S T R U C T U R A L I S M

Society, Language
& Hidden Systems
c. 1950s – 1970s
What We'll Cover

Origins & Background Key Thinkers

01 05
From linguistics to social theory — Saussure, Lévi-Strauss & Barthes Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Althusser, Piaget & Lacan

Core Concepts Language & Myth

02 06
Sign, signifier, signified — the building blocks of structural analysis How language shapes thought, and myths encode social rules

Society as Structure Legacy & Criticism

03 07 Influence on semiotics, anthropology, literary theory & post-
How social systems, rituals, and myths follow underlying patterns
structuralism

Binary Oppositions
04 Raw/cooked, nature/culture, us/them — structuring meaning through
contrast
 01 Ferdinand de Saussure

Swiss linguist whose Course in General Linguistics (1916) laid the groundwork — arguing that language is a system
of differences, not a collection of labels for things.

ORIGINS &
BACKGROUND

Structural Linguistics

c. 1910–1960
Saussure separated langue (the language system) from parole (individual speech acts). Structure comes first;
meaning emerges from relations between elements, not from inherent content.

Anthropological Turn

Claude Lévi-Strauss applied linguistic methods to culture, kinship, and mythology — discovering structural patterns
beneath surface diversity across human societies.
 The Linguistic Sign Saussure's Core Model

Key Insight THE SIGN Why It Matters

Signifier
The meaning of a word is not fixed by (Sound-image / word form)
This model transformed how scholars
the world — it is fixed by its difference study culture. If meaning is relational
from other words in the system. 'Dog' and systemic, then all cultural
means what it means because it is not phenomena — rituals, myths, clothing
'fog', 'log', or 'cat'. Signified — can be 'read' as sign systems.

(Mental concept / meaning)

Arbitrary — no natural link

between the two

Saussure showed that language is not a naming system — it is a structure of differences with no positive terms.
Society Understood Through Structures

Kinship Systems Ritual & Ceremony

Lévi-Strauss found that kinship rules across cultures — who you may Rituals are not random customs. Structuralism reads them as coded
marry, how families are named — follow structural patterns. The systems — their sequence, participants, and symbols communicate
content differs; the underlying grammar is shared. social values and reinforce group identity.

Myth & Narrative Social Institutions

Myths across cultures share deep structural similarities. Lévi-Strauss From schools to laws to religion, institutions are systems that
identified recurring 'mythemes' — units of meaning that appear reproduce social structures. Althusser called these 'Ideological State
across unrelated societies and encode binary tensions. Apparatuses' — hidden mechanisms of social reproduction.
 Binary Oppositions Structuring Meaning Through Contrast

Structuralism argues that meaning is produced through opposition, not essence. We understand 'light' because it is not 'dark'; 'nature' because it
is not 'culture'. These oppositions structure thought, language, and social life.

Nature vs Culture Raw vs Cooked Sacred vs Profane

Speech vs Writing Us vs Them Male vs Female

Lévi-Strauss: myths resolve cultural contradictions by mediating between opposing forces — e.g. life/death mediated by agriculture or cooking.
Language & Myth Structuring Human Experience

Language Myth

Langue vs Parole Mythemes

Lévi-Strauss identified 'mythemes' — the smallest units of a myth.
The system (langue) enables individual utterances (parole).
Like phonemes, they gain meaning in relation to each other, not
Structuralism studies the system, not the instance.
individually.

Phonemes & Meaning Universal Patterns

The same structural patterns appear in myths across unrelated
Phonemes have no meaning alone — they gain meaning only
cultures — suggesting deep cognitive structures common to all
through contrast and combination within the system.
humans.

Language Shapes Thought Myths Resolve Contradictions

Myths mediate irresolvable oppositions — life/death,
Structuralism holds that language does not reflect reality — it
nature/culture — offering symbolic 'solutions' that ease social
organises and constructs the way we perceive reality.
anxiety.
Claude Lévi-Strauss 1908 – 2009 · Structural Anthropology

"The purpose of myth is to provide a logical model capable of overcoming a contradiction."

Structural Anthropology (1958) Kinship Systems

Applied Saussure's linguistic methods to culture, kinship, and mythology Showed that rules governing marriage and family relationships across
— arguing that social structures are like languages with their own cultures share structural features — an underlying logic, not mere
grammar. cultural accident.

