CRG for Thursday, January 31 (PW, 259-278)
Susana Onega writes on the first page of her essay on structuralism that "the structuralists drew an analogy between language systems and social systems" (259). Carefully consider the paragraph in which this assertion occurs, and make sure you understand the full iimport of this claim. In her description of Ferdinand de Saussure's innovations in the field of linguistics, she underscores two things: difference and language's binary nature. When she writes that Saussure considered the bond between the signifier and the signified to be arbitrary, she is clearly not saying that you can call things whatever you like. •What is the point here, then?
Claude Lévi-Strauss was an anthropologist who put structuralist linguistics to use. On p. 264 Onega writes that Lévi-Strauss "postulated the segmentation of myths into basic units of signification, which he called 'mythemes' ..., and he proposed the rearrangement of these units in a matrix meant to bring together the deep meaning of myth and the diachronic unfolding of the plot." •What is the value in separating out these things? •What does Onega mean when she says that Lévi-Strauss viewed the "essential and minimal elements" of myth "to combine to form a kind of language, a set of processes, permitting the establishment of a certain type of communication between individuals and groups? •In short, what are the ramifications of calling myth a kind of language?
Carefully consider the section on Roland Barthes, and make sure you understand what, according to Onega, Barthes added to the study of literature. What, for example, is écriture, and how did he understand the relationship between social and symbolic uses of language in all its manifestations?
•What did Gérard Genette bring to the mix, and how did his work fall in line with that of other structuralist thinkers? What does narratology appear to be?
Below is a list of concepts that we can generalize out from today's reading. Deal with it. Make sure you understand all of them. They'll be back.
Language as a system of differential oppositions
Autonomy of the work of art
Science of linguistics and of language analysis
Language, human speech, speaking
Poetic function of language
Master code, grammar of work of art
Underlying patterns in inter-related sign systems
Application to all sign systems, including social ones (dress, architecture, etc.)
Social interaction and differential opposition as political dimension
Narrative communication as functional exchange
Readerly vs writerly text and “co-authorship”
Death of the author
Horizontal and vertical axis of narrative analysis
Story vs. narrative vs. telling
Strong and weak points of structuralism