Theories of Structuralism

Semester 2
Module1

Theories of Structuralism 

The basic principle of Structuralism is that language structures our perception of the world around us.  Literature and other cultural representations are manifestations of systems of signs that can be studied both synchronically and diachronically.

• Prescribed Essay: 
   Ferdinand de Saussure. Sections from Course in General Linguistics. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. USA: Blackwell, 1998. Pp. 76-90.

Structuralism

 As a form of human science, structuralism tries to understand the fundamental structures that constitute human experience. The structuralists analyse language semiotically, as a system of signs. Major fields of study: linguistics, anthropology, sociology, psychology and literary studies.

   I.Major Schools of Structuralist Thought

·         Structural Linguistics

·         Russian Formalism

·         Prague Structuralism

·         Narratology

·         Structuralist Anthropology

·         Semiology  

       II. Major Concepts

• Arbitrariness of the sign
• Architext
• Artifact
• Author
• Backgrounding/Foregrounding
• Binary oppositions
• Diachronic approach/ Synchronic approach
• Difference
• Formalism
• Immutability
• Intertextuality
• Langue/ Parole
• Linguistic Paradigm

• Literariness
• Metaphoric Pole/Metonymic Pole
• Narratology
• Non-linguistic Sign Systems
• Paradigmatic pole/ Syntagmatic pole, 
• Paradigmatic Vs Syntagmatic
• Pragmatics
• Prague School
• Readerly text
• Semantics
• Semiology/Semiotics
• Sign/Signified/Signifier/Referent
• System

III. Major Figures

·         Ferdinand de Saussure

·         Roman Jakobson

·         Jan Mukarovsky

·         Vladimir Propp

·         Claude Levi-Strauss

·         Roland Barthes

          IV.Major Works

·         Ferdinand de Saussure- Course in General Linguistics

·         Roman Jakobson- Fundamentals of Language, “Linguistics and Poetics.”

·         Claude Levi- Strauss- Structural Anthropology

·         Vladimir Propp- The Morphology of the Folktale

·         Roland Barthes- Elements of Semiology, Critical Essays

·         Jonathan Culler- Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study

V. Sample Reading

-          The Great Gatsby

http://www.mychandlerschools.org/cms/lib6/AZ01001175/Centricity/Domain/953/Structuralist%20Crit%20-%20Gatsby.pdf