Theory & Criticism
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.
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Meaning, origins and distinction — side by side.
Distinction
Two stages of French theory, the second negating the first. Structuralism seeks stable, closed STRUCTURES and objective laws of meaning, describing the "grammar" of the text through a system of binary oppositions. Deconstruction (Derrida) reveals in these oppositions inner contradictions and instability, showing the endless "play" of meaning and the impossibility of a final sense. Structuralism builds a system; deconstruction shows how the system undermines itself.
