STRUCTURALISM

STRUCTURALISM

A direction in philosophy and concrete scientific research that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s. and received widespread in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in France.
Initially, S. developed in linguistics and literary criticism in connection with the advent of structural linguistics, the foundations of which were developed by the Swiss. philologist F. de Saussure. In contrast to previous ideas about language, where it was considered in unity with thinking and the surrounding reality and even depending on them, and its internal was largely ignored, the new one is limited to the study of the internal, formal structure of language, separating it from the external world and subordinating it . Saussure in this regard states: “there is, and not substance”; "language is a language that obeys only its own own order"; “our thinking, if we abstract from its expression in words, is an amorphous, undifferentiated mass.” Along with the development of structural linguistics, Saussure sketches out the general contours of semiotics, calling it semiology, which will study “signs within the life of society.” However, in reality it developed and exists today as linguosemiotics. Significant contributions to structural linguistics were made by representatives of the Moscow linguistic circle (R. Yakobson), the Russian “formal school” (V. Shklovsky, Yu. Tynyanov, B. Eikhenbaum) and the Prague linguistic circle (N. Trubetskoy). Variants of grammar in linguistics include glossematics (L. Elmslev), distributions (E. Harris), and generative grammar (N. Chomsky).
The greatest development in structural linguistics has been achieved by phonology, which studies minimal linguistic units - phonemes, which are the initial means of meaning differentiation and form the basis for constructing the structure of language. It is phonological that has found wide use in the humanities. Dr. sections of structural linguistics (semantics, syntax) have more modest achievements.
In the post-war period, S. became widespread in a variety of fields of knowledge: anthropology and sociology (C. Lévi-Strauss), literary and art criticism (R. Barthes, W. Eco), epistemology (M. Foucault, M. Serres), mythology and religious studies (J. Dumezil, J.-P. Vernant), political economy (L. Althusser), psychoanalysis (J. Lacan). S. was joined by writers and critics who were part of the Tel Kel group (F. Sollers, Y. Kristeva, Ts. Todorov, J. Gennet, M. Pleine, J. Ricardo, etc.). Genetic S. was of particular interest (L. Goldman). The book by V. Propp “The Morphology of the Fairy Tale” (1928) is considered a classic structuralist work of the pre-war period. In the post-war period, the main figure of S. was the Frenchman. and the philosopher Lévi-Strauss. In the 1970s S. was transformed into (neostructuralism), which, in turn, merged with postmodernism.
S. became the last embodiment of Western, especially French, rationalism, having been influenced by neo-rationalism (G. Bachelard) and other modern trends. It belongs to modernity, marked by optimism, faith in science, which often takes the form of scientism. S. made a bold attempt to raise the humanities to the level of strict theory. Lévi-Strauss calls it “super-rationalism” and sees its tasks as combining the logical consistency of the scientist with the metaphorical and paradoxical nature of the artist, “to include the sensual without sacrificing any of the sensual qualities.” In terms of its main parameters, S. is closest to neopositivism, although it differs significantly from it: the latter takes language as an object of analysis and study, while in S. language plays primarily a methodological role: all others are considered in its image and likeness. phenomena of society and culture. S. is also distinguished by a greater breadth of view, a desire to overcome the narrow view and see unifying features and connections behind the external diversity of phenomena, to rise to global theoretical generalizations. He shows philosophy. abstractions and categories, reinforces the tendency towards growing theoreticalism, which sometimes takes the form of extreme “theorism”. Lévi-Strauss emphasizes that “social structure does not refer to empirical reality, but to the models constructed about it.” In relation to literature, Ts. Todorov notes that “the object of poetics is not empirical facts (literary works), but some abstract (literature)”, that his abstract concepts “refer not to a specific work, but to the literary text in general.” Based on linguistics, S. sees scientific character in mathematics, which, according to Serres, “has become that language that speaks without a mouth, and that blind and active thinking that sees without looking and thinks without the subject cogito.”
In general, S. represents more than a philosopher. teaching. The basis of structural methodology is the concepts of structure, system and model, which are closely related to each other and often do not differ. There is structure between elements. The system presupposes the structural organization of its constituent elements, which makes it unified and holistic. The property of systematicity means relationships over elements, due to which differences between elements are either leveled out or dissolved in the connections connecting them. As for the nature of the structures, it is difficult to determine. Structures are neither real nor imaginary. Levi-Strauss calls them unconscious, understanding them in the pre-Freudian sense, when there are no desires or ideas in it and remains “always empty.” J. Deleuze defines them as symbolic or virtual. We can say that structures have a mathematical, theoretical or spatial nature, and have the character of ideal objects.
The structure is an invariant that covers many similar or different phenomena-variants. In this regard, Lévi-Strauss points out that in his research he sought to “identify the fundamental and obligatory properties of any spirit, whatever it may be: ancient or modern, primitive or civilized.” In relation to literature, J. Zheninaska formulates a similar one: “Our model must justify any literary text, no matter what genre it belongs to: a poem in verse or in prose, a novel or a story, a drama or a comedy.” R. Barth goes even further and sets the task of getting to the “ultimate structure”, which would cover not only all literary, but also any texts in general - past, present and future. S. in this perspective appears as extremely hypothetical.
The concept of structure is complemented by other principles of S.'s methodology, and among them - immanence, which directs everything to the study of the internal structure of an object, abstracting from its genesis, evolution and external functions, as well as from its dependence on other phenomena. Lévi-Strauss notes that S. sets the task “to comprehend the properties inherent in certain types of orderliness, which do not express anything external to themselves.” What is important in synchrony is the principle of the primacy of synchrony over diachrony, according to which the object under study is taken in a given state, in its synchronic section, rather in statics and balance than in dynamics and development. In this case, a stable equilibrium of the system is considered not as temporary or relative, but rather as fundamental, which has either already been achieved or ongoing changes are directed towards it.
Based on the concept of structure and other attitudes, S. radically reconsiders the problems of man, understood as a subject of cognition, thinking, creativity and other activities. In structuralist works, the traditionalist “loses his advantages,” “voluntarily resigns,” “is taken out of the game,” or is declared “persona non grata.” This circumstance is partly explained by the desire to achieve complete objectivity. In Lévi-Strauss, the place of the traditional subject is taken by “mental structures” or “unconscious spirit”, which generates “structural laws” that determine human activity. For Foucault, this role is played by “epistemes”, “historical” or “discursive” and “non-discursive practices”. For Barthes, the role of the subject of creativity, the author-creator, is performed by “writing.”
Based on the structural-system approach, representatives of S. are developing a relational theory of meaning, calling it the “Copernican revolution” in resolving the issue of meaning and significance. Previously, it was usually considered as something that already exists, and we can only reflect or express it using language or other means. S. rejects ontological meaning and proposes the opposite path - from structure and system to meaning. In S., meaning can never be primary; it is always secondary in relation to form, structure and system. The meaning is not reflected or expressed, but is “done” and “produced.”
The structural approach turned out to be effective in the study of language, myths, consanguineous relations of “archaic” peoples, religion, folklore, which by their very nature are characterized by a high density of the past, a strict and pronounced internal organization, and the primacy of synchrony over diachrony. Saussure, in particular, points to the emergency of language, the “resistance of collective rigidity to any linguistic innovation” and makes the “impossibility of revolution in language.” Jacobson also notes that "in folklore one can find the clearest and most stereotypical forms of poetry, especially suitable for structural analysis." In other areas, Barth’s theses that “everything is language,” that language everywhere acts as “the foundation and model of meaning,” encountered serious difficulties and obstacles. In painting, cinema and music, it turned out to be very difficult to identify one’s own “alphabet”, a finite number of minimal units, unique “letter-phonemes” and “words” endowed with stable meanings. All this allowed U. Eco to conclude that “a non-linguistic code of communication should not necessarily be built on a language model.” It is precisely this approach, which does not tie itself too strictly to language, and which corresponds more to the spirit than the letter of linguistics, has become predominant in modern structural-semiotic research. They do not strictly adhere to the principles of immanence and the primacy of synchrony over diachrony. Methods of formalization, mathematization and modeling are becoming increasingly widely used.

Philosophy: Encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Gardariki. Edited by A.A. Ivina. 2004 .

STRUCTURALISM

scientific direction in the humanities that arose in the 20s gg. 20 V. and later received various Philosopher and ideological. interpretations. The emergence of S. as a concrete scientific. direction is associated with the transition of a number of humanities from preim. descriptiveempirical to abstract theoretical level of research; the basis of this transition was the use of the structural method, modeling, as well as elements of formalization and mathematization. The underlying specific scientific. The structural method was originally developed in structural linguistics, and then extended to literary criticism, ethnography, and some etc. humanities. Therefore, S. in a broad sense actually covers a whole field of knowledge. In a narrower sense, S. means scientific And Philosopher ideas related to the use of the structural method and which became most widespread in the 60s gg. in France (French WITH.). His basic representatives - Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, R. Barthes, as well as Italian art critic U. Eco. A special current in S.- so-called genetic structuralism of L. Goldman.

