Literary Criticism
Class #1
Structuralism
• “Linguistics is not simply a
stimulus and source of
inspiration but a
methodological model which
unifies the otherwise diverse
projects of structuralists.”
• (Culler, Structuralist Poetics, 4)
• Barthes: “I have been engaged
in a series of structural
analyses which all aim at
defining a number of nonlinguistic ‘languages’”
• (Essais critiques, 155; qtd in Culler,
Structuralist Poetics, 4).
Ferdinand de
Saussure
(1857-1913)
Publications
• 1916
Course in General Linguistics
• “the father of modern
linguistics”
• Led to “the linguistic turn”
th
in the 20 - century
history of ideas
The Sign 符號
The Sign Signified 符旨
(signifié):
a concept
Signifier 符徵
(signifiant):
a sound-image (or
a written mark)
“Arbor”
I.
• “The bond between the
signifier and the signified is
arbitrary,” not “motivated”
(by natural resemblance).
(Saussure)
• “The meanings we give
to words are purely
arbitrary, and . . . these
meanings are maintained
by convention only”
(Barry 41).
Equus
ㄇㄚˇ
Horse
“Mimi”
bracketing the referent
• =leaving out the third dimension of
the sign, that to which it refers
• Argued that language should be
studied apart from the world to which
it refers.
• Language = chess?
(Norton 959)
bracketing the referent
• Against “reference,”
essentialism, or mimetic
representation, namely,
one-to-one correspondence
between words and things
woman woman woman woman
Possible exceptions
• 1. Onomatopoeia: “shatter,”
“clash,” “tick-tock,” “dripdrop”
• 2. Interjections: “哎呀!”
“Ouch!” “Damn!” “Gosh!”
“Shit!”
II.
• “In language there are only
differences 差異" (Saussure,
Course in General Linguistics).
• “The meanings of words
are . . . relational” (Barry 42).
• The definition of any given word
“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” (Barry 42).
Paradigmatic
chain
Vertical axis
syntagmatic chain
Horizontal axis
mat
bat
• I bought my hat in an antique store.
cat
rat
hovel
shed
hut
• Ms. Su lives in a house.
apartment
mansion
palace
• Saussure’s example: “we feel the 8.25 p.m.
Geneva-to-Paris Express to be the same train
each day, though the locomotive, coaches, and
personnel may be different. This is because the
8.25 train is not a substance but a form, defined
by its relations to other trains. It remains the 8.25
even though it leaves twenty minutes late, so
long as its difference from the 7.25 and the 9.25
is preserved. Although we may be unable to
conceive of the train except in its physical
manifestations, its identity as a social and
psychological fact is independent of those
manifestations” (Culler 11).
Binary Oppositions
• “Indeed, the relations that
are most important in
structural analysis are the
simplest: binary oppositions”
(Culler, 14).
• good / evil
original / copy
primary / secondary
inside / outside
reality / appearance
essence / accident
•
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60A/handouts/binaries.html
• soul / body
pure / corrupted
father / son
male / female
speech / writing
•
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60A/handouts/binaries.html
• center / margins
normal / deviant
natural / unnatural
straight / gay
white / black
self / other
•
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60A/handouts/binaries.html
• truth / fiction
philosophy / myth
sciences / humanities
classical / romantic
modern / postmodern
poet / critic
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60A/handouts/binaries.html
• sex / gender
master / slave
high culture / pop culture
base / superstructure
waking / dreaming
latent content / manifest content
the library / the web
•
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60A/handouts/binaries.html
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem05.html
Structure
Color
Form
IBM
Apple
Repetition
Non-repetition
Disconnected
Joined lines
lines
Monochromatic Polychromatic
Cold
Warm
Substance
(“bold”)
Straight
Outline
Curved
L’Homme Sans Tête
• (directed by Juan Solanas)
• Discussion: Identify the binary
opposites.
the paradigmatic chain
• “What goes without saying” →
ideology
• What is “conspicuous by its
absence” → flout conventional
expectations → value
• (Daniel Chandler, “Semiotics for Beginners,”
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem05.html)
III.
• “Language constitutes our
world . . . Meaning is always
attributed to the object or the idea
by the human mind, and
constructed by and expressed
through language: it is not already
contained within the things” (Barry
43).
• Problems with Descartes’
idea: “I think therefore I am”?
• World language I
mediator
武松打店
• Discussion:
(1) Identify binary
oppositions
(2) Discuss how language
constitutes our world.
Langue vs. Parole
• Parole 話語 : an individual
utterance (specific, diachronic)
• Langue 語系: a larger system
or structure (synchronic,
ahistorical)
(Barry 44)
•“Any actual ‘speech’
(parole) presupposes
a system (langue)
which is being used.”
(Selden 55)
Noam Chomsky
• Competence 能力→ Langue
• Performance 表現→ Parole
semiology vs. semiotics
• Semiology:
• Semiotics:
Food for Thought
• What are the advantages and
disadvantages of using
linguistics to study other
cultural phenomena?
Claude Lévi-Strauss
(1908-)
Publications
•
•
•
•
•
1962 The Savage Mind
1962 Totemism
1964-71 Mythologiques (4 vols)
1978 Myth and Meaning
1984 Anthropology and Myth
• "Structuralism is the
search for unsuspected
harmonies..."
• (Lévi-Strauss, qtd. in
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/levistrauss_claude.html)
Myth = Language
Similarities
Myth
Language
Made of units
that are put
together based
on certain rules
mythemes
phonemes,
morphemes,
sememes
Binary
opposition as
the basis of
structure
nature vs. culture;
the raw vs. the
cooked; patricide
vs. incest
“good” //“not good”;
“good” //“bad”;
“good” //“evil”
The Oedipus Myth
• (1) the overvaluation of kinship
ties (Oedipus marries his mother;
Antigone buries her brother
unlawfully)
• (2) the undervaluation of kinship
(Oedipus kills his father; Eteocles
kills his brother)
Lévi-Strauss
• “[T]he individual tale (the parole) from a
cycle of myths did not have a separate
and inherent meaning but could only be
understood by considering its position in
the whole cycle (the langue) and the
similarities and difference between the tale
ad others in the sequence” (Barry 46).
• “A structural anthropologist may
examine the customs and rituals
of a single group of people in
some remote part of the world not
simply to understand them in
particular but to discover
underlying similarities between
their society and others”
• (Dobie, Theory into Practice, 140)
•The End