AN INTRODUCTION TO STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
: = using methods and ideas from structural
linguistics and the structural analysis of literature in order to understand
human meaning production wherever it might occur.
A STRUCTURE
= a system or totality of relations which tends to maintain itself through
changes of the elements, the elements getting their meaning and sense from
their place in the totality.
E.g. a piano sonata, e.g. a
human body.
(I) STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS:
MEANING IN
LANGUAGE is derived from the play of the elements within
the system or code, rather than from the nature of the elements
themselves.
Some useful
distinctions derived from structural linguistics, applicable
elsewhere as well:
1) la Langue: language
as a system, e.g. the English language,
the French language
versus
la Parole:
speech, the actual manifestations of language in speech and writing.
Illustration (Levi Strauss, Cultural
Anthropology)
2) syntagmatic connections/relations: spatial or
temporal ordering.
versus
paradigmatic: similarities or oppositions,
membership in the class of things which can be put in the same spot.
Illustrations: "The
old man chased the dog"
the
architecture of a Greek temple.
furniture, clothing, food, football, boxing, wrestling
as meaning systems. (esp. Roland Barthes)
3) synchronic: with
time, at a certain time slice
versus
diachronic: through time.
It
is not the history of a word which decides its meaning but its place within the
presently operating language. Meaning is
'synchronically' rather than 'diachronically' determined.
Deconstructionism'
arises when we realize that: meaning production itself, la parole, disturbs
systems, la langue; so that systems also have histories. The systems themselves, unfortunately, do not
stand still.]
4) sign versus signified
other signs sign other
signs
(no
natural relation: signs get to signify in a particular system, via relations to
other signs.
signified
(‘Deconstructionism’
comes into its own when it is realized that any naming or construction of the
signified is just another sign.
Reference is indefinitely deferred.
“There is nothing outside the text.”)
(II) (a small example of
) STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE LITERATURE
V. Propp on Russian
fairy tales (functions and characters)
A. J. Greimas on Lithuanian folktales (functions and personages)
GREIMAS'
ACTANTIAL SCHEME for analysing stories:
SENDER OBJECT RECEIVER
HELPERS SUBJECT OPPONENTS
(hero/ine)
top
line horizontally = 'axis of communication'
the
middle line vertically = 'axis of volition'
the
bottom line horizontally = 'axis of power'.
Examples:
(I)
Passion
narrative
GOD SALVATION HUMAN KIND
CROSS JESUS CHIEF
WOMEN PRIESTS
SIMON OF
HEROD SATAN
(II) Parable
of Good Samaritan
SAMARITAN HEALING PERSON
TAKEN
AMONG
THIEVES
WINE,
OIL, SAMARITAN PRIEST
DONKEY, LEVITE
INNKEEPER
(III) Parable
of Good Samaritan in its context in the gospel:
JESUS MEANING
OF SCRIBE
NEIGHBOUR
PARABLE JESUS HARD- HEARTEDNESS AND LEGAL MINDEDNESS
(IV) The
temptations in the wilderness
= Satan trying to put himself into the role of
Sender in relation to Jesus as Subject, with pseudo-salvation as object, using
Jesus' hunger and human desires and even the scriptures as helpers: to have
Jesus put himself together as subject in relation to this other sending.
GREIMAS:
THE 'DECONSTRUCTION' OF PERSONAGES IN NARRATIVES INTO 'ACTANTIAL ROLES' UNIFIED
BY 'SYNTACTIC INVARIANTS':
Actantial
Roles = functions or roles in the narrative
Syntactic Invariants = (usually) proper names.
This is how the meaning of a 'character' in a
novel or other story is produced, nothing more than this, and provides a prime
example of 'deconstruction' = just to show how the meaning is constructed.
(III) Structuralism also does interesting things to the Information Theory Triangle:
Normal
Information Theory Triangle:
SENDER SIGN RECEIVER
Pragmatic Axis
Semantic Axis
MEANING
(designatum)
Structuralist Information Theory Triangle:
OTHER
SIGNS (systems of meaning production, codes)
Syntactic Axis
SENDER SIGN RECEIVER
Pragmatic Axis
Semantic
Axis
MEANING
(designatum)
Structuralist
insights mandate a strong emphasis on the syntactic axis. It is this, various public meaning production
systems, which determines meaning produced, not the intention of the sender.
(IV) FURTHER APPLICATIONS IN DIVERSE FIELDS
LEVI-STRAUSS: IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: culture as
a kind of language, different cultures, e.g. different kinship systems, various
concrete deployments of this language
JACQUES LACAN AND JULIA KRISTEVA: IN STRUCTURALIST
PSYCHOANALYSIS:
the unconscious is structured like a language.
A conscious or remembered dream is the translation of another story in
the unconsciousness, and in getting to this story it's the relations between
elements which are important rather than the elements themselves (versus Freud
on this point).
HISTORY:
MARTIAL GUEROULT: INTRA-SYSTEMIC PHILOSOPHICAL
HISTORY: architectonic history, understanding a system is like understanding
how a cathedral is put together. What
determines the setting in place of each of the elements, what is the foundation
from which it flows and how does it flow out of that foundation.
MICHEL FOUCAULT**: 'ARCHAEOLOGICAL' HISTORY: each
period has its own 'episteme' or historical a priori, it's own set of blinkers
or glasses, and one object of history is
to relate things to that set of glasses.
'SYSTEMS ANALYSIS' IN SOCIOLOGY AND ELSEWHERE
EVERYTHING IS SOCIALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY
CONSTRUCTED, INCLUDING SEXUALITY, NOT JUST GENDER (though that too).
THE ONLY INTEREST IS IN WORKING OUT HOW THESE
THINGS ARE CONSTRUCTED = 'DECONSTRUCTION'.
PRISONS, HOSPITALS, BOARDING SCHOOLS, POLICE
ACADAMIES, MILITARY TRAINING CAMPS, seminaries, theological colleges
'MALE', 'FEMALE', FATHER, MOTHER, WIFE, HUSBAND,
SON, DAUGHTER,
JUDGE, PRIEST, POPE.
TO THINK OF THESE NOT AS
REALITIES OR CONCEPTS BUT AS CONSTRUCTS,
OF LANGUAGE AND OF STORIES.
IS EVEN 'GOD' A CONSTRUCT? MOST OF THE TIME, YES! HOW TO STOP 'GOD' BEING A CONSTRUCT ALL THE
TIME??
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DECONSTRUCTING DISCOURSE ITSELF?
YES, THAT TOO IS CONSTRUCTED – AND THEN THINGS GET
REALLY INTERESTING!