Levi'Strauss' Structuralism

Levi'Strauss' Structuralism

  • Submitted By: kowarete
  • Date Submitted: 05/10/2010 2:08 PM
  • Category: Philosophy
  • Words: 1106
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 720

In my essay I concentrate to explore myth based on a theory of Claude Lévi-Strauss and what myth’s role is in the act of representation. In order to discover this, one needs to be aware of structuralism which the entire concept of myth derives from. Structuralism is an analytical approach to complex cultural, social and linguistic phenomena; texts – including all the different kind of media of texts; magazines, news, websites, books, films, even music – that concentrates on determining the meaning of everything by a system constructed of difference and relationships. All texts have elements that they base on and those elements have particular guidelines, rules, to determine the actions of these elements. The relationship between these elements and guidelines constructs the structure that universally applies to all different phenomena in language, art, culture and in society in more general. The content or the quality of the analysed concept has no importance, recognising those structures and applying them is significant in structuralism to establish the satisfactory understanding of the meaning of a subject under analysis. According to Branston and Stafford, structuralism examines all different phenomena with an underlying argument, that these “social and psychological structures with their own (author’s italics) irresistible logic, independent of human will or intention” determine “all human social order” (2006:14). The universality of the structure is determined with an explanation that the human mind itself generates the structure; everyone has the structure in them to apply to multiple things in the process of understanding the very essence of the world with all its social and cultural phenomena. The concept of structuralism is strongly influenced by the linguistic theory by Ferdinand de Saussure, who argued that language can be divided into two; langue and parole. Langue represents the systematic rules and conventions organising language into...

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