The basis of the structural method is the identification of structure as a set of relations that are invariant under certain transformations. In this interpretation, the concept of structure characterizes not just a stable “skeleton” k.-l. object, but a set of rules by which from one object one can obtain a second, third and T. d. by rearranging its elements and some etc. symmetric transformations. T. O., identifying common structural patterns of a certain set of objects is achieved here not by discarding the differences of these objects, but by deriving the differences as concrete variants of a single abstract invariant turning into each other.

Since with this approach the center of gravity falls on transformation operations applied to objects of very different natures, a characteristic feature of the structural method is the transfer of attention from elements and their “natural” properties to the relationships between elements and the relational ones that depend on them. i.e. system-acquired properties (in S. this is formulated as the methodological primacy of relationships over elements in the system). You can specify track. basic procedures of the structural method: 1) selection of the primary set of objects (“array”, “corpus” of texts, if it is about cultural objects), in which one can assume the presence of a single structure; for changeable objects of humanism, this means, first of all, their fixation in time - by coexisting objects and temporary distraction from their development (requirement of methodological primacy of synchrony over diachrony); 2) dismemberment of objects (texts) into elementary segments (parts), in which typical, repeating relationships connect dissimilar pairs of elements; identifying in each element what is essential for this relationship relational properties; 3) disclosure of transformation relations between segments, their systematization and construction of an abstract structure directly. synthesis or formal logic. and mathematical modeling; 4) deducing from the structure all theoretically possible consequences (specific options) and testing them in practice.

The isolation of the structural aspect in the humanities is carried out, as in some sign system, due to which the concrete scientific. S. is closely intertwined with semiotics. A characteristic feature of S. is the desire for consciousness. by manipulating signs, words, images, symbols to discover unconscious deep structures, hidden mechanisms of sign systems. From S.’s point of view, it is the transition to the study of such structures of the unconscious that ensures scientific objectivity of the study, allowing either to abstract from the concept of the subject, or to comprehend it as secondary, derived from these structures.

Specific scientific S. showed his fruitfulness in the study of the culture of primitive tribes, in folkloristics and etc. areas. At the same time, it caused heated discussions in concrete science. And Philosopher plan.

Philosophy S.'s interpretations can be divided into two basic lines - Philosopher the ideas of the structuralist scientists themselves and the structuralist ideology that spread in the 60s gg. in France. Philosophy the ideas of the structuralists were formulated in the process of comprehending the transition of humanitarian knowledge to abstract theoretical knowledge. level and its convergence with natural science. This comprehension, carried out in means. least within the framework of the Cartesian-Kantian (but also influenced by positivism and Freudianism), led to the promotion of dualism. concepts - “Kantianism without a transcendental subject” by Levi-Strauss, “historical. a priori" Foucault. Exaggeration of the role is unconscious. mechanisms of sign systems and culture as a whole, combined with too broad generalizations, introduces eclecticism into S.’s concepts, although in their original principles they generally reproduce, with some modifications, Kant’s forms (in this case unconscious structures) and content (empirical data). Their specific “anti-subjective” is strongly associated with the struggle against existentialism and etc. subjectivist movements that deny objective human knowledge. At the same time, acting not in the form of theoretically developed systems, but in the form dept. statements, Philosopher hypotheses, concepts of S. often turn out to be prone to compromise with existentialism, with phenomenology and T. p.

Linguistic. S. has developed and is maintained. a look at structure as a result of contact with related sciences - literary studies, ethnology, sociology and psychology (Prague functional linguistics, the Malinowski-Ferf school, modern semiotic studies in the USSR, France, USA). The most fruitful here are the studies of linguistic semantics. At the same time, much attention was paid to the search for structures isomorphic to language and other sign systems (for example, elementary binary semantic distinguishing features), as well as to the search for psychophysiological. and biological substrate of communication processes. Development contains. aspect is combined with far-reaching formalization (transformation analysis), which is also used in the study of the evolution of systems over time; at the same time it intensifies towards sign universals, in particular to the problem of “philosophical grammar” (N. Chomsky).

The activities of various schools of linguistics in linguistics have made it possible to obtain a number of important concrete results: the development of methods for describing unwritten languages, the decipherment of unknown scripts, and the development of internal methods. reconstruction of language systems, implementation of electronic counting devices in various areas of language activity, applied.

S. in literary criticism pays attention to both problems of formal description and semantics. On the one hand, issues of lit syntax are being developed. text (plot composition, poetry, “generative”), in which the role of linguistics is great. analysis; on the other hand, the study of arts. semantics itself paves new paths in semiotics. Structural methods are especially fruitful in the study of folklore and mythology - products of collective unconscious modeling activity. Here it means achieved. successes in the construction of formal semantics, which makes it possible to combine cognitive and social structures (“structural”). Math. the simplest social structures using methods of graph theory, group theory, factor analysis, etc. made it possible to describe systems of kinship, marriage, and exchange in “tribal” societies (C. Lévi-Strauss, F. Lounsbury, J. Murdoch). In his works on the structure of primitive consciousness, Lévi-Strauss revealed a very ancient layer of elementary semiotics. oppositions, cognitive ones can be studied in comparison with data from zoopsychology, psychophysiology, genetics, etc.

Psychological Research in the structural direction, begun by Gestalt psychology, received serious development in the works of L. S. Vygotsky and J. Piaget, who had a great influence on the formation of the ideas of semiotics (clarification of the genesis of sign structures, study of the process of signification). Recently, attempts have been intensified to introduce structural methods into history. science (M. Gluckman, M. Foucault, etc.), where these methods are closely associated with typological. tasks.

The wide dissemination of structural methods in various fields of humanities has led to S. in philosophy. plan (M. Foucault, L. Althusser, J. Derrida, W. Eco, etc.) and gave rise to attempts at philosophical and ideological. generalizations of structuralist methodology. These attempts are very different in their focus: if some of them in one way or another oppose themselves to existing philosophies. systems, then others, on the contrary, are looking for connections with such systems; in particular, in France a number of researchers seek to develop socialism from a Marxist position.

In the 2nd half. 60s Philosophical S. became the subject of a wide discussion, which unfolded first in France and then in other countries. As opponents, philosophers. S. performed, personalism, . The discussion took place around the problems of the relationship between philosophies. and structural anthropology, structure and history, ideology and science, as well as the possibilities of structural analysis, etc. According to S.'s opponents, in it philosophy gives way to the sciences. Indeed, structural analysis is associated with the desire to discover the freedom behind a person rather than the freedom in him. At the same time, inside S. herself one can see that she is not self-sufficient. “People make their own history,” writes Lévi-Strauss, referring to Marx’s thought from “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” “but they do not know that they are doing it” (“Anthropologie structurale”, P., 1958, p. 31). This formula in its first part justifies the philosopher. approach to social reality, and in the second - structural. The structures are “given,” but the whole point is what specific semiotic. and they carry existential meaning every time. According to S.’s position, to understand the essence of a person it is necessary to take into account both the moment of “consciousness” and “ unconscious nature collective phenomena."

As for S.’s methodology itself, it has not taken shape in philosophy. doctrine, remaining a system of ideas, a method that claims to be in each of the decree. areas for the construction of definitions. scientific theories. In search of an explanation of the phenomenon of man and his existence, the thought of the recent European past was oriented primarily towards the future. S. in this sense makes it possible to address immanent timeless structures. An important achievement S. came up with the idea of ​​isomorphism and hierarchy of systems with which humans are connected. . However, the existential relationship between the individual and these systems is not within the scientific competence of S., remaining the prerogative of philosophy. Healthy science the tendency underlying science is aimed at bringing science closer to the natural sciences. sciences. The implementation of this trend presupposes an understanding of the integrity of human culture as such and the independence of each culture. However, S., like any specific one, has a definition. limits of its effectiveness. Going beyond these limits, absolutization and ideologization of structuralist methodology lead to S.'s acceptance of a philosophy that is not characteristic of him. functions, to its hypertrophy will explain. opportunities. At the same time, S.'s ideas have an undeniable philosophy. meaning and therefore require appropriate interpretation.

