History of structuralism
One of the most controversial intellectual movements, Structuralism, originated in France in the Prague school (initial phase 1950s and 1960s post 2nd World War). Its imprint created a crisis in English studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Language and philosophy are its major concern. It is Ferdinand de Saussure who first laid the foundation of structuralism which was then expanded by other linguists in many other fields such as anthropology, sociology and literature. Saussure basically talks for language.
Structuralism emerged as a trend in the 1950s as Saussure’s works were not translated until 1950. It challenged new criticism and rejected Sartre‘s existentialism and its notion of radical human freedom. On the other hand, structuralism focused how human behaviour is determined by cultural, social and psychological structures. It is through language that these things come out. Structuralism basically provokes a structure for all language and making meaning. It gives a discipline for all subjective study. Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida explored the possibilities of applying structuralist principles to literature. Jacques Lacan studied psychology in the light of structuralism, blending Sigmund Freud and Saussure. Michel Foucault‘s ‘The Order of Things’ examined the history of science to study the structures of epistemology. Louis Althusser combined Marxism and Structuralism to create his own brand of social analysis.
Meaning
Structuralism, in a wider sense, is a way of perceiving the world in terms of structures. First seen in the work of the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and the literary critic Roland Barthes, the essence of Structuralism is the belief that “things cannot be understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the context of larger structures they are part of”. It is we humans who carry out each and every task structurally.
The fundamental belief of Structuralism, that all human activities are constructed and not natural, pervades all seminal works of Structuralism. Structuralists like Roman Jakobson and Noam Chomsky were members of the Prague school.
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher, first introduced Structuralism in linguistics, marking a revolutionary break in the study of language, before which had only been historical and philological. It was his ideas that laid the foundation for significant developments in both linguistics and language. He says that all languages have a specific structure. It is due to Saussure that new roads were opened not only for the study of linguistics but also for the theory of literature. He undertook a synchronic approach that language as a structure could be studied wholly.
Saussure’s view implies that we build up an understanding of the world by means of language and view the world through language. Saussure made a distinction between two dimensions of language: langue, which refers to language as a structured system by maintaining certain rules; and parole, utterance which are based on those rules. It gave structuralists a way of thinking about the larger structures which were relevant to literature.
In part two of Saussure’ ‘Course in General Linguistics’, he addresses the crucial connection between thought and language. Prior to language, Saussure suggests that our thought is “shapeless”. For example: the ideas in our mind while presenting, we do it structurally. Everything maintains a structure. Suppose while presenting an idea, we first talk about the concept and then gradually develop it.
Saussure’s unique concept
Saussure’s idea of the linguistic sign is a seminal concept in all structuralist and post- structuralist discourses. He argued that language is a system of signs in relation: no sign has meaning in isolation, rather its significance depends on its differences from other signs. In Saussure’s structuralist theory, his sign is a combination of two things- signified and signifier. His sign designates the whole thing; signified designates the concept and signifier the form (can be any word, sound or image). The sign as whole refers to the actual object that exists.
For example, the concept/idea of writing (signified), by which we can write; signifier(form) can be its length, size, its features like its portable, handy—
sign(exact thing) i.e. it is a pen!
Roland Barthes was one of the major contributors to the development of structuralism which was initially developed by Saussure. He was a post-structuralist as well. He was traditionally regarded as a formalist during his structuralism period (1950s-1960s). For Barthes, semiotic thought was composed of two branches, namely cultural semiotics and literary semiotics.
Introduction of Myth
From Saussure’s sign, Barthes introduced myth, which means meaning or message. Unlike Saussure’s sign, which designates an object, Roland’s most fundamental suggestion is that myth is not an object, rather a concept or an idea, a type of speech likely to convey a message. For example: the idea of something by which one can get rid of blackness (signified-concept), in the form of Fair & Lovely (signifier), ultimately leads to the myth, i.e. by using it will enhance one’s beauty. The process is formed structurally. Message is a structural result.
