Structuralism & Semiotics: A Background

A Swiss Linguist named Ferdinand de Saussure laid down relatively simple, new ideas the to world of linguistics in the twentieth century. Considered the ‘father’ of twentieth century linguistics, Saussure, changed the literary world in a big way. Developing “Structural Linguistics” late in his career, his most impacting work went unrecognized until after his death. His theory, is only technical. It was still in the testing stage by the time he died, and it still is today. Today, while Saussure’s late work is appreciated, a lot of it remains debatable. Despite the fact, that the “literary man” wants to keep this theory down, many school of thought through Europe and even more prominently in Japan, use his basis of linguistics to further their knowledge on structuralism. In the wake of studying something general, Saussure managed to create two trains of thought, structuralism and semiotics. Structuralism is a method of critical investigation which also doubles as an ideology. Semiotics is a later developed branch of what structuralism is, but now the subject itself, encompasses structuralism.
Structuralism is the name given to wide range of studies involving the underlying configuration of “signification” in a text. It is also a method of analysis used in semiotics. Signification is an occurrence, a meaningful event, or an important action taking place in the text. Some generic examples of Structuralism would be having a conversation at dinner, a wedding, and battles. Most of these events have an exchange of some sort of text within the text(how clever!). The passing of “texts” take various forms as well, it can be a news broadcast, an advertisement, an instruction manual, everything is pretty much up for grabs with this. With all this in mind, there is a pattern of some sort created. Structuralism revolves around looking for the underlying structures(patterns) in a text. Most structures are unconscious and are not created with a purpose in mind. Because they are unconscious, structuralist items offer insight to our true nature. Structuralism highlights the elements within a system and how it affects all the other elements within that system(the work, i.e. novel, short story…). It also puts about the idea that there are no independent meanings, but instead, many meanings created by the different elements in a system.
A parallel discipline was developed later in the century, called Semiotics. Semiotics is investigating the nature of signs and the laws driving them. Semiotics, is broader range of study, but still closely relates to its sister theory. Semiotics has units of meaning. The smallest unit of meaning is the sign. Saussure designed this part of the theory to include two parts. The first being the signifier, an object, image, sound, or a gesture that has physical form. The second, is the signified, which is the concept which the sign represents. More modern semiotic theory I soften paired up with Marxist ideology. Semiotics became very popular in the 1960’s (coincidental right? Marxism. Europe….) as a result of Roland Barthes work. His translated writings(Mythologies) caused awareness of this theory and this stirred the linguistic community. Still not widely authorized as an academic discipline, semiology is a significant factor in the literary world.



Useful Links
http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/structuralism.htm

http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/structuralism.htm

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem01.html

http://ebooks.unibuc.ro/lls/RaduSurdulescu-FormStructuality/Capitolul%20III.htm