Lit.: Marx K., Capital. Criticism of politics economy, Marx K. and Engels F., Works, 2nd ed., vol. 23–25; Humboldt W. von, On the differences in the organisms of human language and on the influence of this difference on intelligence. human development kind, St. Petersburg, 1859; Shpet G., Int. form of the word, M., 1927; Saussure F. de, Course of General Linguistics, trans. s., M., 1933; Sapir E., Language. Introduction to the Study of Speech, trans. from English, M.–L., 1934; Vygotsky L. S., Izbr. psychological research, M., 1956; his, Psychology of Art, 2nd ed., M., 1968; Wittgenstein L., Logico-philosopher. treatise, trans. from German, M., 1958; Carnap R., Meaning and, trans. from English, M., 1959; Trubetskoy N. S., Fundamentals of Phonology, trans. from German, M., 1960; New in Linguistics, vol. 1–5, M., 1960–70 (see works by L. Elmslev, X. Uldall, N. Chomsky, etc.); Structural-typological research. Sat. Art., M., 1962; Symposium on the Structural Study of Sign Systems. Abstracts of reports, M., 1962; Piaget J., Inelder B., Genesis of elementary logic. structures, trans. from French, M., 1963; Works on sign systems. I–IV, "Tartu State University Academic Record", 1964–69, issue. 160, 181, 198, 236; Summer School on Secondary Modeling Systems, vol. 1, 2, 3, Kääriku, 1964–68; Problems of research of systems and structures. Materials for the conference, M., 1965; Tynyanov Yu. N., The problem of poetic language. Articles, M., 1965; Ivanov V.V. and Toporov V.N., Slavic language modeling semiotics. systems. (Ancient period), M., 1965; Shaumyan S.K., Structural linguistics, M., 1965; Structural languages. [Sat. Art.], M., 1966; Zaripov R., Ivanov V., Bibliography, in the book: Mol A., Information theory and aesthetics. , trans. from French, M., 1966; Revzin I. I., Modeling method and typology Slavic languages , M., 1967; Prague Linguistic. circle. Sat. Art., M., 1967; Propp V. Ya., Morphology of a fairy tale, 2nd ed., M., 1969; Philosophy problems of history Nauki, M., 1969; Durkheim E., Mauss M., De quelques formes primitives de classification, "L"Année sociologique", 1903, année 6; Durkheim E., Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, P., 1912; Cassierer E., Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Bd 1–3, V., 1923–29; Les parties du discours partes orationis, Cph., 1928; Pierce C. S., Collected papers, v. 1–8, Camb. 1931–58; Hoсart A. M., Kings and councilors, Cairo, 1936; Mukařovský J., Kapitoly z české poetiky, dil 1–3, Praha, 1948; Signs, language and behavior, Y. , 1950; Pike K., Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior, pt. 1–3, Glendale, 1954–60; Kroeber A. L., Style and civilizations, N. Y., 1957; t. 1, P., 1957; Center international de synthèse. Paris. Semaine de synthèse. 20. 18–27 avr. 1957. Notion de structure et structure de la connaissance. P., 1957; Hjelmslev L., Essais linguistiques, Cph., 1959; Malinowski V., A scientific theory of culture and other essays, N. Y., 1960; Communications, t. 1–9, P., 1961–69; Sens et usages du terme "structure" dans les sciences humaines et sociales, éd. par R. Bastide, "s-Gravenhage, 1962; Jakobson R., Selected writings, v. 1, "s-Gravenhage, 1962; his, Essais de linguistique générale, P., 1963; "La pensée sauvage" et le structuralisme, "Esprit", 1963, année 31, No. 11, Spéc; Parts and wholes, ed. D. Lerner (The Hayden colloquim on scientific method and concept), N. Y.–L., 1963; Barthes R., Essais critiques, P., 1964; Formal semantic analysis, ed. by E. A. Hammel, "American Anthropologist", 1965, v. 67, No. 5; Althusser L., Lire le capital, t. 1–2, P., 1965; La notion de structure, "Revue intern, de philosophie", 1965, année 19, fasc. 3–4; Ρingand V. [e. a.], Claude Levi-Strauss, Aix-en-Provence, 1965 ("L"Arc", No. 26); Rombach H., Substanz, System, Struktur, 1, Freiburg–Münch., 1965; Problèmes du structuralisme, "Les temps modernes", 1966, année 22, No. 246, Lacan J., Ecrits, P., 1966; Greimas A.-J., Recherche de méthode, P., 1966; , 1966; Benveniste E., Problèmes de linguistique générale, P., 1966; Murdock G. P., Social structure, N. Y., 1967; marxisme, "La pensée", 1967, No. 135; Foucault M. , Les mots et les choses. Une archéologie des sciences humaines, P., ; Gluckman M., The utility of the equilibrium model in the study of social change, "American Anthropologist", 1968, v. 70, No. 2; Piaget J., Le structuralisme, 2 ed., P., 1968; Parsons T., The structure of social action, v. 1–2, N.Y., 1968; Simonis I., S. Lévi-Strauss on "La Passion de l"inceste", P., 1968; Boudon R., A quoi sert la notion de "Structure"? Essai sur la signification de la notion de structure dans les sciences Humaines, P., 1968; Language and language behavior abstracts, The Hague, 1967.

D. Segal, Y. Senokosov. Moscow.

Philosophical Encyclopedia. In 5 volumes - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Edited by F. V. Konstantinov. 1960-1970 .

STRUCTURALISM

STRUCTURALISM is the name for a number of trends in humanitarian knowledge of the 20th century related to the identification of structure, i.e., a set of multi-level relationships between elements of the whole that are capable of maintaining stability under various changes and transformations. The development of structuralism included a number of stages: 1) method - primarily in structural linguistics; 2) wider dissemination of the method; 3) erosion of the method as a result of its inclusion in non-scientific contexts; 4) transition to post-structuralism. Only the periods of “formation” and “spread” have a clear chronological definition; other stages often overlap (as happened in France).

Linguistics was the first to search for and identify structures in its material, which is characteristic of the concept of F. de Saussure. Methods of structural analysis developed in the 1920-40s. in psychology (Gestalt psychology), in literary criticism (Russian formal school), in linguistics (the three main structuralist schools in linguistics - the Prague Linguistic Circle, Copenhagen Glossematics and Yale Descriptivism). Structural linguistics requires a rejection of introspectionism, on the one hand, and a positivist summation of facts, on the other hand. Its program is associated with the transition from the stage of empirical collection of facts to the stage of theory construction; from diachrony (stringing facts into chains) to synchrony (linking them into a whole), from separate and disparate to “invariant” (relatively stable).

Thus, structuralism first emerged as a scientific methodology developed in linguistics (R. Jacobson and N. Trubetskoy), and then spread to other areas: cultural studies by Yu. M. Lotman and the Tartu semiotic school, ethnography by K. Lévi-Strauss (Lévi-Strauss's take on structuralism was influenced by Jacobson during their collaboration in New York in 1943). At the same time, J. Lacan (psychoanalysis), . Barthes (literary studies, popular culture), M. Foucault (sciences) in France extend some techniques of linguistic-semiotic analysis to other areas of culture. The transfer of linguistic-semiotic concepts and terms to other areas of humanitarian knowledge was not an accident: linguistics at that time was the most developed area of ​​​​humanitarian knowledge, language was considered as the most reliable way of fixing human thought and experience in any field. In addition, the general trend of all thought in the 20th century. rushed towards the analysis and criticism of language, rather than the analysis and criticism of consciousness.

Therefore, it is quite understandable that the conceptual stylistics of this developed area was borrowed by other areas of humanitarian knowledge. However, neither Lévi-Strauss nor Lotman (nor, it seems, Y. Kristeva or Ts. Todorov) did this linguistic methodology claim to be philosophical and did not replace philosophy.

So, for Lotman, the main issue was one of his articles in the 1960s, which was called “Literary criticism should be a science.” Gradually this motto develops into a broader program. When analyzing literary works, he dealt with their systematic description - initially by levels, and then taking into account the levels. He considered complex cultural objects and phenomena (for example, the views of Radishchev, Karamzin or an ordinary enlightened nobleman of the 1820s) as “secondary signifying systems”, tried to present them as a single system, looking for explanatory patterns even for seemingly mutually exclusive elements (denial and affirmation of the immortality of the soul in one of Radishchev’s treatises).

Similarly, Levi-Strauss used elements of linguistic and linguistic-semiotic methodology to study the unconscious cultural systems of primitive peoples. The basis of the method was the isolation of the so-called. binary oppositions (-culture, plant-animal, raw-cooked), consideration of complex cultural phenomena (for example, kinship systems) as bundles of differential features (following Jacobson, who in this way singled out the phoneme as the smallest meaningful unit in structural linguistics). All cultural systems of life of primitive peoples - rules of marriage, terms of kinship, rituals, masks - are considered by Lévi-Strauss as languages, as unconsciously functioning signifying systems, within which a kind of exchange of messages and transmission of information takes place.

Among French researchers, Lévi-Strauss was the only one who openly considered himself a structuralist, agreeing with the definition of his philosophical and methodological program as “Kantianism without a transcendental subject.” Not transcendental apperception, but impersonal mechanisms of the functioning of culture, similar to linguistic ones, were the basis of his program for the substantiation of knowledge. Thus, already in Lévi-Strauss we see - at the level of philosophical and methodological justifications - those main features that, with certain reservations and clarifications, can be attributed in general to French structuralism as a stage in the development of structuralist problematics: reliance on structure in opposition “stories”; reliance on language as opposed to the subject; reliance on the unconscious as opposed to consciousness.

