Structuralism seeks to identify the underlying systems and conventions of language and literature. It views language as a system of signs and social institution with its own unique features, rather than as a naming process connected to external things. The founder was Ferdinand de Saussure, who saw language as a structure that could be studied synchronically. He introduced key concepts like the sign, signifier, and signified. Roland Barthes later applied structural analysis and the study of signs more broadly to culture, helping transition structuralism to poststructuralism.

1. STRUCTURALISM
Definition:
Structuralist investigation of literature seeks to identify the systems of conventions underlying
literature.
Main Characteristics:
1. Language needs to be studied “in itself,” rather than in its connection with other things.
2. Language is not a naming process, each word corresponding to the thing it names.
3. Language (as opposed to speech) is “outside of the individual who can never create nor modify it
by himself.”
4. Language is a system of signs in which the only essential thing is the union of meanings and
sound-images.
5. Language is a social institution, with unique features that distinguish it from other, political and
legal, institutions
Main figures
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.
 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.
 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.
Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
 Roland Barthes’ theoretical development is often seen as embodying a transition from
structuralist to poststructuralist perspectives.
 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.