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(1988) Twentieth-century literary theory, Dordrecht, Springer.
French structuralism
pp. 131-144
Structuralism rose to prominence in France through the application by the French anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, of Saussurian structural linguistics to the study of such phenomena as myths, rituals, kinship relations, eating conventions. (For a discussion of Saussure, see the introduction to "Linguistic Criticism"). These were understood as signifying systems and therefore open to a linguistic type of analysis in which attention was focused not on empirical or functional matters but on myth or ritual as a set of relations in which meaning was created by differences between signifying elements. This use of language as a model for understanding aspects of reality that are predominantly non-linguistic in character established structuralism, particularly in the 1960s, as a powerful alternative to positivistic or empiricist methods of analysis.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-19486-5_11
Full citation:
(1988)., French structuralism, in K. M. Newton (ed.), Twentieth-century literary theory, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 131-144.
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