In line with the general desire for science in the 1960s, Lacan’s Reading of Freud also appeared, presented as a “return to Freud.” Lacan bases it on the idea of ​​similarity or analogy between the structures of language and the mechanisms of action of the unconscious. Developing these thoughts, already contained in Freud, Lacan interprets the unconscious as a special kind of language (more precisely, he considers the unconscious to be structured, like a language) and considers the linguistic material supplied by the psychoanalytic session as the only reality with which the psychoanalyst must deal, unraveling conflicts in the functioning of unconscious mechanisms of the human psyche and behavior.

Barth applies some methods of linguistic-semiotic analysis to describe the social and cultural phenomena of modern European society. Discovering “sociologists™” in the phenomena of modern life - fashion, food, city structure, journalism - becomes the goal of his work in the 1950s and 60s. This is revolutionary, tearing away from bourgeois culture the patina of naturalness and self-implication, neutrality. First half of the 1960s - for Barth, this is a period of fascination with scientific semiotics and the construction of his own version of semiotics for the study of secondary, connotative meanings given by the functioning of language in culture and society.

Foucault tests some of the principles of structuralism on the material of the history of science. Thus, in “Words and Things” (1966), he puts relations of the semiotic type as the basis for the identification of “epistemes” - invariant structures that determine the basic possibilities of thought and cognition in a particular cultural period. In accordance with the general structuralist project, the knowledge of “man” is placed in relation to the existence and knowledge of “language”: the more clearly the language functions, the faster man disappears from modern culture.

Thus, the trends of structuralism were interdisciplinary and international, but they were carried out each time in different circumstances. In the USSR, structural-semiotic research in the 1960s. were a protest against dogmatism and at the same time subjectivism of official science. In France, circumstances developed that created a favorable ideological climate for the widespread dissemination of structuralist ideas. It was a protest against the dominance of traditional philosophical subjectivism in its rationalistic (Descartes) and irrationalistic (Sartre) versions. Existentialism was exhausted after the 2nd World War, personal choice in a border situation became irrelevant, the tendencies of scientific philosophy and philosophy of science (logical positivism) were represented extremely poorly, and therefore structuralism became a means to designate a different, more objective human and philosophical position.

An important role in this turning point was played by the conceptual shift carried out within the framework of French Marxism by L. Althusser (he taught at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and had a direct impact on many representatives of the French intelligentsia). Althusser’s interest in Marx during the period of “Capital” (the same shift of interest occurred within the framework of Soviet Marxism in the 1960s), in multiple structural causality (surdetermination in the one-sided dependence of the superstructure on the base), the very formulation of the idea of ​​“theoretical anti-humanism” played an important role role in the crystallization of structuralist ideas and strengthening their public resonance.

Thus, the problematic community of diverse areas of work in various fields reached its greatest clarity by the middle. 1960s and began to decline at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. Structuralist methodology in France also turned out to be a means of throwing one across the abyss in a situation of ideological vacuum after the self-exhaustion of existentialism. When this work was completed, the ideological climate changed, and another one began. The call for scientificity was over and the search for structures was replaced, on the contrary, by the search for everything that in one way or another escaped the framework of structures. In this sense, the advent of poststructuralism did not mean the exhaustion of structuralism as a scientific methodology,

which retained its internal scientific significance, but ceased to be a subject of public interest.

The events of May 1968 became a symptom of important social changes. The thesis that “structures do not take to the streets” was supposed to show that the era of public interest in the impersonal and objective was over. For intellectuals, everything that in one way or another constitutes the “wrong side” of the structure comes to the fore. At the barricades of student unrest, “body” and “power” mattered more than “language” and “objectivity.” Short period of the 1st half of the 1970s. suggested attempts at group struggle with global power (these were the tasks of the prison information group in which Foucault worked for several years). However, the social upheaval subsided and completely different motives blossomed in the vacant place. This was a return from scientific interest to ethics (but no longer existentialist), sometimes micro-group, but more often - the ethics of individual escaping from power through constant renaming, the ethics of permissiveness (the flourishing of hedonism, the variety of justifications for desire and pleasure).

All structuralists, with the exception of Lévi-Strauss, are characterized by noticeable conceptual shifts, one way or another connected with social changes at the turn of the 1960s and 70s. Barthes, Lacan, Foucault were perceived first as supporters of structuralism, then as supporters of post-structuralism. The general periodization can be roughly represented as follows: 1950-60s. - structuralism (sometimes pre-structuralism); 1970s -coexistence of structuralism and poststructuralism; 1970-80s - poststructuralism.

So, structuralism is not a philosophy, but a scientific methodology together with a general set of worldview ideas. Structuralism and post-structuralism have never been systematized doctrines. However, structuralism was also characterized by a commonality of methodological program, obvious even in the process of its erosion; poststructuralism existed more as a general polemic than as a community of programs, and depended on structuralism as an object of criticism or negation. French structuralism took the place of logical positivism, which was absent in France, although in terms of the actual practice of implementation it had little in common with it. Structuralism has problematic overlaps with neo-rationalism. Structuralism contributed to the modification of phenomenology in its French version (grafting linguistic problematics onto the trunk of phenomenology, to the search for the interaction of explanatory strategies with those who understand); he gave reasons (especially around the works of Foucault) for a fairly fruitful polemic with the Frankfurt School.

Lit.: Leei-Stroe K. Primitive thinking. M., 1994; It's him. Structural anthropology. M., 1985; Lacan J. Function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis. M., 1995; It's him. The authority of the letter in the unconscious, or the fate of the mind after Freud. M., 1997; Bart R. Fav. work. M., 1989,1994; It's him. Mythologies. M., 1996; Foucault M. Words and things. Archeology of the Humanities. M., 1977,1996; It's him. The birth of the clinic. M., 1998; Lotman Yu. M. About poets and poetry. St. Petersburg, 1996; It's him. Favorite articles in 3 volumes. Tallinn, 1992-1993; Uspensky B. A. Izbr. works in 3 volumes, T.I-2. M., 19^6-1997; Moscow-Tartu semiotic school. Story. Memories. Reflections. M., 1998; Avtonomova N. S. Philosophical problems of structural analysis in the humanities. M., 1977; Ilyin I. Poststructuralism. Deconstructivism. Postmodernism. M., 1996; Structuralism: pros and cons. M., 1975; Lévi-Strauss S. Pensée sauvage. P., 1962; Idem. Mythologiques. P., 1962-1968; Lacanl. Ecrits. P., 1966; Berthes R. Essais critiques. P.. 1964; Idem. System de la mode. P., W Qu "est-ce que le structuralisme? P., 1968; Structuralism and Since. From Lévi-Strauss t Derrida. J. Sturrock (ed.). Oxf„ 1979. See also article by K. Lev- Stroe, R. Barthes, M. Foucault, J. Lacan and lit.

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Structuralism- Structuralism ♦ Structuralisme A school of thought borrowed from linguistics and the humanities, which some of its representatives tried to pass off as a philosophical movement. Structuralists highlight not so much in the subject they study... ... Sponville's Philosophical Dictionary

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STRUCTURALISM, a direction in the humanities (linguistics, literary criticism, ethnography, history, etc.), formed in the 1920s. and associated with the use of the structural method. It is based on identifying the structure as relatively... ... Modern encyclopedia The Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science is a designation for a generally heterogeneous sphere of humanities research that chooses as its subject a set of invariant relations (structures) in the dynamics of various systems. The beginning of the formation of structuralist methodology dates back to the publication... ... The latest philosophical dictionary

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Structuralism

A direction in linguistics that aims linguistic research the disclosure of mainly internal relationships and dependencies of the components of language, its structure, understood, however, differently by different structuralist schools. The main directions of structuralism are the following: 1) Prague linguistic school, 2) American structuralism, 3) Copenhagen school, 4) London linguistic school. Starting from the previous neogrammatical direction in linguistics ( cm. neogrammar), structuralism put forward some provisions common to its various directions. In contrast to neogrammarians, who argued that only the languages ​​of individual individuals really exist, structuralism recognizes the existence of language as an integral system. Structuralism opposes the “atomism” of neogrammarians, who studied only individual linguistic units isolated from each other, with a holistic approach to language, considered as a complex structure in which the role of each element is determined by its place in relation to all other elements and depends on the whole. If neogrammarians considered the only scientific study of language to be the historical study, without attaching importance to the description of its modern state, then structuralism pays primary attention to synchrony. Common to various directions of structuralism is also the desire for accurate and objective research methods, the exclusion of subjective aspects from it. Along with common features, individual directions of structuralism have noticeable differences.

