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Introduction
Structuralism according to, Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms: Is a modern intellectual movement that analyses cultural phenomena according to principles derived from linguistics, emphasizing the systematic interrelationships among the elements of any human activity, and thus the abstract codes and conventions governing the social production of meanings. Building on the linguistic concept of the phonemea unit of meaningful sound defined purely by its differences from other phonemes rather than by any inherent featuresstructuralism argues that the elements composing any cultural phenomenon (from cooking to drama) are similarly relational: that is, they have meaning only by virtue of their contrasts with other elements of the system, especially in binary oppositions of paired opposites. Their meanings can be established not by referring each element to any supposed equivalent in natural reality, but only by analyzing its function within a selfcontained cultural code. Accordingly, structuralist analysis seeks the underlying system or langue that governs individual utterances or instances. In formulating the laws by which elements of such a system are combined, it distinguishes between sets of interchangeable units (paradigms) and sequences of such units in combination (syntagms), thereby outlining a basic syntax of human culture.

Definitions of Structuralism
1. (noun, cognition) a sociological theory based on the premise that society comes before individuals 2. (noun, cognition) an anthropological theory that there are unobservable social structures that generate observable social phenomena 3. (noun, cognition) linguistics defined as the analysis of formal structures in a text or discourse Source: (http://www.increasemyvocabulary.com/definition/of/structuralism/)

Origin and Development along with Major Contributions.

The origins of structuralism can be attributed to the work of Ferdinand de Saussure on linguistics, along with that of the Prague and Moscow schools. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, existentialism, such as that propounded by Jean-Paul Sartre, was the dominant European intellectual movement. Structuralism rose to prominence in France in its wake, particularly in the 1960s. The initial popularity of structuralism in France led to its spread across the globe.

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The term "structuralism" itself appeared in the works of French anthropologist Claude Lvi-Strauss. This gave rise, in France, to the "structuralist movement", which spurred the work of such thinkers as Louis Althusser, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, as well as the structural Marxism of Nicos Poulantzas. Most members of this movement did not describe themselves as being a part of any such movement. Structuralism is closely related to semiotics. Structuralism rejected the concept of human freedom and choice and focused instead on the way that human experience and thus, behavior, is determined by various structures. The most important initial work on this score was Claude Lvi-Strauss's 1949 volume The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Lvi-Strauss had known Jakobson during their time together in New York during WWII and was influenced by both Jakobson's structuralism as well as the American anthropological tradition. In Elementary Structures he examined kinship systems from a structural point of view and demonstrated how apparently different social organizations were in fact different permutations of a few basic kinship structures. In the late 1950s he published Structural Anthropology, a collection of essays outlining his program for structuralism. By the early 1960s structuralism as a movement was coming into its own and some believed that it offered a single unified approach to human life that would embrace all disciplines. Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida focused on how structuralism could be applied to literature Blending Freud and De Saussure, the French (post)structuralist Jacques Lacan applied structuralism to psychoanalysis and, in a different way; Jean Piaget applied structuralism to the study of psychology. But Jean Piaget, who would better define himself as constructivist, considers structuralism as "a method and not a doctrine" because for him "there exists no structure without a construction, abstract or genetic"[5] Michel Foucault's book The Order of Things examined the history of science to study how structures of epistemology, or episteme, shaped the way in which people imagined knowledge and knowing (though Foucault would later explicitly deny affiliation with the structuralist movement). In much the same way, American historian of science Thomas Kuhn addressed the structural formations of science in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions its title alone arguably[ evincing a stringent structuralist approach. Though less concerned with "episteme", Kuhn nonetheless remarked at how coteries of scientists operated under and applied a standard praxis of 'normal science,' deviating from a standard 'paradigm' only in instances of irreconcilable anomalies that question a significant body of their work. Blending Marx and structuralism was another French theorist, Louis Althusser, who introduced his own brand of structural social analysis, giving rise to "structural Marxism".

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Other authors in France and abroad have since extended structural analysis to practically every discipline. The definition of 'structuralism' also shifted as a result of its popularity. As its popularity as a movement waxed and waned, some authors considered themselves 'structuralists' only to later eschew the label.

