I intend in this chapter to examine Jacques Lacan's theory of the supremacy of the signifier, because it represents a point of convergence for today's semiolinguistic, psychoanalytic, philosophical, and epistemological studies. The theoretical, philosophical, and ideological aspects of the different positions of present-day semiotics, or 'secondary semiology,"¹ cannot be properly discussed without taking a look at the influence it has received from Lacanian work. Lacanianism in turn has also generated a set of theoretical elements bearing on the statement of the language problematic in general.