Structuralism: Understanding Concepts Through Language and Culture
About Structuralism
Structuralism is a theoretical approach that seeks to understand concepts through their relationships with other concepts. It emphasizes the importance of seeing differences between things to fully comprehend them.
Key Concepts
Langue: The overall system of language, including rules of grammar. Parole: An individual instance of language, such as a sentence or poem. Semiology/Semiotics: The structuralist study of culture beyond linguistics and literature.
Ferdinand de Saussure’s Contributions
Ferdinand de Saussure viewed language as a system of signs, each consisting of a sound-image (signifier) and a concept (signified). He emphasized the arbitrary link between signifiers and signifieds, which varies across languages.
Construction and Discursivity
Structuralists believe that reality is constructed through language, not discovered. They see language as a process that generates sound-images and concepts, but not physical objects.
Codes and Conventions
Structuralists analyze genres by revealing their grammar, or codes and conventions. These conventions dictate what can and cannot happen within a particular genre.
Intertextuality and Hermeneutics
Intertextuality involves understanding one text in relation to others. The Hermeneutic Circle emphasizes the interconnectedness of understanding parts and wholes.
Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches
Synchronic approaches examine a language or system at a specific point in time, while diachronic approaches consider changes over time.
Defamiliarization and Narratology
Defamiliarization refreshes perspectives on familiar things. Narratology, the structuralist study of narrative, focuses on the sequence of events and the telling of stories.
Categories of Narration
1) Embedding- refers to stories within stories, cases where the narrative has a
framing story & another story within the frame
2) Reliability – Reliable vs unreliable narrators. Seemingly omniscient
3) Focalization – Point of view/ perspective. Internal Focalizer = whose eyes or mind the narration looks
through
4) Free Indirect Discourse– shifts
the tense a step back & uses the third person, but its blurs the boundary btwn
narrators language & characters language. [He loved her, This time he was
sure]
Direct Discourse – Represents speech
or thought directly. [He said: I love her]
Indirect Discourse – Present tense,
to past perfect & uses 3rd person to represent speech or thought
through summary [He thought that he loved her]
– A sentence is a small narrative.
It has a subject, predicate(verb), object, and larger narratives also
have subjects, predicates and objects.
– The characters are subjects; things are the characters do are predicates;
and the results (sought or achieved) are objects.
– Syntagmatic/ Horizontal Axis on the one hand of the paragdigmtic, or
vertical axis on the other hand.
Paradigmatic or vertical axis: Means
things that come in a group can substitute for eachother. [ex you can go swim w
jane, john, or a dog. The category that contains them all is a group or
paradigm]
Syntagmatic or horizontal axis:
Things that follow in a sequence [Jane interprets the book] that sometimes you
can rearrange. [The book interprets Jane]
– Together, vertical (paradigmatic) & horizontal (syntagmatic) choices
craft an interpretable style
Metaphor: Describes something by
something else that’s not connected to it [She is a real spark plug]
Metonymy: Describes something by
something else that IS connected to it or part of it. [My car broke down, can I borrow your wheels?] Wheels are a
part of the car