What is Structure?
Looking at the origin of the term structure, one nds that the term initially had an architectural meaning. It referred to the action, practice, or process of building or construction and the way in which an edice, machine, implement, etc. is made or put together.(The Oxford English Dictionary, 1933, Vol. X, p. 1165). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the use of the term broadened and came to describe the ways in which the parts of a concrete being are structured into a whole. This concept could apply to a variety of structures, including anatomical, geological, and mathematical. In biology, for example, structure was used to describe the component parts of an animal and how these parts were mutually connected and interdependent on one another. The application of the notion of structure to language and the social sciences in general came from developments in the eld of linguistics through the seminal Course. For a more formal definition: a structure is any conceptual system that has the following three properties: Wholeness. This means that the system functions as a whole, not just as a collection of independent parts. Transformation. This means that the system is not static, but capable of change. New units can enter the system, but when they do they're governed by the rules of the system. Self-Regulation. This is related to the idea of transformation. You can add elements to the system, but you can't change the basic structure of the system no matter what you add to it. The transformations of a system never lead to anything outside the system.

Structural linguistics
n. (used with a sing. verb) 1. A method of synchronic linguistic analysis employing structuralism, especially in contrasting those formal structures, such as phonemes or sentences, that make up systems, such as phonology or syntax. 2. A school of linguistics developed in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s that advocated and employed such a method

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Source :( http://www.thefreedictionary.com/structural+linguistics) Structuralists assert that, since language exists in patterns, certain underlying elements are common to all human experiences. Structuralists believe we can observe these experiences through patterns: "...if you examine the physical structures of all buildings built in urban America in 1850 to discover the underlying principles that govern their composition, for example, principles of mechanical construction or of artistic form..." you are using a structuralist lens (Tyson 197).

Saussure, Father of Structural Linguistics

Full name

Ferdinand de Saussure

Born

26 November 1857 Geneva, Switzerland

Died

22 February 1913 (aged 55) Vufflens-le-Chteau, Vaud, Switzerland

Era

19th-century philosophy

Region

Western Philosophy

School

Structuralism, semiotics

Main interests

Linguistics

Influenced by

Influenced

Signature

A language is a system in which all the elements t together, and in which the value of anyone element depends on the simultaneous coexistence of all the others. (De Saussure, 1983,p. 113). Harris (1983, p. ix) writes that de Saussures connection of language and structure Enabled the Course to occupy

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A place of unique importance in the history of Western thinking and to become a key text not only within the development of linguistics but also in the formation of that broader intellectual movement of the twentieth century known as structuralism. Swiss linguist and philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), has a significant impact on linguistics and philosophy, through the advent of the linguistic turn. He is best known for structuralism, and he is regarded as one of the founders of semiotics and linguistics.

Saussures Structuralism and A Course in General Linguistics

In Course, published as Writings in General Linguistics, Saussure rejects the task of linguistics as having anything to do with grammar, philology or etymology. Rather, he defines the proper object of linguistic study as the system of signs used by human beings, and the relationships of which can be studied in the abstract, or as he says synchronicity rather than diachronically. In other words, there is no reference to any particular historical implementation of that language. Saussure claims that the proper object of linguistic study is not the linguistic output of any given individual but the shared knowledge of a community of language users. He further asserts that, The language, in turn, is quite independent of the individual; it cannot be a creation of the individual, it is essentially social; it presupposes the collectivity. Broadly, Saussures structuralist movement seeks to undertake studies in various social sciences by concentrating on the deep structures that underlie social practices. Typical examples of such structures are grammar or syntax (rather than vocabulary use), rules of narrative rather than linguistic style. In general terms, it is anything that studies sign systems and their rules rather than particular expressions of the system in use. Saussure argued that language was a collective, orderly, and coherent phenomenon. Language, therefore, could be studied as if it were a social system that was susceptible to understanding and explanation as a whole. Saussure thought of individual linguistic units as a patterned wholeness. Words, he argued, were devoid of content when studied in isolation. Their meaningful content arose only when they were studied in relation to one another. He based his conception of the linguistic unit on the assumption that where there was meaning in a word or sentence - there would also be structure. This idea was in conflict with the nominalist view of language that took words to be mere names of things. For instance: Some people regard language, when reduced to its elements, as a naming-process only - a list of words, each corresponding to the thing that it names. This conception is open to criticism at several points. It assumes that ready-made ideas exist before words; it does not tell us whether a name is vocal or psychological in nature (arbor, for instance, can be