Barthes restates Saussure’s view that semiology is comprised of three terms (rather than two): signifier, signified and sign, in which sign is a relation between signifier and signified. The structure of myth repeats this trio dimensional pattern. Myth is a second-order-semiological system. The first order, which Barthes called denotation, described the literal meaning of a message. The second order, Barthes termed it as connotation which designated the cultural or ideological meaning of a message. The two tier semiological system was Roland’s first effort to develop a systematic approach to the study of signs.
Roman Jakobson
A pioneer of structural linguistics, Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) occupies a central and seminal place in the development of formalism and structuralism. In his birthplace Moscow, he co-founded the Moscow Linguistic Circle in 1915. Along with Victor Shklovsky and Boris he was also indulged in a second Russian Formalist group, the society for the study of Poetic Language. In 1916 Jakobson founded the Prague Linguistic Circle, engaged with the work of Saussure. He fled from the Nazi occupation to America and became acquainted with Claude Levi-Strauss and co-founded the Linguistic Circle of New York. His ideas proved to be of greatest impact first in France and then in America. It is Jakobson who in his paper “Linguistics and Poetics”, introduced that since poetics concerns the artistic features of a “verbal message,” and linguistics is the “global science of verbal structure,” poetics is an integral part of linguistics.
Jakobson accepts that language is primarily concerned with the transmission of ideas. But he cautions us that the ‘emotive’ elements of language cannot be excluded from linguistic study. For example, the emotive or expressive function is focused on the “addresser”, and will convey the speaker’s attitude, which itself may convey some important information.
Signs
Signs can take many forms. We perceive different kinds of meanings. It is anything that can be used to represent something else. Charles Sanders Peirce introduced a significant idea in semiology, the distinctions of symbolic, iconic and indexical signs.
• An Icon has a physical resemblance to the signified (concept), the thing being represented. A picture is an example of an icon signifier. Whether a picture is captured or drawn, it resembles the original thing.
• An Index describes the connection between signifier and signified. For example, smoke is an index of fire. Where there is a fire, there will be smoke. Dark clouds are an index of rain. An index gives evidence of the concept or object that exists, it doesn’t resemble it.
• Symbol stands at the opposite pole from the icon. There is no logical connection on what it represents rather we learn it culturally or ideologically. For example, numbers and alphabets are symbols. Traffic lights are symbols. In traffic lights, red means ‘stop’. On the other hand Red is the colour of love. Conventions and standards help make the connection between symbols and what they represent.
Noam Chomsky
Apart from humans, no other species have the capacity for language and the ability to use it in endless creative ways. We all acquire our native languages completely with their vocabularies and grammatical patterns. Speakers proficient in a language get to know in a moment which expressions are acceptable in their language and which are unacceptable. The key question is how speakers come to know these restrictions of their language? Is the quality genetically innate? How much do we learn from our surroundings?
In 1957, linguist Noam Chomsky published his book “Syntactic Structures”, proposing a novel idea that all human beings may be born with an innate understanding of how language works. He says that all languages contain similar structures and rules, and without much effort children learn to speak structurally as our brain is wired that way. According to Chomsky, we can acquire language because we are genetically encoded with a universal grammar— a basic understanding of how communication is structured. For example, like how human beings are born with the innate ability to walk. Apart from what they see in their surroundings, walking is encoded in human beings, which is an innate ability.
Chomsky’s Structuralism
Chomsky also introduced paired terms deep structure and surface structure in his Standard theory. Surface structure is derived from deep structure by means of transformations— transformational grammar. His work contradicted earlier tenets of structuralism by rejecting that every language is unique. He says that every language has similar grammatical patterns. A sentence belonging to any language can be composed in various ways with the same meaning.
For example: Harry read the book. The book is read by Harry. The book is read by Harry.
Both the sentences convey the same meaning, this is transformational grammar. Although the sentences, one is active and other passive, they appear to be very different on the surface (i.e. in word order), a transformational grammar tries to show that in the underlying structure (deeper structure/meaning), the sentences are similar.
The Influence of Structuralism
Although structuralism has been a controversial movement, it has gained undoubted success to its credit across a range of disciplines and subject matter. Structuralism gave a discipline to subjective study. Structuralism and the concept of sign may not have been studied this way without the seed sown by Ferdinand de Saussure. It is he who laid the foundation and others expanded it to various fields and meanings.