A Brief Introduction to Structuralism

Zhu Gang The English word structure comes from structum, the past participle of the Latin struere, meaning put in order. There are two kinds of structuralism: structuralism as a mode of thinking, a general tendency of thought, or a philosophical iew, and the narrower definition relating it to a method of in!uiry, deri ing chiefly from linguistics. "tructuralism as a way of thinking can #e traced #ack at least to $ristotle, whose Poetica is an interpretation of literary structure. G. %ico&s The New Science may also #e a modern structuralist work. The contemporary structuralists, in #oth senses of the term, include the 'rench (laude L i)"trauss, Grard Genette, Louis $lthusser, *ac!ues Lacan, *ean +iaget, ,oland -arthes, $lgirdas *. Greimas, the ,ussian ,oman *aco#son, .ikhail .. -akhtin, and the $merican (. ". +eirce, Edward "apir, and /oam (homsky. $ll of them share the #elief that the reality of the o#0ects of the human or social sciences is relational rather than su#stantial, and practice a critical method that consists of in!uiring into and specifying the sets of relations 1or structures2 that constitute these o#0ects or into which they enter, and of identifying and analy3ing groups of such o#0ects whose mem#ers are structural transformations of one another. "tructuralist linguistics was a more recent de elopment. 4ntil the turn of the twentieth century, language study was philology, i.e., the comparati e study of language in its historical de elopment, especially its actual use. Language in this study was taken to #e the product of thinking, and language study, essentially the collection of empirical language data, was comparati ely simple, transparent, and closed. Then a fundamental change took place: language, from the philosophical perspecti e, concerns the nature of meaning, and preconditions the way people think. This conceptual re olution was initiated #y the "wiss linguist 'erdinand de "aussure. $t 56 he wrote an Essay on Languages trying to deri e linguistic uni ersals from the phonetic patterns of the few languages he knew, #ut was denounced as presumptuous. Though his structuralist tendency was more apparent in the 7issertation on the primiti e owel)system in 8ndo)European Languages concerning a system for all owels pu#lished at 95, "aussure ne er pu#lished anything su#stantial thereafter. 8n 5:5;, three years after his death, two of his students pu#lished, in his name, the Course in General Linguistics , #ased on the notes taken #y the students in his lectures, which, in spite of its du#ious authorship, remains the #est introduction there is to the principles on which "tructuralism rests. The core concept of the Course is that of langue< parole. =hile indi idual utterance is parole, the language regulated #y linguistic rules or con entions to #e o#ser ed #y e ery mem#er of the community is langue: parole generates a message and langue understands or interprets it. 'or a science of signs, "aussure had to #racket the idiosyncratic parole so that he may directly confront the ideational o#0ect, the more sta#le system of langue. =hat distinguishes langue from parole is its ar#itrary, relational and systematic nature. -efore "aussure, language was generally taken to #e a naming process, i.e., linguistic phenomena were the mechanical reflection of the material world, whose change pre)determined the change of language. The first distinction "aussure made was that of the signifier 1the linguistic sign2, signified 1concept or sound) image aroused #y the signifier2, and referent 1related material world2. To emphasi3e the non)referentiality of signification, its process is understood to #e the relationship of the signifier and the signified lea ing no room for the referent. "ince this relationship is ar#itrary, the meaning of language does not relate to the e>ternal world, and its generation is the result of the interaction of linguistic elements occupying different