Representatives of the Prague school, or school of functional linguistics (V. Mathesius, B. Gavranek, B. Trnka, I. Vahek, Vl. Skalichka and others, immigrants from Russia N. S. Trubetskoy, S. O. Kartsevsky, R. O Jakobson), proceed from the idea of ​​language as a functional system, evaluate a linguistic phenomenon from the point of view of the function it performs, and do not ignore its semantic side (in contrast, for example, to many American structuralists). Giving priority to the synchronic study of language, they do not abandon its diachronic study; they take into account the evolution of linguistic phenomena, which also differs from many other representatives of structuralism. Finally, unlike the latter, the Prague School of Functional Linguistics takes into account the role of Extralinguistic factors and considers language in connection with the general history of the people and their culture. Representatives of the Prague School made a great contribution to the development of general phonetics and phonology, and the development of grammar (the theory of actual division of sentences, the doctrine of grammatical oppositions), functional stylistics, the theory of linguistic norms, etc. American structuralism is represented by a number of movements, such as descriptive linguistics (L. Bloomfield, G. Gleason), the school of generative grammar and, in particular, transformational analysis (N. Chomsky, R. Lees), etc. Their common feature is the utilitarian orientation of linguistic research, their connection with a variety of applied problems. Much attention is paid to developing a methodology for linguistic research, determining the boundaries of application of individual methods and techniques, determining the degree of reliability of the results expected in each case, etc. cm. descriptive linguistics, generative grammar, direct components.

Copenhagen School put forward a special direction in structuralism - glossematics. Danish structuralists (V. Brendal, L. Hjelmslev) consider language as a system of “pure relations”, in abstraction from material substance, and study only the dependencies that exist between the elements of language and form its system. They strive to create a strict formal linguistic theory, which, however, turns out to be suitable only for certain aspects of language learning. cm. glossematics.

London Linguistic School plays a less prominent role in structuralism. Representatives of this direction pay special attention to the analysis of the linguistic and situational context, as well as the social aspects of language, recognizing only that which has a formal expression as functionally significant.

Dictionary-reference book of linguistic terms. Ed. 2nd. - M.: Enlightenment. Rosenthal D. E., Telenkova M. A.. 1976 .

Synonyms:

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A movement in philosophy and specifically scientific research that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s. and became widespread in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in France. Initially, S. developed in linguistics and literary criticism in connection with the emergence of... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

- (in cultural studies) 1) application of structural analysis to the study of cultural problems; 2) a direction in foreign (primarily French) anthropology; the Tartu-Moscow school, which developed the problems of... ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

Structuralism- Structuralism ♦ Structuralisme A school of thought borrowed from linguistics and the humanities, which some of its representatives tried to pass off as a philosophical movement. Structuralists highlight not so much in the subject they study... ... Sponville's Philosophical Dictionary

- (structuralism) The theory according to which the structure of a system or organization is more important than the individual behavior of its elements. Structural research has deep roots in Western philosophical thought and can be traced back to... ... Political science. Dictionary.

STRUCTURALISM, a direction in the humanities (linguistics, literary criticism, ethnography, history, etc.), formed in the 1920s. and associated with the use of the structural method. It is based on identifying the structure as relatively... ... Modern encyclopedia

A direction in the humanities, formed in the 20s. 20th century and associated with the use of the structural method, modeling, elements of semiotics, formalization and mathematization in linguistics, literary criticism, ethnography, history, etc.... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

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structuralism- STRUCTURALISM is a direction in humanitarian knowledge of the 20th century, associated with the identification of structure, i.e. a set of multi-level relationships between elements of the whole that are capable of maintaining stability under various changes and... ... Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

Structuralism- (lat. structura – kurylym, ornalasu, ret) – madenietti zhete tusіnudin nakty gylymi zhane philosophies, disnamases, methodologies. Algashkyda linguistics, adebiettanuda, anthropology of kalyptasty (ХХ ғ. birіnshi zhartysynda), keіn madeniettіn baska… … Philosophy terminerdin sozdigi

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Designation of a generally heterogeneous sphere of humanities research, choosing as its subject a set of invariant relations (structures) in the dynamics of various systems. The beginning of the formation of structuralist methodology dates back to the publication... ... The latest philosophical dictionary

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• Modern Structuralism, Noël Mouloud, 1973 Edition. The condition is good. The goal that the author of the book sets for himself is to study the processes of thinking carried out within the framework of the structural sciences in accordance with... Category:

At the beginning of the 20th century, linguistics, thanks to the successes of neogrammatists, achieved significant success in the study of language as a systemic phenomenon at the synchronic level. In general, the emergence of structuralism was a response to the crisis in linguistics itself. Research objectives: to identify the logic of generation, structure and functioning of complex objects of human culture, which include language. The use of these methods refutes the psychological and anthropocentric methods of studying linguistic phenomena. Structuralism is an international and interscientific phenomenon.

3 schools of structuralism:

1. Prague School - Prague Linguistic Circle (PLC). Led by: N.S. Trubetskoy, R.O. Jacobson, V. Mothesius. The main thesis of the PLC was the assertion that language is a means to achieve certain goals. The main task is to develop a doctrine of the functions of language.

Main achievements:

· creation by Trubetskoy of phonology as the science of the phoneme

· creation of a doctrine about the actual division of a sentence

2. Danish school - Danish glossematics - an abstract theory of language that claimed to be the basis for the study of language as a system.

Led by: Louis Hjelmslev, who developed the doctrine of 3 types of dependence between elements in phrases:

· Coordination (harmonization)

Determination (control)

· Constellation (adjacency)

3. American descriptivism (description).

Representatives: E. Sapir, L. Bloomfield.

Important achievement:

· The doctrine of the hierarchy of the language system (from lower to higher)

· N. Chomsky changed the hierarchy to the exact opposite (from highest to lowest), this was the Chomskyan revolution.

Main directions in modern linguistics

By the middle of the 20th century, structuralism had exhausted itself, and scientists returned to studying language on the principles of anthropocentrism.

· Cognitive linguistics is a direction in linguistics that explores the problems of the relationship between language and consciousness, the role of language in the conceptualization and categorization of the world, in cognitive processes and generalization of human experience, the connection of individual human cognitive abilities with language and the forms of their interaction. Language is a cognitive mechanism, a system of signs that specifically codifies and transforms information. (linguists: Charles Fillmore, George Lakoff, Ronald Langacker, Leonard Talmy, Alexander Kibrik.)

· Functional linguistics (functionalism) - a set of schools and trends that arose as one of the branches of structural linguistics, characterized by primary attention to the functioning of language as a means of communication. Predecessors of F. l. - I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, F. de Saussure, O. Jespersen. The basis of the principle of Functional linguistics is the understanding of language as a purposeful system of means of expression.

· Generative linguistics (transformational generative grammar, transformational-generative grammar, Chomskyan linguistics) - most popular since the late 1950s. a direction in world linguistics that aims to develop a theory of language modeled on the natural sciences; founder and leader - Noam Chomsky (USA). The goal of linguistic theory according to Chomsky is to explain the fact of the amazingly rapid acquisition of a child’s native language on the basis of a clearly insufficient external stimulus, that is, the information that can be extracted from the speech of others. The basis of a person’s linguistic ability is an innate biologically determined component that determines the basic parameters of human thinking and, in particular, the structure of linguistic knowledge.

Linguistic schools of the first half of the 20th century, which solved the problems of studying and describing the language system, received a common name - structuralism, originally proposed by Czech linguists in 1928 at the first congress of Slavists.

Ideas about the structure of the language system, methods of its detection among linguists different countries were not the same. Within the framework of structuralism, three different directions simultaneously emerged and developed: Prague functional linguistics, Danish glossematics, and American linguistics.

Prague functional linguistics was created by a group of scientists who united in Prague Linguistic Circle, founded in 1926 by Vilém Mathesius. Mathesius understood LANGUAGE as a system of expedient means of expression, each element of which has its own function and exists only for that reason. The Prague Linguistic Circle included some Russian students of Baudouin de Courtenay, who emigrated from Russia after the October Revolution.

The most important contribution to structural linguistics was the work of the Prague Linguistic Circle on Phonology. Baudouin’s student Nikolai Trubetskoy, in his book “Fundamentals of Phonology” (1939), first formulated the rules for finding a phoneme among variants and combinations of phonemes and presented characteristics of various structural relationships (oppositions) between phonemes. Trubetskoy's book contains descriptions of the phoneme systems of many languages ​​of the world.

The Prague residents identified the features of the phonological structure of morphemes, its transformations in combinations of morphemes with each other, and thereby laid the foundations for the creation and development of a new linguistic discipline - morphonology.

Linguists of the Prague Circle explained the historical development of a language as the development of a system. Following Baudouin, they proceeded from a dialectical understanding of the relationship between diachrony and synchrony of language.

