Structuralism

Mid-twentieth century witnessed the rise of critical theory that emerged

from literary criticism. Northrop Fyre, a Canadian theorist, was mostly
influential in America in whose works one finds the ideas that are similar
to that of structuralism. Theorists of structuralism such as Levi Strauss
build upon the new critical theories of Northope Fyre to create the theory
of structuralist criticism.
Structuralism, as the word suggests, is the study of structures in
language. One studies and analyses to discover a structure that could
lead us to a meaning/truth. Structuralism is the study of literature for
its meaning through the pattern of language.
Ferdinand de Saussure reveals the functioning of language in terms of
sign and signifier. On the base of Northope Fyre’s theory, Levi Strauss
fixes Saussure’s theory of language to apply it to the study of literature
which came to be known as structuralist criticism.
Strauss attempts the structuralist study of myths and claims that myths
all around the world have same pattern/structure—which is to say:
despite myths having different characters, plots, etc, they have a central
meaning similar to myths existing all around the world.

Strauss also suggests that myths with langue and parole also have a
third element that combines them both. He believes that the myth that
got produced a long time ago is timeless. This is to suggest that the
study of myths tells us that myths are historical and ahistorical at the
same time.
Structuralism is a criticism that doesn’t look out for/ concern itself with
historical, political, social, context of the text. It is purely a form based
reading of the text meant to appreciate the piece of literature as being
timeless. Structuralists don’t believe in knowing about the author or the
socio-political context of the text as for them the text in itself is enough.

Ferdinand de Saussure
Till Saussure, the study of language was a diachronic practice, which is
to say language was studied by analyzing the changes that have been
taking place in the language through history. Saussure introduced a
synchronic approach to study the language.

A synchronic approach would mean to consider language as a

structure and to study it in its entirety at a given point of time.
Saussure contributed ideas and theories to the world of linguistics that
theorists like Levi Strauss, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Jacques
Lacan, Julia Kristeva, etc. were under the influence of his insights.
Saussure was born in a Swiss family, studied at universities of Berlin
and Leipzig. He taught in Paris, and later at the University of Geneva.
His Course in General Linguistics in fact was a posthumous compilation
of the lecture notes done by his collogues. Like his introduction of the
synchronic study of language, he has made various other claims
regarding language.
Firstly, he denies that there is any natural connection between words
and things, implying that reality isn’t independent of language and
language cannot be reduced to ‘name-giving system’. Saussure seems
to be suggesting that we make our understanding of the world by
language and sees the worlds through language.

Furthers, Saussure argues, language is a system of signs which has no

meaning and place in isolation, but can only understood in relation to the
difference with other words; for example, Saussure is theorizing that we
think of Cat, the word, as Cat, the object because the Cat is not Dog;
Dog is understood as Dog because it is not table.

Saussure later introduces the concepts of ‘langue’ and ‘parole’. Langue

and parole are two dimensions of language as the former refers to a
structured system of the language, based on certain rules and latter
refers to personal or a specific understanding of the language, or the
utterance of the thought in a personalized way but which is based on the
rules of the langue.

Saussure makes a distinction between speech and language: he argues,

language is heterogeneous and speech is homogeneous. That is to say,
in the process of construction, language, gets collectively approved by
communities and all the people who are sharing a common language;
therefore, language is a social institution which is uniquely different from
legal and political institutions—on the other hand, speech is, as
Saussure writes: “It is a system of signs in which the only essential thing
is the union of meanings and sound-images, and in which both parts of
the sign are psychological.”
In the Course, Saussure explains the ‘Nature of the Linguistic Signs’,
which is, in some way, his understanding of the concept of sign that was
unknown to us before him and has impacted literary and cultural theory
to an un-ignorable extent. Saussure subdivides ‘sign’ into ‘signifier’ and
‘signified’; and, he argues, that both concepts of the sign are
psychological.
The sign doesn’t unite a name and a thing but a concept and a sound-
image. And to further break this terminology, Saussure suggests: ‘sign’,
the whole, ‘signified’, the concept, and ‘signifier’, the sound-image. A
sign, therefore, consists of a signifier and a signified. For instance, the
object table is a sign; the concept of a table is signified by using the
signifier, the word or sound image, table.
In other words, Saussure says: a sign that refers to the object consists of
signified and signifier which has no relation with the object. Signifier and
signified are psychological concepts; therefore, language cannot be
understood in the conventional sense, where it is understood as having
a ready-made structure and is reduced to having the purpose of naming.
This profound understanding of the language actually motivated him to
argue to have an entirely new discipline, that would be called, as he
suggested, ‘semiology’.

This profound understanding of the language actually motivated him to

argue to have an entirely new discipline, that would be called, as he
suggested, ‘semiology’.

