STRUCTURALISM

FERDINAND DE
SAUSSURE
• Who developed the idea that
language was composed of
arbitrary units that were void of
concept or meaning until they
acquired meaning through a
language system that relied on
differences between terms within
their larger linguistic and social
contexts.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

•Structuralism in Europe developed in the early 20th century, mainly

in France and the Russian Empire, in the structural linguistics of
Ferdinand de Saussure
•The Centre for Structural Linguistics in Paris was established in
1956.
•Structuralism faced criticism in the 1960s and 1970s for its focus on
formal structures and its neglect of historical and cultural contexts.
•Structuralism considered language as a system of signs and
signification, the elements of which are understandable only in
relation to each other and to the system.
POST-
STRUCTURALIS
M
Michel Foucault’s post-
structuralism is developed
through a series of historical
studies. His work is
remarkable in seeking to
change the way history is
written, while resisting a
straightforward move to
structuralist methods.
•Post-structuralism” is less unified as a theoretical
movement than its precursor.

• Foucault played a critical role in the development

of the postmodern perspective that knowledge is
constructed in concrete historical situations in the
form of discourse.
•Post-structuralism rejects the idea of a literary text having
a single purpose, a single meaning or one singular
existence. Instead, every individual reader creates a new
and individual purpose, meaning, and existence for a given
text.
•Post-structuralism emerged in France during the 1960s as
an antinomian movement critiquing structuralism.
•The period was marked by political anxiety, as students
and workers alike rebelled against the state in May 1968,
nearly causing the downfall of the French government.
FOUNDATIONAL QUESTIONS

•What binary oppositions or tensions (e.g., light/dark, good/evil, old/young.

Linear/nonlinear, poor/rich, masculine/feminine, and western/eastern) operate in
the text?

•How does the text uphold, versus resolve, contradictory meanings, particularly
as they relate to binary oppositions or tensions?

•How do other details and aspects of the text (e.g., dialogue, denotation.
Connotation, allusion, and imagery) undermine or subvert tension in the text?

•How does the text invite ambiguity versus certainty?