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Note | Structuralism

What is structuralism

Structuralism is a school of thought adopts a way of scientific method extracts social and human unconscious structure(s), is based on Saussurean linguistics or semiology. The concept of “structure” means a system composed of relations of things or elements. And structure is not only a set of plurality and unity, but also a whole can’t be separated and described as a system, relations and elements in a total relationship. There’s mutual effects among system, relations and elements. Structure obtains a characteristics through a process of changes. But exact concept of structure is various by authors. And structuralism has no proper manifesto and group.

This school and its movement swept over France and Europe in the 1960’s, still huge influence on humane studies and social science. The argument of structuralism led to be a criticism to rationalism, humanism and progressivism, Marxism and Sartre’s Existentialism. The viewpoint of structuralism still affects people in contemporary society.

A origin: Saussurean linguistic & semiology

A Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure create the general linguistic and semiology. These impact entirely changed the view point and the method of linguistic study.

Before de Sassure, linguists, especially comparative linguistics solely studied comparative and historical study of language. They compared and unraveled changes before and after of a language, differences among languages by phonology, syntax, lexicology and so on. And their ultimate aim is pursued the root and the entire history of the Indo-European language.

Also de Saussure is a great genius in comparative linguistics. But he felt he can’t grasp the truth of language and the true mechanism, mean and value of language forever by the study. So he was completely exhausted these endless study, and in a depressive state for a while. So he planned a study deals with general and universal system of language and human expression, as the general linguistic or semiology.

In “Course in General Linguistics” de Saussure pursued the general system of language, communication, and effects of meaning. This study brought about the school of structural linguistics. And he planned semiology, the general study of sign, precedes linguistics which got to be a major root of structuralism.

Levi-Strauss

Anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss applied linguistics of de Saussure and Roman Jakobson to analysis of structures of kinship or mythes in primitive societies, he proved a society composed by unconscious structures than subjective human will and decision. The rules in a structure of a society is an unconscious thing for the members of the society, so function of social structure has more important significance than subjective decision and intention of the world history.

Then Levi-Strauss showed a doubt for the idea of subjective decision by human of existentialism. He said human studies and social science should study the social structure that permits each men’s subjective decisions, the concept of a man as a subject must be resolved.

Roland Barthes

“Écrivain”, Roland Barthes rediscovered the Saussurean semiology, earnestly forwarded and applied it for analyses of literature, culture and the contemporary society. The aim of Barthes is solve the structure behind senses of which human, culture and nature form. Behind human expression and behaviour in a culture or society, there’s a certain invisible function or system.

In an essay “The Death of the Author” Barthes presented the concept of the death of the author, and criticize the author-centralism and the concept of “(grand) work” of classical literary criticism. By Barthes, an author is not the god or creator of the work, text should be read as a weaved fabric of various citations in a culture.

Louis Althusser

Philosopher, Louis Althusser re-read works of Karl Marx as a scientific epistemology or a structural relationalism analysis on economics and society.

Althusser thought, Marx’s theory must be structurally analysed, and the concepts such as “aliennation” and “reification” are eliminated by the method of epistemological break. He removed young Marx’s humanism and Hegel’s rationalism from Marx’s master-piece, The Capital.

Futhermore, Althusser made structural analysis the theory of Marx. He argued about “reciprocal effects between a superstructure and a basis”, “reproduction of relations of production”, and “ideological state apparatuses”. Then he proclaimed Marxism faces a crisis by becoming an ideological state apparatuses of the Communist Party.

Conclusion

Structuralism is a school or a method treat unconscious hidden system regulate thinking and acts of men, formed by relations of a relationship in a society or a culture.

I think structuralism is very important and still valid, and the thinking is still effective to analyse and think about a society, social movements, expressions and literature. And it’s an effective and potent way of thinking and a method of research, equal to phenomenology, existentialism, pragmatism and Wittgenstein’s language game, I think.

References

Akira Deguchi, Real Structuralism: Language, Power, Subject (NHK Publishing, 2013)

Graham Allen, Roland Barthes (Routledge, 2003)

Jonathan Culler, Roland Barthes (Oxford University Press, 2002)

‘Barthes (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Jonathan Culler

‘Barthes (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Jonathan Culler is a guide book about Roland Barthes. Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980) was a french ‘écrivain’ (writer), literary critic, literary theorist, semiologist (semiotician) and structuralism thinker. He made vast influences to humanities, social science, sociology, literary study, literary critic, philosophy and social thought.

In this small book, Culler summarises Barthes’s thoughts and pick out their essences.

Culler divided Barthes and his works into many various periods and aspects such as a Literary Historian, Mythologist, Semiologist, Hedonist and Writer. He don’t describe Barthes’s career as 4 periods usually mentioned (literary critic – semiologist or social mythologist – text theorist – romanesque author). And he describes clearly in each chapters but not surely chronologically.