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considered from either viewpoint); finally, it lets us assume that the linking of a name and a thing is a very simple operation - an assumption that is anything but true. But this rather naive approach can bring us near the truth by showing us that the linguistic unit is a double entity, one formed by the associating of two terms. [Michael Lane, Introduction to Structuralism, 1970, p.43] Saussure goes on to explain how this double entity must be conceived. The word, according to Saussure, unites a concept and a sound-image and not a thing and a name. In this sense, the sound-aspect of a word becomes inseparable from the meaning content of the word and the reverse also holds true. This double movement, sound acquiring conceptual meaning as conceptual meaning becomes differentiated by sound, is what Saussure identifies as the structure of the word. According to Saussure, the two elements of sound and word become intimately united, as each refers to the other. By calling the sound-image of a word the signifier, Saussure differentiates the meaning of the word into its two components, the signifier and signified. Together, the signifier and the signified combine to form the sign i.e., the whole as differentiated from its opposing elements. Structural linguistics and the ideas of Saussure The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (18571913) attempted to establish and develop the discipline of structural linguistics. On the basis of this he suggested it was possible to found a science of signs. In these respects, his ideas played a crucial role in the emergence of structuralism and semiology. Saussure is concerned with establishing linguistics as a science. To do this he makes a number of distinctions and definitions which have become familiar to anyone acquainted with the academic study of culture.

Langue vs. Parole

Saussures starting-point is the need to define the object of structural linguistics. For this reason, he draws a distinction between langue and parole, between language as an internally related set of differentiated signs governed by a system of rules (language as a structure) and language as used in speech or writing (language as an accomplished fact of communication between human beings). Langue is, according to Saussure, the object which linguists should study for it is the focus of their analyses and their principle of relevance. Langue is the overall system or structure of a language (its words, syntax, rules, conventions and meanings). It makes the use of language (parole) possible and is given or taken for granted by any individual speaker. Langue allows people to produce speech and writing, including words and phrases which may be completely new. This idea of langue has proved influential because it makes it relatively easy to infer that all cultural systems, such as myths, national cultures or ideologies, may be described and understood in the same way.

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Parole is defined and determined by langue. It is the use of language made possible by, and deriving from, langue. Parole is the sum of the linguistic units involved in speaking and writing. These cannot be studied in and of themselves as single and separate historical items. Instead, they provide evidence about the underlying structure of langue. The aim of linguistics is to use speaking and writing to reveal the underlying structure of the language, the object of linguistics. The rules and relations of this structure can then be used to account for the particular uses people make of their language.

Linguists Study Langue:

Linguistics, therefore, involves the study of langue as a system or structure. Structural linguistics aims to discover and scrutinize the system of grammatical rules governing the construction of meaningful sentences. These rules are not usually apparent to the users of the language who none the less can still utter or write meaningful sentences. As Saussure himself argues: In separating language from speaking, we are at the same time separating: (1) what is social from what is individual; and (2) what is essential from what is accessory and more or less accidental (1974:14). From a sociological point of view it is absurd to regard speaking as an individual, non-social act. But for structural linguistics and its subsequent followers, Saussure is distinguishing between fundamental and contingent social and cultural structures, between those structures which provide the explanation and those which need to be explained.

Signifier vs. Signified

The second distinction Saussure introduces is that between the signifier and the signified, According to Saussure, any linguistic sign, such as a word or phrase, can be broken down into these two elements of which it is composed. It is a distinction which can only be recognized analytically, not empirically, and is a function of langue rather than parole. It accounts for the capacity of language to confer meaning, a feature which has made it attractive for analyzing cultural structures other than language (see, for example, Barthess Semiology below). For Saussure, the meaning of particular linguistic units is not determined by an external material reality which imposes itself upon language. These units do not have a direct referent in the external, material world. This world exists but the meanings which are conferred upon it by language are determined by the meanings inherent in language as an objective structure of rules and relations. The meanings conferred by language arise from the differences between linguistic units which are determined by the overall system of language. The linguistic sign is made up of the signifier and the signified. Words such as dog or god do not acquire their meaning from their equivalents in the world outside language but from the way language contrasts them through its ordering of the letters. In the linguistic sign, the signifier is the sound image, the word as it is spoken or written down, and the

