STRUCTURALISM

Prague School of linguistics was instrumentally developed Structuralism as a theory.

They pioneered structuralism. It began in Czechoslovakia. Structuralism is a combination of

formalism and Saussurian structural linguistics in a single theoretical frame work. There are two

theories combined in to one. It is also defined as a theoretical principle in which the signifier and

the signified are governed by a single set of rules. Formalists incorporated Saussurian principles

into formalist literary theory. The Prague school reformulated within the Saussurian structural

linguistics.

The most important aspect of structuralism is structure. Structure is

always bipolar. Formalists believe in a bipolar structure. Structuralists have two definitions for

language structure and literary structure. In the case of language study, structure means the

formalist equivalent of relations. Structure is a set or totality of relations. It is the sum total of

syntagmatic and associative relations. In literary studies, structure is a substitute for the formalist

equivalent of device and material. Device is related to form and material is related to content in

conventional form.Literary structure is comparable to formal devices and contrasted with

materials. Literary structure is related to every aspect of the text and that is why it is compared to

formal device, related to form and content. Structure is bipolar constituting content and form.

Structuralism tries to understand the basic structures that underlie all human experience and

behaviour.

According to structuralists, a literary structure is a message or piece of communication.

Jackobson explains that every text necessarily requires six elements of a message and they

correspond to six functions of communication. Six elements of a message and their functions are,
 1. Addresser has emotive function.

2. Addressee has conotive function.

3. Context has referential function.

4. Means of conduct has phatic function.

5. Code has metalingual function.

6. Message has poetical function.

Structuralism was later developed by French theorist Roland Barthes and

Claude Levi-Strauss. They developed structuralism in to semiotics. Semiotics began from

Saussurian linguistics. At the beginning Barthes redefined relation between signifier and the

signified According to Barthes every signifier is also related to signifieds which precedes and

follow. So meaning is not very simple. There are collateral meanings and they are produced by

the impact of the signifieds which precede and follows. There is a primary meaning for signifier

and in addition to it there is secondary meaning. The important works of Barthes are,

Mythologies, S\Z, Image- Music- Text, Camera Lucida, The Pleasure of a Text. The S\Z is the

first book in which Barthes introduced set of eight linguistic codes to analyse a text. Any text can

be analysed on the basis of eight linguistic codes. He categorise linguistic codes and these codes

are used to analyse a linguistic text. He himself analyzed poems and short stories using S\Z. He

analyzed the famous short story of Hemingways The Cat in the Rain. The story is analyzed by

an extended way by Barthes.

In The Pleasure of a Text he compares the reading experience to an erotic sensation. He

compares the reading experience to cabaret dance. He classified text in to readerly and writerly.
Readerly Text

The text in which the production and construction of meaning is difficult is called

readerly text. They have rigid forms. They are usually closed- ended texts. It is a writers text. A

writers attempt is to challenge the reader to read and produce meaning. They resist reading and

formation of meaning.

Writerly Text

Writerly text is open- ended and the production of meaning is easier. It is loose in

structure. It permits signification and reading. Here reading is simple, pleasurable, and

impressive. Reading is not problematic. Writerly texts are widely read. The popular fictions are

examples of writerly texts.

Barthes also analyzed oral text and written text. Many mythologies are in oral form.

When an oral text is documented it becomes a written text. In oral text, signifiers are flexible.

Oral text can be melodious. He introduced two terms,

1. Anchor

Anchor is usually formed in written text where chain of signifiers are restricted,

confined and fixed. The relation between signifier and signified is stable and the relation among

the signifiers is also stable.

2. Relay

Relay is usually found in oral text. It is floating chain of signifiers. The relation

between signifier and signified is flexible and also the relation among the signifiers are flexible.
 Oral literature has more meanings and for the written the collateral meaning is

limited.

According to Barthes, every writing is a re-writing of the existing text. There

is no new text. Barthes considered writing as a circulation of language and this he explains in the

analysis of Balzacs Sarassin. There is no independent or isolated writing. Thats why Barthes

says that, Writing is a circulation of language. In his earlier career Barthes is a structuralist and

later he is a poststructuralist. Post- structuralism began wih the publication of Barthess Death of

the Author. He claims that author as a person is no more. Author remains in the text not as a

person but as a style, function. Death of the author is paradoxical because writing produce

immortality to the author. Author lives through the readers. Author ceases to be an omnipotent

and demi-god. He argues that when a text is constructed the author s insignificant. It is through

the text the author is remembered. So text is important. The significance of the text is explained

by Barthes. It is the text that provides a space for the text. Author is a textual construct. With the

death of the author, reader becomes prominent. Barthes makes a celebrated statement in his essay

Death of the Author that, the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author.

He introduced a term Fortunes of the text. Classics overcome spatio temporal elements of the

text. It is the readers who determine the fortunes of the text. What to text according to him a

work is limited by bound text. Text is something that can interpret. It can anything that can be

subjected to analysis. A text interacts with the audience. And produce meaning, emotions. Even a

text can compel the readers.

Claude Levi-Strauss

Claude Levi-Strauss is the French cultural anthropologist. He is the exponent of

cultural semiotics. His concept of cultural semiotics is explained in Structural Anthropology.

Here he elaborates on cultural semiotics. He studied human relations with myths. The existence

of structural similarities among widely differing cultures was his area of interest. He coined a

new term called mytheme. Mytheme is a minimal meaningful unit of a myth. A myth is

constituted of several myhtemes. He says that using this mythemes, we can reduce and

understand the large number of myths of this world. If myths are taken to be forms of narrative,

mythemes are narrative structures. He studied Greek and Roman myths and established a

relation like patricide, matricide, fracticide. He explained incest or patricide as a difference in the

rating of blood relations. A killing is rated as under rating of blood relations and incest is rated as

over rating of blood relations. In his essay Incest and Myth he explained why men are fear to

married from their own clans. He explains that our cultural prohibitions are determined by

myths.

The works of Barthes and Claude Levi- Strauss constitutes two branches of

semiotics called School of Cultural Semiotics and they studied myths. Both Barthes and Levi-

Strauss consider myth as meta language and they argue that structurally and culturally there is no

difference between language and meta language( means myth and language are same). Myth and

memory constitute alternative history. Myth cannot be substituted for documented history.

Some of the alternative histories, like documented histories have no written form. They are never

recognized as mainstream history.

Social Semiotics began with Charles Sander Pears. They speak about social signs.

Social signs include, signs related to holocaust, signs related to Spanish civil war, signs related to

Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing etc. Statue of liberty is a social sign. There are several other

signs related to Second World War

Jonathan culler

Jonathan Culler, contributor of Semiotics whose lucid analyses of structuralism semiotics

and deconstruction have been prize by generations of readers, explores the place of the literary in

theory. His Structuralist Poetics and Idea of Signs made historical development of social signs.

He incorporated from all semioticians from Saussure to Umberto Eco. Umberto Eco is a novelist,

and semiotician. His novels are called Semiotic Fiction. According to him, he wrote novels to

illustrate the theories of semiotics.

 ASSIGNMENT
Literary Criticism and Theory

TOPIC: STRUCTURALISM

Submitted by:
Ardra.G.Nair
MA English
15KA03EN10
SSUS Kalady