An important place in the scientific heritage of the Prague people is occupied by Mathesius's teaching on the actual division of a sentence, its communicative perspective, which laid the foundations for the structural study of syntactic phenomena.

The Prague residents paid great attention to the creation of a structural typology of languages. They studied the problem of bringing languages ​​closer together through mutual influence. The Prague Linguistic Circle staged current issues about the relationship between literary, written language and dialects, about the existence of functional styles of language; problems of normalization of oral and written speech were put forward.

The Prague residents laid the rational foundations for the study of structural relations in the language system, relying most of all on facts natural languages.

Danish glossematics is the teaching of the Copenhagen linguist Louis Hjelmslev. He focused on elucidating theoretically possible structural relationships in the system of some abstract language. He was not interested in studying and describing the facts of specific languages. Realizing that such linguistics differs very sharply from traditional ones, Elmslev proposed a new name for the theory he was creating - glossematics (from the Greek glossa - word).

The philosophical basis of glossematics is logical positivism - a type of subjective idealism, which proclaimed the only reality to be the relationships between people's subjective ideas.

While welcoming Saussure's idea of ​​the systemic nature of language, Hjelmslev regrets that Saussure did not completely abandon the material substance of language and did not completely move into the realm of pure structure. Jelmslev builds a theoretical model of language structure and creates new terminology for it.

Hjelmslev's model reflected many features of natural language systems, so some of its aspects turned out to be promising for the development of linguistics. Such are, for example, the division of LANGUAGE into the plane of content and the plane of expression, the distinction in both planes of form and substance. Substance in terms of expression is understood as a continuum of sounds, and in terms of content - a continuum of human experience. Particularly fruitful was the division of form. In terms of expression, Hjelmslev divides forms into figures-phonemes, and in terms of content, figures are small components of meaning that do not always find a correspondence in terms of expression. Form covers the continuum of substance like a net that falls on it from above and breaks it into cells, defining the boundaries between its sections.

Hjelmslev showed the possibilities of using symbolism and some methods of analysis adopted in mathematical logic in linguistics.

However, in general, Hjelmslev’s concept, divorced from the facts of living natural languages, turned out to be practically inapplicable for their description.

American descriptive linguistics is a specific structural approach to the study of language developed in the United States. Getting acquainted with the unwritten languages ​​of the Indians, the American linguist Franz Boas created a technique for recording spoken speech and then dividing it into meaningful parts. The result was a list (inventory) of morphemes and a list of rules for their meaningful combination with each other. This technique makes it possible to obtain a qualified description of a language that is unfamiliar to the researcher and has no written language.

This practical method of language learning was transformed into linguistic theory by Leonard Bloomfield. The descriptive concept of language was outlined by Bloomfield in 1933 in his book “Language”.

Bloomfield's philosophical positions are constituted by a vulgar materialistic theory of behavior - behaviorism (English, behaviour), according to which all human actions are determined by his biological instincts. Language in Bloomfield's concept is just one of the forms of human behavior that helps him satisfy his needs with the help of other people.

The problem of the connection between language and thinking is not raised in Bloomfield's concept, because thinking in his interpretation is a fiction. There are only muscular movements and secretory activity of the glands, which differ from person to person. This approach was especially categorically formulated by one of Bloomfield’s students, who stated that thought is the activity of the speech apparatus.

The vulgar-materialist positions of descriptivism make it clear why its representatives consciously refused to address meaning - the category of thought and were engaged only in the registration and description of linguistic forms.

Descriptivists have created several methods for dividing a speech stream into meaningful segments and constructing a coherent statement from such segments. They prepared the methodological basis for processing language text using an electronic computer.

American structuralists showed the importance of a scientifically based analysis of linguistic form, but abandoned the theoretical understanding of the connection between form and content in language, and the characterization of the qualitative uniqueness of language units.

STRUCTURALISM, an intellectual movement characterized by a desire to uncover the patterns underlying social and cultural phenomena. The methodological model for structuralism is structural linguistics, the most influential in the 20th century. direction in the science of language. The linguist attempts to explicitly describe the hidden oppositions, structures and rules that make linguistic utterances possible, while the structuralist considers clothing, literature, etiquette, myth, gestures as numerous “languages” in which representatives of a particular culture communicate; he tries to highlight the hidden system of oppositions that in each case determine the structure of specific actions or objects.

Most widespread and influential in fields such as linguistics, cultural anthropology, and literary criticism, structuralism has found expression in other fields as well. The central figures of the movement are the linguist R. Jacobson (1896–1982), the anthropologist C. Lévi-Strauss (born 1908) and the literary critic R. Barth (1915–1980), but other names are also associated with it, including the child psychology researcher J. Piaget (1896-1980), specialist in intellectual history M. Foucault (1926-1984) and psychoanalyst J. Lacan (1901-1981). The success of the movement contributed to the development of semiotics (the science of signs,

cm. SEMIOTICS), i.e. analysis of various phenomena in terms of sign systems. As an intellectual movement extending beyond linguistics, structuralism was particularly influential in France in the 1960s.Origins. The father of structuralism is usually considered to be F. de Saussure (1857-1913), the founder of modern linguistics. Saussure introduced a distinction between real acts of speech, or utterances (French parole), and the underlying system that a person masters when learning a language (French langue). He argued that linguistics should focus on the latter and describe the structure of this system by defining its elements in terms of their relationships. In the previous period, linguistics focused on the historical evolution of the elements of language; Saussure insisted that synchronic or synchronic linguistics - the study of a language system without regard to time - should take precedence over diachronic or historical linguistics. By examining language as a system of signs, structural linguistics reveals the oppositions that create meaning and the rules of combination that govern the construction of linguistic sequences. STRUCTURALISM IN LINGUISTICS Linguistics was the branch of science in which structural ideas spread most rapidly and came to dominate in many countries.General linguistics course F. de Saussure (1916 ) had a strong influence on many linguists. For linguists in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the ideas of the Polish and Russian scientist I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay were also of great importance (1 845 1 929), who is also sometimes considered one of the founders of structuralism. In the 1910–1930s, a number of scientific schools emerged that, to one degree or another, can be classified as structural linguistics. The Geneva School arose in Switzerland, led by colleagues of F. de Saussure and the publishers of his course, S. Bally(1865 1947) and A. Seshe (1870 1 946). In Denmark, the Copenhagen School, or glossematics, developed, led by L. Hjelmslev (1899–1965). In Czechoslovakia, by the end of the 1920s, the Prague Linguistic Circle was formed, which united Czech scientists V. Mathesius (1 882 1 945), B. Trnka (1 895 1 984) and others and emigrants from Russia R. Yakobson, S. Kartsevsky(1884 1955), N. Trubetskoy, who soon moved to Geneva and lived in Vienna(1890 1 938). In France, the most influential linguists were E. Benveniste(1902 1 976) and A. Martin (b. 1908). The London School led by J.R. Furse was formed in England(1890 1 960). Prominent linguists who did not create their own scientific schools also worked in these and some other European countries: in Poland E. Kurilovich(1895 1 978), in France by L. Tenier(1893 1954), in England A. Gardiner(1879 1 963). In Germany and Austria, where the scientific traditions of the 19th century were very strong, structuralism did not become the dominant trend in linguistics; the prominent linguist and psychologist K. Bühler was close to him ( 1879 1 963) . In the USA, linguistics developed in many ways beyond the European canons, but regardless of the ideas of F. de Saussure, schools developed there that were quite close to European structuralism. The traditions of these schools go back to the prominent anthropologist and linguist F. Boas(1858 1 942) . whose students were both founders of the leading schools of American linguistics in the 1920s and 1950s: L. Bloomfield ( 1887 1 949), founder of the school of descriptivism, and E. Sapir(1884 1 939), founder of the school of ethnolinguistics (the latter school went beyond the framework of structuralism on a number of issues).See also ETHNOLINGUISTICS.The first of these schools was more numerous; it included B. Blok(1907 1 965), Z. Harris (1909-1992), C. Hockett (1916-2000), etc. However, it should be borne in mind that the two schools of American structuralism intensively interacted with each other, and a number of researchers, for example K. Pike (1912 2000) can be attributed to both schools. From Asian countries, structuralism was developed in Japan, where it was presented, in particular, by S. Hashimoto(1882 1 945); however, it did not become the dominant trend there.

In the USSR, the term “structuralism” was not adopted until the 1950s, but a number of scientists were close in their ideas to the Prague Circle: N.F. Yakovlev

(1892 1 974), G.O.Vinokur (18961947). A.M.Sukhotin(1888 1942), P.S. Kuznetsov (1899 1 968), A.A. Reformatsky (1 900 1978 ), V.N. Sidorov (1903 1968), partly R.I.Avanesov(1902 1 982) and A.I. Smirnitsky (19031954). A special place occupied by students of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay: L.V. Shcherba(1880 1 944) and E.D. Polivanov(1891 1 938). All these scientists had to fight with the followers of the “new doctrine of language” N.Ya.Marr and the epigones of linguistics of the 19th century. Since the 1950s, intensive development of the ideas of Western structuralism began, important contributions to which were made by S.K. Shaumyan (b. 1914), I.I. Revzin (1 929 1974), A. A . Zaliznyak (b. 1935), I. A . Melchuk (b. 1932) etc.