The Raw and the Cooked (1964) Bricolage

His famous myth study demonstrating that cooking is not just practical Coined this term for how myth-making works: assembling meaning from
— it is a cultural act mediating the opposition between nature (raw) and whatever 'bits and pieces' of thought are culturally available, like a
culture (cooked). handyman using available tools.
Key Thinkers of Structuralism

Ferdinand de Saussure Linguistics Claude Lévi-Strauss Anthropology

1857–1913 1908–2009

Language as a system of differences; the arbitrary sign; langue vs parole. Structural analysis of myths, kinship, and culture; binary oppositions in myth.

Roland Barthes Literary Theory Louis Althusser Marxist Theory

1915–1980 1918–1990
Mythologies (1957) — exposed how everyday culture (ads, wrestling, food) Ideological State Apparatuses — schools, media, religion as structural
naturalise ideology as myth. mechanisms of social reproduction.

Jean Piaget Psychology Jacques Lacan Psychoanalysis

1896–1980 1901–1981
Cognitive structures in child development — the mind builds schemas that The unconscious is structured like a language — Freudian ideas reread
organise experience. through Saussurean linguistics.
 Symbols, Rituals & Signs in Culture Barthes & Semiotics

Roland Barthes extended structuralism to everyday culture. In Mythologies (1957), he showed how ordinary objects and practices —
advertisements, sport, food — carry hidden ideological messages, naturalising social values as if they were timeless facts.

Wrestling Advertising

Barthes read wrestling as pure spectacle — a coded performance of Images in ads do not simply describe products — they connote
justice and excess, not a sport but a narrative of moral archetypes lifestyles, values, and aspirations. The structural analysis exposes what
communicated through exaggerated gesture. is presented as natural but is in fact constructed.

Food as Language Fashion

What we eat and how we serve it carries social meaning. Meals follow Clothing is not merely functional. Fashion operates as a sign system —
a 'grammar' — sequence, combinations, and taboos that encode garments communicate social status, group belonging, and ideological
cultural values and social hierarchies. values through structured codes.
Influence of Linguistics & Anthropology

Saussure's Linguistics (1916)

1 Language is a closed system of differences. No element has meaning in isolation — only through contrast with others. This becomes the
template for all structural analysis.

Prague School (1920s–30s)

2 Phonologists like Jakobson formalised the analysis of sound systems as binary oppositions (voiced/unvoiced, nasal/oral), giving structuralism
its first rigorous scientific method.

Lévi-Strauss Transfers the Method (1940s–)

3 On meeting Jakobson in New York, Lévi-Strauss applied phonological methods to cultural anthropology — treating kinship, myth, and
totemism as systems to be decoded.

Structuralism Spreads (1950s–70s)

4 The model migrated to literature (Barthes), psychoanalysis (Lacan), Marxism (Althusser), and philosophy — transforming the human sciences
across disciplines.
Structuralism transformed the humanities by showing that cultural phenomena can be studied with the systematic rigour previously reserved for the natural sciences.
Legacy & Criticism Beyond Structuralism

Enduring Legacy Key Criticisms

Semiotics Ignores History

Structural methods gave rise to semiotics — the general science of Structuralism focuses on synchronic (same-time) relationships,
signs, applied in media studies, communication, and cultural neglecting how structures change over time — a major blind spot for
analysis. Marxist and historical critics.

Literary Theory Too Rigid

Structuralist narratology (Propp, Greimas, Todorov) identified Critics argue that the search for universal structures imposes
universal narrative grammars underlying all stories. Western schemas onto diverse cultures, flattening real differences.

Cognitive Science Post-Structuralism

Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze critiqued structuralism's assumptions

The idea of deep mental structures influenced Chomsky's universal
of stable systems — arguing that meaning is always deferred,
grammar and later cognitive science.
unstable, and bound to power.
 S u m m a r y

Structuralism
c. 1950s – 1970s

• Society, culture, and thought are governed by underlying structures and systems — not individual acts.
• Saussure's linguistics showed that language is a system of differences; meaning is relational, not inherent.
• Lévi-Strauss applied structural methods to myths, kinship, and rituals — revealing universal patterns.
• Binary oppositions (raw/cooked, nature/culture) are the fundamental mechanism through which meaning is organised.
• Barthes revealed how everyday signs — fashion, food, ads — naturalise ideology as common sense.
• Structuralism transformed anthropology, literary theory, psychoanalysis, and Marxist thought.