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signified is the concept of the object or idea which is being referred to by the sign. With the examples of dog and god, the letters you see or the sounds you hear are the signifiers, and the object and idea evoked by these sounds and words are the signified. A letter change can therefore give us an entirely different concept. Language confers meaning on both of the examples through their linguistic differences and their place in the differentiated categories of animals and supernatural beings. Since the meanings of particular linguistic signs are not externally determined but derive from their place in the overall relational structure of language, it follows that the relationship between the signifier and signified is a purely arbitrary one. There is no necessary reason as to why the notation dog should refer to that specific animal nor god to a supernatural deity. There is no intrinsic, natural or essential reason why a particular concept should be linked with one sound image rather than another. Therefore, it is not possible to understand individual linguistic signs in a piecemeal, ad hoc or empiricist fashion. They have, rather, to be explained by showing how they fit together as arbitrary signs in an internally coherent system or structure of rules and conventions. These signs cease to be arbitrary and become meaningful once they are located within the general structure of the language. They are only properly understood when placed in this structure. This structure is what Saussure calls langue, and it is not given but has to be reconstructed analytically. These ideas are fundamental to the development of Semiology as a way of studying popular culture. However, the relationship between signifiers and signifieds is not arbitrary in culture as it is in language. According to Semiology and structuralism, there are necessary factors linking conventions, codes and ideologies which ensure the association of specific signifiers with specific signifieds. Saussure argues that if languages are seen as systems, they can only be studied and understood in relational terms. The same argument applies to cultures if they are seen as systems. For structural linguistics, structuralism and Semiology, meaning can only be derived from a general objective structure of rules in which particular units are differentiated from each other, and derive their meaningful character from their place in this structure. This structure is not given empirically but has to be discovered and defined in relational terms. Langue can be discovered and defined as a system, for Saussure, if the linguistic signs of parole are studied, not as distinct, individual items, but as signs of the structure of langue.

THE NATURE OF THE LINGUISTIC SIGN

Language is based on a NAMING process, by which things get associated with a word or name. Saussure says this is a pretty naive or elementary view of language, but a useful one, because it gets across the idea that the basic linguistic unit has two parts. Those two parts Saussure names the "concept" and the "sound image". The sound image is not the physical sound (what your mouth makes and your ear hears) but rather the psychological imprint of the sound, the impression it makes. An illustration of this is talking to yourself--you don't make a sound, but you have an impression of what you're saying.

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The linguistic SIGN (a key word) is made of the union of a concept and a sound image. The union is a close one, as one part will instantly conjure the other; Saussure's example is the concept "tree" and the various words for tree in different languages. When you are a speaker of a certain language, the sound image for tree in that language will automatically conjure up the concept "tree." The MEANING of any SIGN is found in the association created between the sound image and the concept: hence the sounds "tree" in English mean the thing "tree." Meanings can (and do) vary widely, but only those meanings which are agreed upon and sanctioned within a particular language will appear to name reality. (More on this as we go on). A more common way to define a linguistic SIGN is that a SIGN is the combination of a SIGNIFIER and a SIGNIFIED. Saussure says the sound image is the SIGNIFIER and the concept the SIGNIFIED. You can also think of a word as a signifier and the thing it represents as a signified (though technically these are called sign and referent, respectively). The SIGN, as union of a SIGNIFIER and a SIGNIFIED, has two main characteristics. 1. The bond between the SIGNIFIER (SFR) and SIGNIFIED (SFD) is ARBITRARY. There is nothing in either the thing or the word that makes the two go together, no natural, intrinsic, or logical relation between a particular sound image and a concept. An example of this is the fact that there are different words, in different languages, for the same thing. Dog is "dog" in English, "perro" in Spanish, "chien" in French, "Hund" in German. This principle dominates all ideas about the STRUCTURE of language. It makes it possible to separate the signifier and signified, or to change the relation between them. (This makes possible the idea of a single signifier which could be associated with more than one signified, or vice-versa, which makes AMBIGUITY and MULTIPLICITY OF MEANING possible.) Language is only one type of semiological system (the word "semiological," like the word "semiotic," comes from the Greek word for "sign"). Any system of signs, made up of signifiers and signifieds, is a semiotic or SIGNIFYING SYSTEM. Think, for example, of football referee signals, baseball signs, astrological signs. Any time you make up a secret code or set of signals you are making your own signifying system. There may be some kinds of signs that seem less arbitrary than others. Pantomime, sign language, gestures (what are often called "natural signs") seem to have a logical relation to what they represent. The tomahawk chop used by Atlanta Braves fans, for example, seems to imitate the action of chopping, and thus would be the most "natural" way to designate the idea of chopping. But Saussure insists that ALL SIGNS ARE ARBITRARY; the tomahawk chop only has meaning because a community has agreed upon what the gesture signifies, not because it has some intrinsic meaning.

