Structuralism seeks to identify the underlying systems and conventions of literature. Key figures include Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes. Saussure viewed language as a social institution and structure that could be studied synchronically. He introduced concepts like the sign, signifier, and signified. Barthes extended structural analysis and semiotics to broader cultural phenomena, helping transition structuralism to post-structuralism.

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.