All structuralists in linguistics accepted (sometimes with some modifications) a number of ideas put forward by F. de Saussure. This is the distinction between language and speech and the concentration of linguistics on the study of language; understanding of language as a system of signs, division of linguistics into synchronic and diachronic with priority given to the former (although many structuralists also dealt with the history of language), the desire to consider the language system as a whole and identify systemic relationships between linguistic units. Most structuralists were in that

or to another degree, an approach to language as a phenomenon studied from the outside, without resorting to psychology and introspection, consideration of language outside the speaker and listener (the exception was K. Bühler,E. Sapir, E. D. Polivanov, partly A. Gardiner, L. V. Shcherba). Typical of structuralists is the desire for accuracy, rigor and consistency of description, which at the late stage of the development of structuralism reached its active mathematization and the construction of formal models. These methodological guidelines were later inherited by science, which came to the fore in the last third of the 20th century. generative linguistics of N. Chomsky and his followers, although generative theory has always emphasized a break with classical structuralism rather than continuity with it.See also CHOMSKY, NOAM.At the same time, various schools of structuralism and individual structuralists differed significantly on a number of issues. This was partly due to the contradictions that F. de Saussure himself had (he did not even want to publish his university course, feeling the incompleteness of the underlying theory; the course was published posthumously on the basis of student notes). For example, in different placesGeneral linguistics course language is characterized either as a system of pure relations, or as a system that includes both elements and relationships between them; synchronous linguistics is understood either as the study of a certain state of language associated with previous and subsequent states, or as the study of language without relative to time. Different directions of structuralism were adopted different sayings F. de Saussure.

The main features of structuralism brought two schools to their logical conclusion: glossematics and descriptivism, although the completeness and consistency of the theory was achieved in them in different ways. At the same time, both schools, each in its own way, also outlined the limits of structuralism: the purification of the theory from inconsistencies sharply limited its applicability.

Glossematics developed the ideas of F. de Saussure about language as a system of pure relations, for which the time factor is unimportant. Criticizing the traditional humanitarian approach to language, L. Yelmslev sought to build linguistics as a science independent of other sciences except mathematics (at the same time, other humanities should rely on linguistic data). The goal of linguistics, according to Hjelmslev, is to construct an “algebra of language” modeled on the calculus of mathematical logic. A linguistic theory should be as abstract as possible and evaluated only in accordance with the criteria of internal consistency, simplicity and completeness. L. Elmslev even compared the construction of a theory with a game. The theory must then be applied to the analysis of specific texts, but the construction of a theory and its suitability for particular purposes are not related to each other. While maintaining the definition of language as a system of signs, glossematics understood a sign in an unconventional way: a sign is not a sign for something lying outside of it; it only connects two sides: expression and content. Neither the nature of the expression (sound or otherwise) nor the nature of the content (mental or otherwise) should be of interest to linguistics. For this science, according to Hjelmslev, only the relationships between elements are significant, and the elements themselves (phonemes, words, etc.)

– only the points of intersection of these relations. This rigor of the method led to extreme impoverishment of the content. All attempts to describe any language based on the methodology of glossematics were unsuccessful, but some of its categories (for example, the opposition of the plane of expression and the plane of content or form and substance in language) enriched the conceptual apparatus of linguistic theory.

Descriptivists, on the contrary, did not proceed from abstract procedures, but from the empirical experience of describing languages, in particular Indian ones. They sought to explore their object on the model of the natural sciences, completely abandoning the use of intuition and introspection. This was due not only to general cognitive attitudes, but also to completely objective reasons, namely, very significant, from the point of view of the ideas of that time, differences in the structure of these languages ​​from the usual “Central European standard” (B. L. Whorf’s term); such languages ​​appeared before the researcher as certain objects worthy of surprise, not intuitively comprehended and requiring objective study, similar to those with which they deal natural sciences. Intuition during their study often suggested unsuccessful solutions (“pulling” familiar categories onto empirical material that resisted this), and therefore the idea of ​​​​building a universal method for “discovering the grammar” of the language being studied came to the fore despite the fact that this grammar itself can be, as then seemed no matter how exotic. This approach was most consistently formulated by second-generation descriptivists, especially Z. Harris, who consistently proceeded from the position of an external observer of speech, who does not understand its meaning, but notices in it the repetition of certain segments and the rules of their compatibility. Select these segments (phonemes, morphemes, etc.) and describe the set of segments with which they are combined,

– and means to describe language. A special study of linguistic meaning with this approach turned out to be unnecessary; Harris believed that it duplicates the description of the compatibility of elements, but at the same time cannot be formalized. The refusal to study meaning sharply distinguished extreme descriptivism from other directions of structuralism (some descriptivists, including L. Bloomfield, did not agree with it). This approach brought to its logical conclusion the desire to expel all subjectivism from linguistic research, to make the research repeatable and verifiable.

Unlike glossematicists, descriptivists have done a lot to describe specific languages. However, this was achieved at the cost of an implicit rejection of theoretical postulates. The prohibition on using the researcher’s intuition and direct analysis of meaning was compensated by turning to a native speaker of the target language (informant), who answered the linguist’s questions based on his intuition and his ideas about meaning. In any case, neglect of semantics impoverished description, but descriptivists made major contributions to the development of rigorous procedures for phonological and morphological analysis.

The approach to the language of the Prague Linguistic Circle and the Soviet linguists close to it in ideas was not so strict and consistent, but more realistic. Unlike descriptivists and glossematicists, they did not refuse to take into account the data of other humanities (many of them were also actively involved in the study of literature, folklore, etc.) and did not consider language as a system of pure relations: the own properties of units were also important for them , in particular for phonemes – their sound characteristics. They did not consider the opposition between synchrony and diachrony to be insurmountable, understanding synchrony as a certain state of language that cannot be fully explained without identifying its connections with previous and subsequent states. Unlike F. de Saussure, who denied the systematic nature of diachronic research, the Prague residents sought to extend systematic study to them. An important component of the Prague theory was the doctrine of function. They understood the functional point of view as the study of a system of means of expression that serves a specific purpose. They identified the functions of communication, affective (emotional), poetic and a number of other functions of language.See also FUNCTIONALISM IN LINGUISTICS.The most developed among the Prague scientists and scientists close to them was the phonological theory. For structural analysis, according to their ideas, what is important is not the real physical sounds pronounced by speaking people (since these sounds are subject to significant variation), and not the imprints of these sounds in the psyche of people (as the predecessor of the Prague people I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay believed), but oppositions , or differences due to differences in meaning. This approach was first proposed by N.F. Yakovlev, then it was developed by N. Trubetskoy, R. Yakobson and others. In the Russian language, for example, the difference between voiced and voiceless consonants distinguishes wordshouse And volume , shine And splash , court And itching etc. It can be considered thatd And T , b And n , With And h different units of language (phonemes). On the other hand, in the Russian language there is no functionally significant opposition between the two typesu , existing in French and distinguishing wordsdessus"above" and dessous "down". Examples of structural analysis in phonology, which are descriptions of systems of oppositions, served as a model for the application of structural methods in other sciences.

Focusing on the study of language in the sense of F. de Saussure, abstraction from the speaker and listener helped the structuralists to significantly develop methods of synchronic analysis of language, which remained almost unchanged throughout

19 V. First of all, this related to phonology, which became much more strict compared to traditional phonetics, and partly to morphology. At the same time, some scientists sought to combine the theoretical principles of structuralism and the methodology of synchronic analysis with a broader formulation of general linguistic problems.

Thus, E. Sapir examined in detail the problem of the relationship of linguistics with other sciences, especially emphasizing its relationship with the history of culture. In this regard, he returned to the ideas of W. von Humboldt about differences in human pictures of the world due to differences in languages. The problem of the connection between linguistics and psychology was also important to him; in particular, he considered the question of the psychological reality of phonemes. Like the Pragues, he highlighted the main functions of language, highlighting the symbolic function, i.e. the function of organizing human experience, understanding the world through language. K. Bühler and A. Gardiner considered language in the Saussurean sense in connection with designated objects and situations in the external world, with the sender and recipient of linguistic messages. E.D. Polivanov sought to identify the internal and external causes of language development, to establish a connection between the development of language and society.