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Saussure discusses whether symbols, such as the use of scales for the idea of justice, are innate or arbitrary, and decides that these too are arbitrary, or based on community agreement. He also dismisses onomatopoeia (words that sound like what they mean, like "pop" or "buzz") as still conventional, agreed-upon approximations of certain sounds. Think, for example, about the sounds attributed to animals. While all roosters crow pretty much the same way, that sound is transcribed in English as "cock-adoodle-do" and in Spanish as "cocorico." Interjections also differ. In English one says "ouch!" when one bangs one's finger with a hammer; in French one says "Aie!" (Curse words work the same way. Come up with your own examples). Admittedly, Saussure is not very interested in how communities agree on fixing or changing the relationships between signifiers and signifieds. Like all structuralists, he focuses on a SYNCHRONIC analysis of language as a system or structure, meaning that he examines it only in the present moment, without regard to what its past history is, or what its future may be. (Analyses which do take time into account, and look at the history of changes within a structure, are called DIACHRONIC). 2. The second characteristic of the SIGN is that the signifier (here, meaning the spoken word or auditory signifier) exists in TIME, and that time can be measured as LINEAR. You can't say two words at one time; you have to say one and then the next, in a linear fashion. (The same is true for written language: you have to write one word at a time (though you can write over an already written word) and you generally write the words in a straight line). This idea is important because it shows that language (spoken language, anyway) operates as a linear sequence, and that all the elements of a particular sequence form a chain. The easiest example of this is a sentence, where the words come one at a time and in a line, one after the other, and because of that they are all connected to each other.

Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations:

The two principal types of relations which Saussure identified are SYNTAGMATIC and PARADIGMATIC relations. The former is a relation between one item and others in a sequence, or between elements which are all present, such as the relation between weather and the others in the following sentence: Ex 1 If the weather is nice, well go out. There are syntactic and semantic conditions the words in a syntagmatic relation must meet. For example, ex. 4-2a below is an acceptable sentence, but (b) and (c) are not.

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Ex 2 a. The boy kicked the ball. b. * Boy the ball kicked the. c. * the ball kicked the boy. The words in (b) are arranged in a way which violates syntactic rules. First, the countable noun boy cannot occur without a determiner before it. Second, the words in boy the or boy the ball are not in any grammatical relations with each other. They are neither in subordination like boys there or in coordination like boys and girls. Lastly, the is an article and cannot function as the object of kicked. And in (c), the ball is inanimate while the verb kick requires an animate subject. The order of words is also influenced by semantic considerations. Whether (a) or (b) in ex.4-3 will be used depends on the meaning. Ex 3 (a) The boy chased the dog. (b) The dog chased the boy. The PARADIGMATIC relation, Saussure originally called ASSOCIATIVE, is a relation holding between elements replaceable with each other at a particular place in a structure, or between one element present and the others absent. For example, in the context the _________ is smiling, there are constraints on the possible elements occurring here. As is obvious, verbs definitely cannot be used in this place. The most likely candidate is a noun. But there are also strict constraints on the possible type of noun occurring here. First, it must be an animate noun, nouns like book, desk are not possible choices. Second, even within the type of animate nouns, only those which have a semantic component of human are most naturally used with the verb smile. Trees, cats only smile in children11s stories. Thirdly, the noun must be in the singular to occur with is smiling, so nouns like boys, men are excluded. In other words, only singular human nouns like boy, girl, man, woman, student are capable of occurring in this context. And these words are said to be in a paradigmatic relation here. They can substitute for each other without violating syntactic rules. One thing to be noted is that the constraints on words in a paradigmatic relation, different from those in a syntagmatic relation, are syntactic only. Semantic factors are not taken into consideration here. Words in a paradigmatic relation are comparable only in terms of syntax. They have the same syntactic features. But they are not replaceable with each other semantically. They do not mean the same, which is obvious from the words boy, girl, man, woman and student. In Saussures original theory, these two relations are applicable at every level of linguistic analysis. At the phonological level, for example, the phoneme /p/ is in a syntagmatic relation with the phonemes hi and /t/ in the word pit; and it is in a paradigmatic

