Structuralism

Structuralism is a movement in the humanities of the 20th century that regards cultural phenomena as sign systems built according to certain internal laws (structures). Its methodological foundation was Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistics, with its distinction between language (langue) and speech (parole), the sign as a unity of signifier and signified, and synchrony and diachrony. In literary studies, structuralism seeks to describe the 'grammar' of a text — the system of oppositions and invariant relations that generate meaning. Key figures: Claude Lévi-Strauss (the structural anthropology of myth), Roman Jakobson (the poetic function of language), the early Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, and A.-J. Greimas (the semantics of narrative). Structuralism laid the foundations of narratology and semiotics but was later criticized by poststructuralism for ignoring history, the subject, and context.