦于符号 (sig)、修辞比喻 (rhetorical tropes)与音素分析 (phoneme analysis), 而其相应的代价便在于他几乎完全忽略了语言学的其他领域，诸如句法学、语义学、语用学、社会语言学以及语言习得论 (见：发展[DEVELOPMENT])等 (见：Macey, 1988:121-2)
索绪尔是“结构语言学”的创始人。相较于19世纪的全然“历时性”(diachronic: 即仅仅聚焦于语言随时间而改变的方式)的语言研究，索绪尔指出语言学同样应该是“共时性”(synchronic; 即聚焦于语言在某一特定时间点上的状态)的。这就导致索绪尔发展出了他在“语言”(langue)与“言语”(parole)之间做出的著名的区分，以及他把符号 (SIGN)看作由两个元素所组成的概念，即能指与所指。所有这些思想皆被展开在索绪尔最著名的著作之中，即《普通语言学教程》，该书由他的学生们根据自己记录的索绪尔在日内瓦大学的讲座的笔记汇编而成，并在索绪尔逝世三年后付梓出版 (Saussure, I916)。雅各布森进一步发展了由索绪尔所奠定的这一路线，他不但开拓了音韵学的发展，同时也在句法语义学、语用学及诗学等领域做出了一些重要的贡献 (见：Caton, 1987)。
从索绪尔那里，拉康借取了把语言看作一种结构（STRUCTURE)的概念，尽管索绪尔将其构想为一个符号系统，而拉康则将其构想为一个能指系统。从雅各布森那里，拉康则援引了所有语言现象皆沿其排列的（共时性的轴）隐喻 (METAPHOR)与（历时性的轴）换喻 (METONYMY)的概念，并且用这些术语来理解弗洛伊德的凝缩 (condensation)与移置 (displacement)的概，念。拉康从语言学中采纳的其他概念有：转换词 (SHIFTER)的概念，以及所述 (statement)与能述 (ENUNCIATION)之间的区分。
在拉康借用这些语言学概念的时候，他一直因严重歪曲了这些概念而遭到谴责。拉康回应了这样的一些批评，他辩称说自己所从事的不是语言学而是精神分析，而这就要求对那些借自语言学的概念进行某种修改。归根结底，拉康的兴趣并非真正在于语言学理论本身，而是仅仅在于语言学理论能够被用来发展精神分析理论的方式 (见：Lacan, 1970-1:1971年1月27日的研讨班)。正是这一点导致拉康创造了“癔言学”(linguisterie)这一新词 (该词由“语言学”[linguistique]和“癔症”[hysterie]二词凝缩而成)，以指涉他自己对于这些语言学概念的精神分析式运用 (S20,20)。
(linguistigue) While Lacan's interest in LANGUAGE can be traced back to the early1930s, when he analysed the writings of a psychotic woman in his doctoral dissertation (Lacan, 1932), it is only in the early 1950s that he begins to articulate his views onlanguage in terms derived from a specific linguistic theory, and not until 1957 that hebegins to engage with linguistics in any detail.
Lacan's 'linguistic tumn'was inspired by the anthropological work of Claude Levi-Strauss who, in the 1940s, had begun to apply the methods of structural linguistics tonon-linguistic cultural data (myth, kinship relations, etc.), thus giving birth to 'structuralanthropology'. In so doing, Levi-Strauss announced an ambitious programme, in whichlinguistics would provide a paradigm of scientificity for all the social SCIENCES;'Structural linguistics will certainly play the same renovating role with respect to thesocial sciences that nuclear physics, for example, has played for the physical sciences (Levi-Strauss, 1945:33).
Following the indications of Levi-Strauss, Lacan tumns to linguistics to providepsychoanalytic theory with a conceptual rigour that it previously lacked. The reason forthis lack of conceptual rigour was simply due, Lacan argues, to the fact that structurallinguistics appeared too late for Freud to make use of it;"Geneva 1910"and"Petrograd1920"suffice to explain why Freud lacked this particular tool' (E, 298). However, Lacanargues that when Freud is reread in the light of linguistic theory, a coherent logic isrevealed which is not otherwise apparent; indeed, Freud can even be seen to haveanticipated certain elements of modern linguistic theory (E, 162).
As the references cited above indicate ('Geneva 1910'and Petrograd 1920'), Lacan'sengagement with linguistics revolves almost entirely around the work of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and Roman Jakobson (1896-1982). References to the work ofother influential linguists such as Noam Chomsky, Leonard Bloomfield and Edward Sapir are almost completely absent from Lacan's work. There is a corresponding focus onthe sign, rhetorical tropes, and phoneme analysis, at the expense of an almost completeneglect of other areas of linguistics such as syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and language acquisition (though see DEVELOPMENT)(see Macey, 1988:121-2).
Saussure was the founder of 'structural linguistics'. In contrast to the study oflanguage in the nineteenth century, which had been exclusively diachronic (i.e.focusingexclusively on the ways that languages change over time), Saussure argued thatlinguistics should also be synchronic (i.e.focus on the state of a language at a given pointin time). This led him to develop his famous distinction between langue and parole, andhis concept of the SIGN as composed of two elements: signifier and signified. All theseideas are developed in Saussure's most famous work, the Course in General Linguistics, which was constructed by his students from notes they had taken at Saussure's lectures atthe University of Geneva and published three years after his death (Saussure, 1916). Jakobson further developed the lines laid down by Saussure, pioneering the developmentof phonology, as well as making important contributions to the fields of grammaticalsemantics, pragmatics and poetics (see Caton, 1987).
From Saussure, Lacan borrows the concepts of language as a STRUCTURE, althoughwhereas Saussure had conceived it as a system of signs, Lacan conceives it as a system ofsignifiers. From Jakobson, Lacanborrows the concepts of METAPHORandMETONYMY as the two axes (synchronic and diachronic) along which all linguisticphenomena are aligned, using these terms to understand Freud's concepts ofcondensation and displacement. Other concepts which Lacan takes from linguistics arethose of the SHIFTER, and the distinction betweenthe statement and the ENUNCIATION.
In his borrowing of linguistic concepts, Lacan has been accused of grossly distortingthem. Lacan responds to such criticisms by arguing that he is not doing linguistics butpsychoanalysis, and this requires a certain modification of the concepts borrowed fromlinguistics. In the end, Lacan is not really interested in linguistic theory in itself, but onlyin the ways it can be used to develop psychoanalytic theory (see Lacan, 1970-1; seminarof 27 January 1971). It was this that led Lacan to coin the neologism linguisterie (fromthe words linguistique and hysterie) to refer to his psychoanalytic use of linguisticconcepts (S20,20).