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relation with /b/, /s/ and /h/, as they are capable of replacing /p/ in the context /At/ to form an English word. These two relations together, like the two axes of a coordinate, determine the identity of a linguistic sign. That is, the value of a linguistic sign is determined by the signs with which it can combine to form a sequence, and the signs with which it contrasts and can replace in this sequence. The sequence which a sign forms with those it is in a syntagmatic relation is sometimes called a STRUCTURE, to use the word in a more restricted sense; and the class of signs which are in a paradigmatic relation are sometimes called a SYSTEM, with 12system12 also used in a restricted sense. The syntagmatic relation is nowadays also referred to as the HORIZONTAL relation, or CHAIN relation. And the paradigmatic relation is also known as the VERTICAL relation, or CHOICE relation.

Synchronic vs. Diachronic Analysis:

The final distinction Saussure makes is between synchronic and diachronic analysis. He argues that if the task of linguistics is to reconstruct the langue which makes speech and writing possible at any particular point in time, then synchronic analysis has to be kept separate from diachronic analysis. Synchronic analysis refers to the study of structures or systems at a particular point in time, while diachronic analysis involves the study of structures or systems over time. In Saussures linguistics, synchronic analysis entails the reconstruction of the system of language as a relational whole which is distinguished from, but not necessarily subordinated to, the diachronic study of the historical evolution and structural changes of particular linguistic units and signs. To mix the two would undermine the attempt to define the relational structure of a language. Language is seen as a system of interrelated signs which are made meaningful by their place in the system rather than by their place in history. Freezing the system assimilated by speakers and writers at one point in time allows its structural and relational character to be clearly identified without being obscured by contingent and incidental historical circumstances. Saussure seems to suggest that the structure of langue can be more easily established if synchronic and diachronic analyses are kept separate. But he has been criticized, as have structuralism and Semiology, for emphasizing synchronic analysis and neglecting historical and social change.

Linguistics: A sub branch of Semiology:

Saussure regards linguistics as a sub-branch of semiology. He suggests that semiology is a science which studies the life of signs within society, shows what they are composed of, and discovers the laws which govern them. Language can be studied as a semiological system of signs which make communication possible and meaningful. It can be clarified further by being compared with other systems of signs. Structural linguistics is one of the first stages in the development of semiology. In making his case, Saussure laid the foundations for later attempts to use structuralism and semiology to study other systems such as popular culture.

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Properties of Structure
Structures are Unconscious rather than conscious Structures are Material rather than metaphysical Structure are Deterministic rather than humanistic Structures are Dynamic rather static Meaning arises out of the relation of elements in a structure Structures are complete, logical and all encompassing

Developments in Structuralism
How Structuralism Works Saussures Course has had many different kinds of influence on Humanities scholarship in the 20th Century. He seems to have touched on so many different concerns that his influence is indicative of a fairly general condition. Because his overt concern is language there have been some mistaken assumptions made about what the implications of structural linguistics are. People have attempted to find a correlation between linguistic structures and cultural structures as if language itself determined cultural and even social experience. This attitude can be called linguistics (the attempt to explain everything according to an understanding of language and its structures). Many trends after Saussure can be seen to be working on the assumption that there is no social or cultural experience outside the structures that language makes possible. In fact, as developments in linguistics show, the category language cannot contain what Saussure was interested in, despite his own assertions. By making his linguistics a general one, instead of an empirical one, he had to find his explanatory terms in phenomena that are not restricted to languages alone. If they apply to language, then, that just makes language one phenomenon among others that can be understood through structuralism.

