Structuralism emerged in France in the 1950s through the work of Claude Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes. It believes that phenomena can only be understood in the context of larger structures. Structuralism analyzes relationships between signs and seeks to locate systems of meaning within cultural structures. It was applied to fields like anthropology, sociology, and literature. Key thinkers were Levi-Strauss, who applied structural linguistics concepts to anthropology, and Barthes, who examined aspects of modern culture from a structural perspective.

1. Structuralism

2. JOSEPHILOMINA DIAS
ST.JOSEPH’S EVENING COLLGE
BANGALORE

3. Lets see how writing was
considered in the history
Before 1920
 The writing
were
considered as
work
 Ex: Oedipus
rex
After 1920
 The writing
were considered
as text
 Ex: Shekspher
writings, ect….

4. Structuralism
Structuralism is an intellectual movement which
began in France in the 1950s and is first seen in the
work of the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss
(1908—) and the literary critic Roland Barthes
(1915-1980). It is difficult to boil structuralism down
to a single 'bottom-line' proposition, but if forced to
do so I would say that its essence is the belief that
things cannot be understood in isolation - they have
to be seen in the context of the larger structures they
are part of (hence the term 'structuralism').
Structuralism was imported into Britain mainly in the
1970s and attained widespread influence, and even
notoriety, throughout the 1980s.

5. In a Simple Way What is
Structuralism?
 It is a theory developed in France between 1950 and 1960.
 Structuralism can be defined as a methodology which
explores the relationships between signs, in order to
determine the meaning of the signs in accordance with the
cultural structures in which the signs are located, and thus it
involves locating systems of meanings within Foucauldian
discourses.
 Began with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure on
linguistics
 Analyzes any phenomena about the world-- mostly
contrasting elementary structures in a system of binary
opposition (a pair of opposite concepts).
 Description and perception of the structure.

6. LINGUISTICS
•The linguistics signs
analysis focuses on the
relationship between
words (Signifier) and the
things in the world that
they designate
(Signified).
•Examines how the
elements of language
relate to each other.

9. Structuralism’s Fields
• Some fields in which Structuralism is applied
are anthropology, sociology, architecture,
linguistics, psychology, and literature.
• The most famous thinkers associated with
structuralism include:
o Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss
o Literary critic Roland Barthes

10. Claude Lévi-Strauss (/klɔːd ˈleɪvi ˈstraʊs/;[2] French: [klod levi stʁos]; 28 November
1908 – 30 October 2009)[3][4][5] was a Belgian-born
French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the
theory of structuralism and structural anthropology.[6] He held the chair of Social
Anthropology at the Collège de France between 1959 and 1982 and was elected a
member of the Académie française in 1973. He received numerous honors from
universities and institutions throughout the world and has been called,
alongside James George Frazer and Franz Boas,[7] the "father of modern
anthropology".
Lévi-Strauss argued that the "savage" mind had the same structures as the "civilized"
mind and that human characteristics are the same everywhere.[9][10] These
observations culminated in his famous book Tristes tropiques that established his
position as one of the central figures in the structuralist school of thought. As well
as sociology, his ideas reached into many fields in the humanities,
including philosophy. Structuralism has been defined as "the search for the
underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity."
The Elementary Structures of Kinship was published the next year and quickly came
to be regarded as one of the most important anthropological works on kinship. It was
even reviewed favorably by Simone de Beauvoir, who viewed it as an important
statement of the position of women in non-Western cultures. Lévi-Strauss was named
to a chair in social anthropology at the Collège de France in 1959. At roughly the
same time he published Structural Anthropology, a collection of his essays which
provided both examples and programmatic statements about
structuralism. Lévi-Strauss sought to apply the structural linguistics

11. Roland Barthes, who applied the structuralist method to the
general field of modern culture. He examined modern France (of
the 1950s) from the standpoint of a cultural anthropologist in a
little book called Mythologies which he published in France in
1957.Roland Barthes in these early years also made specific
examinations of aspects of literature, and by the 1970s,
structuralism was attracting widespread attention in Paris and
world wide. As Barthes' work with structuralism began to flourish
around the time of his debates with Picard, his investigation of
structure focused on revealing the importance of language in
writing, which he felt was overlooked by old criticism. Barthes'
"Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative" is
concerned with examining the correspondence between the
structure of a sentence and that of a larger narrative, thus allowing
narrative to be viewed along linguistic lines.
Jonathan Culler, whose book Structuralist Poetics appeared in
1975: the English critic Terence Hawkes whose book
Structuralism and Semiotics came out in 1977 as the first book in a
new series published by Methuen called 'New Accents'.

13. Firstly, he emphasised that the meanings we give to words are
purely arbitrary and that these meanings are maintained by
convention only. Words, that is to say, are 'unmotivated signs',
meaning that there is no inherent connection between a word and
what it designates. The word 'hut', for instance, is not in any way
'appropriate' to its meaning, and all linguistic signs are arbitrary like
this.
Secondly, Saussure emphasised that the meanings of words are
(what we might call) relational. That is to say, no word can be
defined in isolation from other words. The definition of any given
word depends upon its relation with other 'adjoining' words. For
example, that word 'hut' depends for its precise meaning on its
position in a 'paradigmatic chain', that is, a chain of words related in
function and meaning each of which could be substituted for any of
the others in a given sentence
Thirdly, for Saussure, language constitutes our world, it doesn't
just record it or label it. Meaning is always attributed to the object
or idea by the human mind, and constructed by and expressed
through language: it is not already contained within the thing. Well-
known examples of this process would be the choice between paired
alternatives like 'terrorist' or 'freedom fighter'.

16. Example: English alphabets.
Consonants and vowels

17. Example: ah……..,
oh……….,wow……….

32. List of References
• Siegel, K. (n.d.). Introduction to Modern Literary Theory .Kristi
Siegel. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from
www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm
• The American Heritage dictionary of the English language (4th
ed.). (2000). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Perez, R. (2011, February 13). Psychology Aldebaran: Later
Psychology Developments (Classic Psychology).Psychology
Aldebaran. Retrieved March 14, 2014, from
http://psychologyaldebaran.blogspot.com/2011/02/lae r-
psychology-developments-classic.html
• Structuralism. (2011, February 3). In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:20, March 14, 2014,
from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Structuralism
&oldid=411716678

33. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/55813467.pdf
Peter barry basics of liberal humanism book
https://www.slideshare.net/danikabarker/structuralism-
18112498