positions within language, signification is essentially an a#sence or lack that is marked. 8t is difference, a crucial concept in the "aussurean linguistics, that creates order out of chaos, an order out of which come language and clear thinking. The word structure did not appear in "aussure&s lectures, and he used opposition in its place. The first important structuralist after "aussure in Europe to use the concept of #inary opposition is ,oman *aco#son, the great structuralist pioneer in the era of the linguistic turn. *aco#son em#odied the history of structuralism in the twentieth century, as he was the ice president of the +rague Linguistic (ircle from 5:9? to 5:@A, introduced L i)"trauss to structuralism in the 5:BCs, and taught in arious 4" uni ersities till 5:?Cs. Dne of the contri#utions of *aco#son is his discussion of literary genre in terms of the #inary opposition. Ee #elie es, #ased on the "aussurean concept of the syntagmatic and the associati e, that human #eha ior is go erned #y an a#stract formal principle, namely the metaphoric< metonymic poles. The former is the selection of linguistic signs 1similarity2 and the latter the com#ination of the signs selected 1continuity2. 8n this sense, romanticism and sym#olism 1or poetry2 are characteri3ed #y the metaphoric pole while the metonymic pole is more apparent in realism 1or prose2. $lthough the early structuralist discussions focused largely on language and literature, "aussure #elie es that #y studying language, the prototype of all semiotics, structuralism may #e applica#le to all social sciences and humanities. The 'rench anthropologist L i)"trauss is the first important structuralist in this respect. Ee was directly influenced #y *aco#son, and regarded anthropology as inherently structural in that any anthropological fact, to #ecome intelligi#le, is already an interpretation and, hence, structural: the truly natural is #y definition unintelligi#le, #ut the culturalFis intelligi#le and thus capa#le of #eing integrated within some systematic e>planation. Ee saw a strong connection #etween anthropology and language: like phonemes, kinship terms are elements of meaningG like phonemes, they ac!uire meaning only if they are integrated into systems. Hkinship systems,& like Hphonetic systems,& are #uilt #y the mind on the le el of unconscious thought. 'inally, the recurrence of kinship patterns, marriage rules, similar prescri#ed attitudes #etween certain types of relati es, and so forth, in scattered regions of the glo#e and in fundamentally different societies, leads us to #elie e that, in the case of kinship as well as linguistics, the o#ser a#le phenomena result from the action of laws which are general #ut implicit. Dne of such famous phonemic kinship patterns is to #e found in his analysis of the Greek myth of Dedipus. L i)"trauss found ele en mythemes from the three Greek tales and arranged them into four columns, thus forming two groups of #inary opposites. The conclusion is: the myth deals with the origin of man&s #irth. Though critics #elie e that this analysis re eals the mentality of the ancient people in creating the myth, they may ha e dou#t a#out the rele ance of the deep structure L i)"trauss found since he turns away entirely from the historical conte>t of the myth of Dedipus. $ more critical iew is that L i)"trauss ne er tells us whether the mind he has re ealed is the mind of the primiti e people or that of his own. *aco#son&s effort at a structuralist redefinition of literature is a re i al of some earlier, less) structuralist attempts, and one of such attempts was made #y another ,ussian formalist. %ladimir +ropp is not a formal mem#er of the Opoyaz, #ut his Morphology of the olktale 15:9A2 is a #rilliant structuralist analysis of folktales: in #otany, morphology comprises the study of the component parts of plants, and of their relations one to another and to the wholeG in other words, the study of the structure of a plant. The morphology or the structural identification +ropp deri ed from the 5CC ,ussian 'olktales is #ased on the functions, or the actions of the characters. There are thirty)one such functions 1a family mem#er lea es home, the illain gets to know the ictim, etc.2 performed #y se en types of characters 1the illain, the helper, and so on2. Though +ropp does not, as the later structuralists do, arri e at a uni ersal structure of folktales, he does re eal a sta#le morphology of a literary genre. +ropp&s work was translated into

English in 5:6A, and similar attempts followed. The morphology of the folktale in the case of T3 etan Todoro , for instance, #ecomes narratology. The structure of the narrati e comprises, in terms of linguistics, of three parts: the er#al 1language2, the semantic 1content2 and the syntactic 1plot2. These can then #e further di ided. The syntactic, for instance, may start with phrases 1ad0ecti e, er#s, etc.2 and mo e towards sentences and paragraphs, all corresponding to different plot formations in the no el. The early ,oland -arthes was also #elie ed to #e largely structuralism)orientated. Eowe er, while saying that linguistics is the true science of structure, -arthes always seems to go #eyond mere linguistics. 8n The "tructuralist $cti ity pu#lished at a time when formalism was gi ing way to structuralism, for instance, he seems to #e trying to redefine the formalist literariness in terms of structuralism: structuralism is seen to #e the techni!ue of all creation, and it speaks the old language of the world in a new way. $s a leading e>ponent of structuralism, -arthes de elops a close connection with L i)"trauss and .ichel 'oucault, and his structuralism is #est illustrated in the famous S!" 15:?C2, where literary te>ts are structured #y the fi e ma0or codes: the hermeneutic, the semic, the sym#olic, the proairetic, and the cultural, which correspond in a comple>ity of reference to the te>tual unit of the no el Sarrasine. -ut -arthes differs from other structuralists in that his codes are not the ideal, transcendental model or the grammar of literary te>ts, #ut are instances of parole which ha e no ultimate langue. "tructuralism is one of the humanistic thoughts that ha e great impact on the twentieth century. 8t is true that structuralism is firmly em#edded in the tradition of =estern thought and scienceFto find ways of Hunderstanding& phenomena through models of e>planation that offer coherent pictures of the order of things. Eowe er, the start and the culmination of structuralism coincide with the two political crises in the =est: the 'irst =orld =ar and the iolent leftist mo ement of the ;CsG sta#le rules of a conflict)free, ultra) relia#le system in conte>ts like these are what was most needed to counter)#alance chaotic historical change. $s modernism and scientism represented #y the linguistic turn were found to #e more and more una#le to respond to human interest and social concerns, literary structuralism was soon regarded as the most pro ocati e and unpopular, and was !uickly replaced #y a humanistic turn, effected #y a re olution within structuralism itself. Eowe er, the influence of structuralism, 0ust as that of formalism, lingers on. The conser ati e #acklash of the ACs and :Cs is a clear indication that structuralist thinking is still there, and pretty strong.