Structuralism in Disciplines other than Linguistics

Structuralism in anthropology and sociology. According to structural theory in anthropology and social anthropology, meaning is produced and reproduced within a culture through various practices, phenomena and activities which serve as systems of signification. A structuralist studies activities as diverse as food preparation and serving rituals, religious rites, games, literary and non-literary texts, and other forms of entertainment to discover the deep structures by which meaning is produced and reproduced within a culture. For example, an early and prominent practitioner of structuralism, anthropologist and ethnographer Claude Lvi-Strauss in the 1950s, analyzed cultural phenomena including mythology, kinship (the Alliance theory and the incest taboo),

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and food preparation (see also structural anthropology). In addition to these studies, he produced more linguistically-focused writings where he applied Saussure's distinction between langue and parole in his search for the fundamental mental structures of the human mind, arguing that the structures that form the "deep grammar" of society originate in the mind and operate in us unconsciously. Levi-Strauss was inspired by information theory and mathematics. Another concept was borrowed from the Prague school of linguistics; Roman Jakobson and others had analyzed sounds based on the presence or absence of certain features (such as voiceless vs. voiced). Levi-Strauss included this in his conceptualization of the universal structures of the mind, which he held to operate based on pairs of binary oppositions such as hot-cold, male-female, culture-nature, cooked-raw, or marriageable vs. tabooed women. A third influence came from Marcel Mauss, who had written on gift exchange systems. Based on Mauss, for instance, Lvi-Strauss argued that kinship systems are based on the exchange of women between groups (a position known as 'alliance theory') as opposed to the 'descent' based theory described by Edward Evans-Pritchard and Meyer Fortes. While replacing Marcel Mauss at his Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes chair, LviStrauss' writing became widely popular in the 1960s and 1970s and gave rise to the term "structuralism" itself. In Britain, authors such as Rodney Needham and Edmund Leach were highly influenced by structuralism. Authors such as Maurice Godelier and Emmanuel Terray combined Marxism with structural anthropology in France. In the United States, authors such as Marshall Sahlins and James Boon built on structuralism to provide their own analysis of human society. Structural anthropology fell out of favor in the early 1980s for a number of reasons. D'Andrade (1995) suggests that structuralism in anthropology was eventually abandoned because it made unverifiable assumptions about the universal structures of the human mind. Authors such as Eric Wolf argued that political economy and colonialismshould be more at the forefront of anthropology. More generally, criticisms of structuralism by Pierre Bourdieu led to a concern with how cultural and social structures were changed by human agency and practice, a trend which Sherry Ortner has referred to as 'practice theory'. Some anthropological theorists, however, while finding considerable fault with Lvi-Strauss's version of structuralism, did not turn away from a fundamental structural basis for human culture. The Biogenetic Structuralism group for instance argued that some kind of structural foundation for culture must exist because all humans inherit the same system of brain structures. They proposed a kind of Neuroanthropology which would lay the foundations for a more complete scientific account of cultural similarity and variation by requiring an integration of cultural anthropology and neurosciencea program also embraced by such theorists as Victor Turner. Structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics Structuralism in mathematics is the study of what structures (mathematical objects) are, and how the ontology of these structures should be understood. This is a growing philosophy within mathematics that is not without its share of critics.

