2.  Definition
 Main Characteristics
 Main Figures
 Ferdinand de Saussure
 Roland Barthes

4. Definition of :
 Structuralist investigation of
literature seeks to identify the
systems of conventions
underlying literature.

6. Main Characteristics:
 Language needs to be studied “in itself,”
rather than in its connection with other
things.
 Language is not a naming process, each
word corresponding to the thing it names.
 Language (as opposed to speech) is
“outside of the individual who can never
create nor modify it by himself.”

7. Main Characteristics:
 Language is a system of signs in which the
only essential thing is the union of
meanings and sound-images.
 Language is a social institution, with unique
features that distinguish it from
other, political and legal, institutions

9. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–
1913)
 Ferdinand de Saussure was effectively
the founder of modern linguistics, as
well as of structuralism.
 It was his lectures in general
linguistics, posthumously compiled by
his colleagues as Course in General
Linguistics (1916), that proved to be of
seminal influence in a broad range of
fields.

10. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–
1913)
 As opposed to a diachronic approach
which studies changes in language over
a period of time, Saussure undertook a
synchronic approach which saw
language as a structure that could be
studied in its entirety at a given point in
time.

11. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–
1913)
 Especially important is his use of the
terms “sign,” “signifier,” and “signified”
as displayed in the following diagram:
 The bond between signifier and signified
is arbitrary.

12. Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
 Roland Barthes’ theoretical development
is often seen as embodying a transition
from structuralist to poststructuralist
perspectives.

13. Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
 Barthes effectively extended structural
analysis and semiology (the study of
signs) to broad cultural phenomena.
 His renowned essay “The Death of the
Author” appeared in 1968.