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Structuralism: Poststructuralism

Structuralism was an influential movement in the humanities in the 1950s and 1960s that analyzed underlying structures and patterns in cultural artifacts like texts. It viewed language as a system of signs that could reveal universal truths. By the late 1960s, structuralism had given way to poststructuralism, which rejected the idea that frameworks provide access to objective truth and emphasized the instability of meaning. Poststructuralism saw an inevitable gap between signs and what they signify and focused more on the reader's perception than the author's intent. Deconstruction, associated with Jacques Derrida, further developed these poststructuralist ideas and posited that meaning accessed through language is indeterminate because language itself is unstable and can never fully

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459 views

Structuralism: Poststructuralism

Structuralism was an influential movement in the humanities in the 1950s and 1960s that analyzed underlying structures and patterns in cultural artifacts like texts. It viewed language as a system of signs that could reveal universal truths. By the late 1960s, structuralism had given way to poststructuralism, which rejected the idea that frameworks provide access to objective truth and emphasized the instability of meaning. Poststructuralism saw an inevitable gap between signs and what they signify and focused more on the reader's perception than the author's intent. Deconstruction, associated with Jacques Derrida, further developed these poststructuralist ideas and posited that meaning accessed through language is indeterminate because language itself is unstable and can never fully

Uploaded by

M.Zubair
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Structuralism

A movement of thought in the humanities, widespread in anthropology, linguistics, and


literary theory, and influential in the 1950s and 60s. Based primarily on the linguistic
theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, structuralism considered language as a system of
signs and signification, the elements of which are understandable only in relation to
each other and to the system. In literary theory, structuralism challenged the belief that
a work of literature reflected a given reality; instead, a text was constituted of linguistic
conventions and situated among other texts. Structuralist critics analyzed material by
examining underlying structures, such as characterization or plot, and attempted to
show how these patterns were universal and could thus be used to develop general
conclusions about both individual works and the systems from which they emerged.
The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was an important champion of structuralism,
as was Roman Jakobsen. Northrop Fryes attempts to categorize Western literature by
archetype had some basis in structuralist thought. Structuralism regarded language as a
closed, stable system, and by the late 1960s it had given way to poststructuralism.

Poststructuralism
A school of thought that responded negatively to structuralisms insistence on
frameworks and structures as access points to truth. Poststructuralism,
like deconstruction,emphasized the instability of meaning. While structuralism
regarded language as a closed system, poststructuralism identified an inevitable gap
between signifier and signified. In poststructuralism, the reader and not the writer
became paramount: the authors intended meaning, because it could never be truly
known, was less important than the readers perceived meaning. Like other postmodern
theories that interrogated cultural assumptions, poststructuralists believe in studying
both the text and the systems of knowledge that produced that text. Poststructuralism is
associated with many French writers and thinkers, namely Roland Barthes, Michel
Foucault, and Jacques Derrida.

Deconstruction
A poststructuralist theory mainly based on the writings of the French intellectual
Jacques Derrida. Deconstruction posits that meaning, as accessed through language, is
indeterminate because language itself is indeterminate. It is a system of signifiers that
can never fully mean: a word can refer to an object but can never be that object.
Derrida developed deconstruction as a response to certain strains of Western
philosophy; in the United States, deconstruction was the focus of a group of literary
theorists at Yale, including Paul de Man and Geoffrey Hartman. Used as a method of
literary critique, deconstruction refocuses attention on a work as open-ended, endlessly
available to interpretation, and far beyond the reach of authorial intention.

Deconstruction traces how language generates meaning both within a text and across
texts, while insisting that such meaning can only ever be provisional.

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