Session Four: Structuralism

1
Literary Theory and Methodology

• Session Four Structuralism

2
Agenda

• Jakobsons model of communication
• Test
• Structuralism Key concepts
• Examples

3
Jakobsons Six Factors of Verbal Communication
context Addresser message addressee con
tact code
4
Jakobsons Six Functions of Verbal Communication

• Referential
• Emotive poetic conative
• phatic
• metalingual

5
Test

• Plan a three course meal for Friday (dont forget
  the drink)

6
Test

• Analyse
• The cat sat on the mat

7
Structuralism Key concepts

• Langue
• System
• Rules
• Code
• Paradigmatic relations

• Parole
• Practice
• Event
• Text
• Syntagmatic relations

8
Structuralism key concepts

• Text and writing, not work
• Subject positions, not author
• Reading, not reader
• Intertextuality

9
Structuralism key concepts

• Signs, signifiers, and signifieds
• The sign is arbitrary
• The signifier is linear

10
The sign
Signifier Signified
11
The sign
Signifier cat, /kæt/ Signified
12
The sign
Signifier cat, /kæt/ Signified
13
The arbitrary sign

• The relation between signifier and signified is
  arbitrary, i.e. conventional
• Meaning arises from the difference between the
  elements of the system cat, dog, mouse, cow,
  etc.
• Intertextuality

14
Motivated signs? The case of onomatopoeia

• bow-wow (or woof-woof) in English,
• wau-wau in German,
• uau-uau in Interlingua,
• ouah-ouah in French,
• gaf-gaf in Russian,
• hav-hav in Hebrew,
• wan-wan, bau-bau, or kyan-kyan in Japanese,
• guau-guau in Spanish,
• bau-bau in Italian,
• vov-vov in Danish,
• waf waf in Dutch,
• wou wou in Cantonese,
• hau-hau in Finnish and Polish,
• haf-haf in Czech,
• guk guk in Indonesian,
• meong meong in Korean.

15
The signifier is linear

• The signifier is auditory in nature
• Spoken signifiers unfold in time one after
  another a temporal line of audible, phonetic
  signs
• Written signifiers unfold in space one after
  another A spatial line of visible, graphic signs

16
A contrast painting
17
Literature, arbitrarity, and linearity

• Poetry
• Concrete poetry or emblem poems
• Typographical experiments

18
Literature, arbitrarity, and linearity (Plath,
Daddy)

• You do not do, you do not doAny more, black
  shoeIn which I have lived like a footFor thirty
  years, poor and white,Barely daring to breathe
  or Achoo.Daddy, I have had to kill you.You
  died before I had time--Marble-heavy, a bag full
  of God,Ghastly statue with one gray toeBig as a
  Frisco sealAnd a head in the freakish
  AtlanticWhere it pours bean green over blueIn
  the waters off beautiful Nauset.I used to pray
  to recover you.Ach, du.

19
George Herbert (1593-1633)
            cur       f       w         d      
dis       and p         A       sed   iend  
rought   eath     ease       ain.            
bles     fr       b         br       and       ag