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Paul Benacerraf's paper "What Numbers Could Not Be" (1965) is of seminal importance to mathematical structuralism in a perverse way: it inspired critique upon which the movement was born. Benacerraf addressed a notion in mathematics to treat mathematical statements at face value, in which case we are committed to an abstract, eternal realm of mathematical objects. Benacerraf's dilemma is how we come to know these objects if we do not stand in causal relation to them. These objects are considered causally inert to the world. Another problem raised by Benacerraf is the multiple set theories that exist by which reduction of elementary number theory to sets is possible. Deciding which set theory is true has not been feasible. Benacerraf concluded in 1965 that numbers are not objects, a conclusion responded to by Mark Balaguer with the introduction of full blooded Platonism (this is essentially the view that all logically possible mathematical objects do exist). With this full blooded Platonism, it does not matter which set-theoretic construction of mathematics is used, nor how we came to know of its existence, since any consistent mathematical theory necessarily exists and is a part of the greater platonic realm. The answer to Benacerraf's negative claims is how structuralism became a viable philosophical program within mathematics. The structuralist responds to these negative claims that the essence of mathematical objects is relations that the objects bear with the structure. Important contributions to structuralism in mathematics have been made by Nicolas Bourbaki, and also by the genetic epistemologist, Jean Piaget who, in collaboration with the mathematician, E.W. Beth, developed the notion of "mother structures" from which all mathematical formations are considered transformations. Structuralism in literary theory and literary criticism In literary theory, structuralism is an approach to analyzing the narrative material by examining the underlying invariant structure. For example, a literary critic applying a structuralist literary theory might say that the authors of the West Side Story did not write anything "really" new, because their work has the same structure as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In both texts, a girl and a boy fall in love (a "formula" with a symbolic operator between them would be "Boy + Girl") despite the fact that they belong to two groups that hate each other ("Boy's Group - Girl's Group" or "Opposing forces") and conflict is resolved by their death. The versatility of structuralism is such that a literary critic could make the same claim about a story of two friendly families ("Boy's Family + Girl's Family") that arrange a marriage between their children despite the fact that the children hate each other ("Boy Girl") and then the children commit suicide to escape the arranged marriage; the justification is that the second story's structure is an 'inversion' of the first story's structure: the relationship between the values of love and the two pairs of parties involved have been reversed. Structuralistic literary criticism argues that the "novelty value of a literary text" can lie only in new structure, rather than in the specifics of character development and voice in which that structure is expressed. One branch of literary structuralism, like

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Freudianism, Marxism, and transformational grammar, posits both a deep and a surface structure. In a Freudian literary interpretation the literary text is based on the deep structure grounded in the life and death instincts; the Marxist reading will interpret the conflict between classes in the text as rooted in the deep structure of the economic "base." Literary structuralism often follows the lead of Vladimir Propp, author of Morphology of the Folktale and Claude Levi-Strauss in seeking out basic deep elements in stories and myths, which are combined in various ways to produce the many versions of the ur-story or ur-myth. As in Freud and Marx, but in contrast to transformational grammar, these basic elements are meaning-bearing. There is considerable similarity between structural literary theory and Northrop Frye's archetypal criticism, which is also indebted to the anthropological study of myths. Some critics have also tried to apply the theory to individual works, but the effort to find unique structures in individual literary works runs counter to the structuralist program and have an affinity with New Criticism. The other branch of literary structuralism is semiotics, and it is based on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure.

Conclusion
To conclude, we can say that Structuralism is an approach to the human sciences that attempts to analyze a specific field as a complex system of interrelated parts. Although it enjoyed little popularity, it grew to become one of the most popular approaches concerned with the analysis of language, culture, and society. Structuralism in linguistics began with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, according to whom human language is to be understood as a system of signs. More specifically, the focus is on examining how the elements of language relate to each other in the present, that is, synchronically rather than diachronically. For Saussure, the linguistic sign, which forms the basis of his semiology, is composed of two parts: a signifier (the sound pattern of a word) and the signified (the concept or meaning of the word). In doing so, Saussure in Course in General Linguistics flouted all previous approaches which focused on the relationship between words and things. Key notions in structural linguistics are paradigm, syntagm, and value. A paradigm is a class of linguistic units (lexemes, morphemes, or constructions) which are possible in a certain position in a given linguistic environment, which is the syntagm (sentence). Value is the different function or role of each of those members of the paradigm. Importantly, the clearest example of structuralism lies in phonemics. The core concept of the Course is that of langue/ parole. While individual utterance is parole, the language regulated by linguistic rules or conventions to be observed by every member of the community is langue: parole generates a message and langue understands or interprets it. What distinguishes langue from parole is its arbitrary, relational and systematic nature.

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Structuralism is one of the humanistic thoughts that have great impact on the twentieth century. It is true that structuralism is firmly embedded in the tradition of Western thought and scienceto find ways of understanding phenomena through models of explanation that offer coherent pictures of the order of things. As modernism and scientism represented by the linguistic turn were found to be more and more unable to respond to human interest and social concerns, literary structuralism was soon regarded as the most provocative and unpopular, and was quickly replaced by a humanistic turn, effected by a revolution within structuralism itself. However, the influence of structuralism, just as that of formalism, lingers on.

References
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