A feature of this book is philosophical analysis of Barthes’s ‘pleasure’, in the French tradition, from Descartes to structuralism. The Cartesian consciousness to mind and subject is contrary to Barthes’s pleasure and emphasises of social codes and cultural skills. But ‘The notion of the body permits Barthes to avoid the problem of the subject: appealing to “the given that separates my body from other bodies and appropriates suffering or pleasure to it“, he emphasizes that he is not talking about subjectivity.’ Then Culler explains that ‘replacement of “mind” by “body” accords with Barthes’s emphasis on the materiality of the signifier as a source of pleasure. When listening to singing he prefers the corporeal “grain of voice” to expressiveness, meaning, or articulation’.

In this book Culler describes Barthes as a fixed figure or an intentionally thinker. Barthes wrote the society as the myth, in the same way Barthes and his works are myth constructed and consumed by people, society and Barthes himself.

This Culler’s introduction to Barthes, one of few english commentary book about Roland Barthes for beginners.

Barthes (A Very Short Introduction)
Jonathan Culler
Oxford University Press, Oxford, May 16 2002
152pp $11.95
ISBN: 978-0-19-280159-3
Contents:
Preface to This Edition
List of Illustrations
1. Man of Parts
2. Literary Historian
3. Mythologist
4. Critic
5. Polemicist
6. Semiologist
7. Structuralist
8. Hedonist
9. Writer
10. Man of Letters
11. Barthes after Barthes
Notes and References
Further Reading
Index

‘Roland Barthes (Routledge Critical Thinkers)’ by Graham Allen, Routledge

“Roland Barthes (Routledge Critical Thinkers)” by Graham Allen is an one of few english guide book about Roland Barthes. Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980) was a french ‘écrivain’ (writer), literary critic, literary theorist, semiologist (semiotician) and structuralism thinker. He made bold influences to humanities, social science, sociology, literary study, literary critic, philosophy and social thought.

This book is a introduction to Roland Barthes and his works. The chapters in this book, also register a certain chronology, and Barthes’s career is divided by four periods, moving from Barthes’ early phase of thought in Chapter 1 and 2, through his work on semiology and structuralism in Chapter 3 and 4, onto his poststructuralism phase in Chapter 5 and 6, and finally onto a set of issues emerging from his later writings (Barthes’ interest and writing about theoretical approaches to texts, music, photography and movie) from Chapter 7 to 9.

Allen traces Barthes’s transition of thought and life along with backgrounds from Marxism, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roman Jakobson to post-structuralism, Jaques Derrida, Mikhail Bakhtin, Julia Kristeva and so on. And Allen explains semiological terms and philosophical term by difference between Barthes’s and traditional means or other thinkers’. Also Graham Allen is a lecturer of text theory, so he describe Barthes as a literature critic and text theorist (the ‘texts’ includes language, literature, bourgeois society, music, photography and Roland Barthes himself) rather than an écrivain, structuralism philosopher, semiologist and sociologist.

The feature of this books is a concentrate on commentaries on Barthes’s text theory and literary analysis such as narrative analysis, zero degree writing, ‘myth’, intertextuality, neutral writing, hedonism, stadium/punctum and pheno-text/geno-text.

Another feature is a commentary on “Camera Lucida” of Barthes’s later life (Chapter 8 and 9), in which Barthes writing about music, photography and him life. Allen mentions Barthes’s last investigation reached the concept of ‘impossible’ practise of text. And Allen explains that ‘In “Camera Lucida” Barthes mixes theoretical writing with intense mourning for his mother in oder to present a text which exemplifies what is unrepeatable in his later writing. Barthes’s “Camera Lucida”, in pursuing an ‘impossible’ of practice of writing attempts to resist and defy the violence of language, which would turn his own mother into an archetype of the Mother. In performing such a personal act of writing, “Camera Lucida” offers to its readers many illuminating, if not immediately usable, insight into the nature of photography and representation generally’. Then Allen’s conclusion for Barthes’s activity is this. ’Writing for Barthes, is a meaning of perhaps, a meaning or perhaps, a disturbance of meaning rather than a production of meaning.’

This book is a basic, usual and total introduction to Roland Barthes and his theory, so it is the most useful book for beginners want to know about Roland Barthes especially his literally theory and text analysis.

Roland Barthes (Routledge Critical Thinkers)
Graham Allen
Routledge, Oxon, October 1 2003
192pp $24.95
ISBN: 0-415-26362-X
Contents:
Why Barthes?
Key Ideas
1. Writing and Literature
2. Critical Distance
3. Semiology
4. Structuralism
5. The Death of the Author
6. Texuality
7. Neutral Writing: Pleasure, Violence and the Novelistic
8. Music and Photography
9. Camera Lucida: the Impossible Text
After Barthes
Further Reading