Roland Barthes
One observes that Saussure’s theoretical treaty may be fundamental for
structuralism but it has hardly to do anything with the literary criticism
that structuralism is known for.
It was, in fact, Barthes who furthers the discourse of structuralism as one
that is applicable to literature for analyses—not only that, Barthes goes
on to move his own philosophical manifestations from structuralism to
post-structuralism; that is to say: Barthes is a significant theorist for
both: structuralism and post-structuralism. 
As far as Barthes’ structuralism is concerned it is his Elements of
Semiology that is the seminal text. Barthes begins by claiming that signs
exist only in language and not outside it.
It is a complex idea that means there is nothing outside or without
language. Though language could itself be argued to having flows and
various other problems but its only in language that signs exist;
therefore, make the communication possible. 
Semiology, a discipline that Saussure gave birth to, is classified into four
elements by Barthes: a) language and speech b) signifier and
signified c) syntagm and system and d) denotation and connotation. 
We remember Saussure’s distinction of language into langue (the
structure that has social acceptance) and parole (the individuals’
reaction and reception towards it), at this point Barthes argues
that language cannot be effected by an individual as it is a social
phenomenon. Hence, Barthes disagrees with Saussure saying that
language is social even at personal level. 
Saussure, in his theory of language, argues that signifier and signified
has an arbitrary connection. This claim is refuted by Barthes for he
believes that the connection is a necessity. This connection is a process
that reaches the end point, the signification, through contraction and this
process further naturalizes the connection between signifier and
signified. 

It is easily understood that language, let’s say a sentence, is divided into

various elements. Commenting on the elements of a sentence Barthes
calls the relation of these elements ‘syntagm’ and the relationship
between the elements of two different sentences that are
interchangeable is called system.

For instance, ‘They are playing,’ shows a syntagm relationship while the
relationship between “They are playing’ and ‘We were watching,’ where
‘we’ and ‘were’ are replaceable with ‘they’ and ‘are’, is, according to
Barthes, system. 
Barthes argues that any system of signification has three classifications
while commenting on ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’: the relation
between b) signifier and c) signified. He says that this whole system
reveals the working of the language at two levels that are ‘denotation’
and ‘connotation’.
According to Barthes, in order to attempt a structuralist analysis of a text,
it is necessary to identify the structure of the text through language
keeping in mind the above-mentioned classifications.

Introduction
‘Structuralism’ now designates the practice of critics who analyze
literature on the explicit model of the modern linguistic theory. It is
a term of literary criticism related to language though it influenced a
number of modes of knowledge and movements like Philosophy,
Anthropology, Social Science, literature in Europe.
Actually, “structuralism”, became a major post-war intellectual
movement in Europe and the United States.
But the fact is that ‘structuralism’ includes all kinds of communicative
methods both verbal and non-verbal as well as sign and signification. As
a result, it relates all the forms of signs like smoke, fire, traffic-light, fly
beacon, body language, art facts, status symbol etc.
Background
Though structuralism was marked and bloomed in the 1950s and
1960s, the salient of it was the Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de
Saussure(1857-1913). He instead of highlighting the historical
development of language chose to consider it in ‘a temporal term’ as a
system of differentiated signs which could have to mean within the
system of which they were part (Bijoy Kumar Das, Twentieth Century
Literary Criticism, Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, P-26 ).
He imposed importance on modern uses of the language system and its
activities, its grammatical structures and on the establishment of its
meaning. Saussure’s idea about linguistic structure can expatiate in
three ways:

1. Firstly, the imposed meaning of a word is absurd and it keeps

on only our traditional faith. There is no relation between a
 word and its meaning. For example, the meaning of the word ‘hut’
might not be what it traditionally implies. It would give another
meaning. So, it’s absurd to cherish a specific meaning fixed for a
specific word.
2. Secondly, No word can be defined keeping it separate from its
related words. Every word depends on its synonymous words
for giving a meaning idea. So, word meanings depend on their
systematic arrangements. For this, when we say the word
‘Mansion’, we make a comparison with its synonymous words like
‘house’, ‘palace’ etc. Not only the synonyms but also the antonyms
of a word help us to impose a meaning upon a word. As a result,
the word ‘Man’ expresses such a meaning that the ‘woman’ does
not, as ‘day’ does not like ‘night’. So, all the words are netted with
their comparative and contrastive ideas.
3. Thirdly, the meaning of a word is always imposed on it by
human mind and idea. It is never universal. For example, there
is no impartial and real method for distinguishing two persons —
one is a ‘terrorist’ and another is a ‘Freedom fighter’. They can be
accepted by various persons with various ideas and valuations. So,
language is arbitrary and relational and constitutive.
In fact, ‘structuralism’ refers to the works of structural linguists
like Saussure, Jacobson, structural anthropologists like Levi
Strauss and structural semioticians like Grimes and Barthes. These
critics share a characteristic way of thinking about structures.
Though Saussure restricted him within the linguistic theory only, the
anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss applied Saussure’s ideas in his
studies of Kingship, totemism, and myth. In doing so, Strauss promoted
a new interest in Saussure and became a focal point for the structuralist
movement of the 1960s

Strauss’ structuralism was an effort to reduce the enormous

amount of information about cultural systems to what he was/were
the essentials, the formal relationships among their elements.
He viewed cultures as systems of communication and constructed
models based on structural linguistics information theory and cybernetics
to interpret them.
According to Strauss, myths through the world are the
transformations of one another. The myths of different cultures may
appear to be different. But if the myths have the same structures, they
may actually be saying the same thing.