Between the two world wars and the post-war years, structural methods dominated the linguistics of many countries. Criticism of structuralism came mostly from scientists who remained faithful to the principles of the science of language in the 19th century, especially the principle of obligatory historical approach to the tongue. Sometimes correctly pointing out the schematization and simplification of linguistic phenomena, they could not appreciate the new things that structuralism brought to the study of language. More productive was the criticism of structuralism from the followers of the tradition dating back to W. von Humboldt: the neo-Humboldtian school in Germany and especially V.N. Voloshinov (

1895 1936) and M.M. Bakhtin (1895 1975) in the USSR. The latter in a jointly written book published in 1929 , criticized F. de Saussure and his followers for imaginary objectivism, failure to take into account the social content of linguistic utterances and the dialogical nature of language. The Japanese linguist M. Tokieda made a serious criticism of the structuralist approach to language from the position of an external observer, without taking into account the position of the speaker(1900 1967); under the influence of his ideas, Japanese language science after the war turned from the study of language structure to the study of “linguistic existence”, the functioning of language in a linguistic community. However, the works of N. Chomsky directed against descriptivism had the greatest public resonance, starting withSyntactic structures (1957). N. Chomsky again put the problem of language and thinking at the center of attention of linguistics, considering this science as a “special branch of cognitive psychology,” putting forward the task of modeling the activity of a native speaker. In the 1960s in the United States, the period of dominance of descriptivism gave way to the period of dominance of Chomskyanism; a similar process was soon observed in a number of other countries, although, for example, in France and Russia, structural studies of language are still widespread. STRUCTURALISM BEYOND LINGUISTICS Basic principles of structuralism. The most important for structuralism are the statements that (1) social and cultural phenomena do not have a substantial nature, but are determined by their internal structure (the relationships between their parts) and their relationships with other phenomena in the corresponding social and cultural systems, and (2) these systems are systems of signs, so that social and cultural phenomena are not just objects and phenomena, but objects and phenomena endowed with meaning. Just as a phonologist is interested in identifying differences in sound that correlate with differences in meaning, a structuralist who studies clothing is interested in identifying those features that are significant in a particular culture. Many of the physical attributes that are important to the wearer of an item of clothing may not have any social significance: The length of skirts in a culture may be significant, but the material from which they are made is not, or the contrast between light and dark tones may be significant, while the difference between two dark tones may not carry any meaning. By identifying the characteristics that transform items of clothing into signs, the structuralist will try to identify a system of implicit agreements (conventions) that influence the behavior of people belonging to a given culture. Ideally, structural analysis should lead to the creation of a “grammar” of the phenomenon under consideration - a system of rules that define possible combinations and configurations and demonstrate the relationship of the unobservable to the observable.

Structuralism explains how social institutions, systems of arrangements that can only be identified through structural analysis, make human experience possible. Hidden systems of rules allow you to get married, score a goal, write a poem, be impolite. Structuralism, with its attempts to describe these systems of norms, can be opposed not only to atomism (which tries to describe isolated phenomena), but also to historical and causal explanations, and to the greatest extent. Structural explanations do not trace antecedent states and arrange them into a causal chain, but rather explain why a particular object or action has meaning by relating it to a system of hidden norms and categories. The description of ties will not be an attempt to find out their origin, presumably insignificant from the point of view of their modern significance, but to determine their place in the structure of some system. This replacement of a diachronic perspective with a synchronic one is characteristic of structuralism and has three important correlates. (1) What could at a particular moment cause a certain phenomenon is less interesting to structuralism in comparison with the conditions that make this phenomenon relevant and significant. (2) Structural explanations rely on the concept of the unconscious. Consider the example of language: I know a certain language in the sense that I can produce and understand new utterances, but I do not know what I know; the complex grammatical system I use is largely inaccessible to me and has not yet been fully described by linguists. Their task is to describe the unconscious system, the functioning of which determines my linguistic behavior. (3) Since structuralism explains meaning by referring to systems that are not conscious of the subject, it tends to treat conscious decisions as effects rather than causes. The human “I”, the subject, is not something given, but a product of social and cultural systems.

Claude Lévi-Strauss. The most outstanding structuralist among non-linguists is undoubtedly C. Levi-Strauss, who created the school of structural anthropology. In his pioneering article 1945Structural analysis in linguistics and anthropology he argued, following the example of linguistics, that various objects and behavior should be interpreted as manifestations of unconscious systems that determine their form and meaning. In a study of kinship systems and marriage rulesLes structures l mentors de la parent (Elementary structures of kinship , 1949) he was offered a “grammar” of marriage rules and restrictions in various societies. His works on totemism and bookSavage mind (La pens e sauvage , 1962) reconstructed the “logic of the concrete.” Instead of examining in detail individual practices that carry out one or another social function, Lévi-Strauss viewed them as elements of a certain “language,” a conceptual system through which people order the world. Totems are logical operators, specific signs that can only be understood within the system. Levi-Strauss's four-volume study of the mythology of the Indians of North and South AmericaMythological (Mythologiques , 19641971) interprets myths as transformations of each other in order to describe the system of mythological thinking and the basic operations of the human mind.Structuralism and literature. In literary studies and literary criticism, structuralism arose in France in the 1960s, with the appearance of the works of R. Barthes, Ts. Todorov (b. 1942), J. Genette (b. 1930) and A. Greimas (1917–1992). In France, structuralist literary criticism represented a revolt against the historical and biographical literary studies that dominated French universities. Similar to the so-called New Criticism in postwar England and the United States, structuralism sought to return to the text as such, but at the same time proceeded from the fact that the structures of the text cannot be identified without some theory or methodological model. While the New Criticism demanded that every literary work read according to its own rules, without any preconceptions, structuralists advocated a systematic approach to literary discourse and established principles of interpretation. In progressCriticism and truth (Critique et v rit , 1966) R. Barthes introduced a distinction between literary criticism, which places a literary work in a specific context and tries to attribute some meaning to it, and the science of literature, or poetics, which studies the conditions of meaning, formal structures and conventions that organize the text and define a certain range his interpretations.

Four aspects of the study of literature by structuralists can be distinguished: (1) attempts by Jacobson, Greimas and others to construct a linguistic description of the structures of literature; (2) the development of “narratology,” or the science of storytelling, which identifies the various components of a narrative text and describes the fundamental text structures and rules for combining them; (3) the study of the various codes created by previous literary works and various conventional cultural systems, it is thanks to these codes that literary works have meaning; (4) an examination of the reader's role in a literary work's acquisition of its meaning, and of the ways in which a literary work confronts or meets the reader's expectations. Structuralism in literary criticism is partly a reaction to modern literature, which consciously explored the boundaries of meaning and sought to reveal the results of breaking the conventions of language, literature, and social practices. In its focus on structures and codes, structuralism rejects the notion of literature as an imitation of the world and sees it as experimentation with language and cultural codes. Literature is valued because it tests the structuring procedures by which we order and understand the world. It reveals the conventional nature of our social world.

Other applications. Linguistics, cultural anthropology, and literary criticism have been the main fields of structuralism, but it can be found in other fields as well. M. Foucault objected to the label of structuralist being applied to him, but his work on the history of systems of thought had many features of the structuralist approach. His workWords and things (Les mots et les choses , 1966; rus. lane 1977) analyzes the systems of thought of three different historical periods and the underlying rules that determined the scientific disciplines of each of these periods. The name of J. Lacan is often associated with structuralism because of his obvious borrowings of the ideas of Saussure and Jacobson and the thesis that the unconscious is structured like language. J. Piaget determines the structure of the cognitive system at various stages of child development. In this way it contributes to the description deep systems, through which we structure the world, as learned or culturally determined.

Structuralism is often criticized for its ahistorical orientation - the priority of the synchronic over the diachronic - and for its anti-humanistic focus on impersonal and unconscious systems operating through man rather than at his behest. These aspects of the structuralist method, whether they are desirable or undesirable components of the structuralist worldview, are essential to the success of this method. In fact, the most impressive criticism of structuralism has come not from the defenders of historicism and attention to the subject, but from the so-called. “poststructuralists” (for example, J. Derrida), who discovered in those systems to which structuralism oriented them, paradoxical and contradictory phenomena that make it impossible to complete consistent structuralist grammars and systematizations.

See also SEMIOTICS.LITERATURE Main directions of structuralism . M., 1964
Apresyan Yu.D. Ideas and methods of modern structural linguistics . M., 1966
Zvegintsev V.A. Language and linguistic theory . M., 1973
Structuralism: « for » And « against" M., 1975
Revzin I.I. Modern structural linguistics . M., 1977
Lévi-Strauss K. Structural anthropology . M., 1985
Film structure . M., 1985
Bart R. Selected works: Semiotics. Poetics . M., 1989
Ilyin I.P. Poststructuralism. Deconstructivism. Postmodernism . M., 1996
Alpatov V.M. History of linguistic teachings . M., 1998
Eco U. Missing structure . M., 1998
Todorov Ts. Symbol theories . M., 1999

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