-Kronenfeld Decker(1979) Structuralism

7/30/2019 -Kronenfeld Decker(1979) Structuralism

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An~Rev. AnthropoL 979. 8:503-41Cop)right1979by AnnualReviews n~ All rights reserved

STRUCTURALISM ~9644David KronenfeM1Department f Anthropology,University of California,Riverside, California 92521Henry W. DeckerDepartment f Literatures and LanguagesFrench), University of California,Riverside, California 92521INTRODUCTION

"It is a problem to account for the renownof a theoretician who s unimpressive as ananalyst and whose heories, whichare seldomoriginal, are regularly refuted by the facts"(68, p. 145).

This essay is directed toward the solution of Francis Korns problem, forher judgments of the masters work are similar to ones we have made 133),but such judgments seem to be irrelevant to those attributes of L6vi-Strausss work which have made him one of anthropologys dominantfigures. If his importance stems neither from the power of his particulartheories nor from the insightfulness of his analyses, then a consideration ofhis role in anthropology must turn elsewhere.Like Leach (79, p. 37), we "shall assume that structuralism in SocialAnthropology refers to the Social Anthropology of L6vi-Strauss and workwhichderives moreor less directly from that source" (see also 20, p. 468).We first explore the Saussurean and Jakobsonian antecedents of L6vi-Straussean strueturalism; we next relate these linguistic antecedents toother of L6vi-Strausss important intellectual sources, and then move ntoa general discussion of his intellectual position. Weconclude with discus-

~We wish to thank James Armstrong, Alan Beals, B. N. Colby, Hugh Gladwin, DavidJames, Judy Z. Kronenfeld, Jacqueline Lindenfeld, Thcda Shapiro, and Lynn Thomas or theirgenerous and helpful comments n earlier drafts of this paper, We re grateful to the AcademicSenate of the University of California at Riverside for the assistance provided by an IntramuralResearch Grant to David B. Kxonenfeld.

5030084-6570/79/1015-0503501.00

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504 KRONENFELD & DECKERsions of selected aspects of his analysis of kinship, of the theoretical aimsof his analysis of myth, and of his actual implementation of his programfor the analysis of myth.

Reviews in this series do not normally focus on the work of a singleindividual, but, as we shall see, apart from the work of L6vi-Strauss andexplications, critiques, and celebrations of his work, little else might prop-erly be called structuralist anthropology. Examplesare (1, 36-39, 58, 73,105, 126, 128, 134). Outside of anthropology here does exist a structuralismapart from L6vi-Strauss to which we occasionally allude, but which we havenot space to consider systematically (129, pp. 207-8, 210; 135). Our decisionconcerning what to cover results in part from consideration of what otherrecent reviews have covered, in part from our sense of where the greatestproblemsof clarification and explication lie, and in part from the inevitablelimits of our own knowledge.Discussions of French structuralism inevitably becomedeeply enmeshedin considerations of Marxism.The connection is real, but is not as crucialto anthropological structuralism as it is to French structuralism in general.The issue is peripheral to our focus, and beyond our expertise. In ouropinion, Jamesons 63) remains the best general treatment of this issue thatwe have seen, while Friedman (45) has provided by far the best discussionof the relationship between Marxism nd anthropological structuralism (of3, p. 463-64; 11).The discipline of folklc,re studies represents a universe all its own.Maranda 103) covers anth:ropological structuralism from this folklore per-spective; Dundes 40) provides a more recent overview of structuralist workin folklore studies.Jameson63, p. 9) and others (e.g. 28, p.3) are right when hey i:nsistPiagets use of the structuralist label is very different from that of theSaussure/L6vi-Stranss/Frer~ch-literary-critic axis. On he other hand, it isalso true that Piagets work tself offers the best available insight into howsynchronic mental structures evolve in the individual, adapt to changingenvironments, and interact with history. Insofar as structures .representsomething ike sets of codes and insofar as structuralists are concernedwiththe historical developmentof these codes (cf 63, pp. 193-94, 211-14), theywould be well advised to attend seriously to Piagets general theory ofcognitive functioning [cf comments y Rayfield (119) in his review of Sper-bet (131)], and to the similar but morespecifically linguistic workof ~reen-berg (52). The work of art historian E. I-I. Gombrich50) is also relevant.In recent years a numberof general reviews of the structuralist movementhave appeared. These tend to start with Saussure, carry through Jakobsonto IAvi-Strauss, and then go on to consider attempted applications of struc-turalism in the arts and in politics. The best of these are by Jameson 63)



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STRUCTURALISM 505and Culler (28). Both are subtle, sophisticated, and insightful. Culler pro-vides much he better explication of the linguistic concepts and theory fromwhich structuralism derives, and attends more to howsuch concepts mightbe employed n literary criticism. Culler concludes hat since the particularanalyses of the structuralists are logically weak nd only partially consistentwith their linguistic model, their theory itself can only be taken metaphori-cally. Jameson, on the other hand, even while being aware of the greatweaknesses n their actual applications of that theory, takes their theoreticalassertions more seriously and does a better job of explicating them from aninside, if Marxist, point of view. Hawkes 56) covers much he same terri-tory as Culler in a muchmore superficial manner, while Pettit (114) comesup with an interpretation of his own hat simply misconstrues the material(ef 122). Piaget (115) also misconstruesmuch f the strueturalist enterprise,but in a much more creative and instructive manner; in manyrespectsPiaget (115) describes what structuralism shouMhave been. Gardner (47)provides discussions of Piaget and L6vi-Strauss.There are a numberof edited collections on the subject. The earliest isthe now dated volume of Ehrmanns (43). Macksey& Donatos (102)represents a symposium t Johns Hopkins hat emphasized iterary issues.Lane (71) provides a rich and full coverage of the Saussure-Prague-L6vi-Strauss axis as well as articles by Barthes and by Godelier and a usefulintroduction. The Robeybook (121) represents a more recent lecture seriesin Oxford that seems in manyways to be the best of these collections; itcontains specially written pieces by Lyons, Culler, Leach, Eco, Todorov,Mepham, and Gandy.SAUSSUREL6vi-Strauss has modeled his structural anthropology on moderu tructurallinguistics. The key figure in the definition of the nature and task of struc-tural linguistics, and the person whofirst spoke of the central role forlinguistics in a broader science of signs--semiology--was de Saussure (cf2, p. xxx; 91, p. 59). Saussures influence on structuralism is not only direct--via linguistics but also indirect via the notions that he shared withDurkheim cf 107) about the role of language as the social phenomenon arexcellence and about the special nature of such social phenomena.Beforetaking up his post in Geneva, Saussure had taught in Paris (while Durkheimwas elaborating his theory of society), and his student Meillet was a memberof the ~4nnde sociologique group. Thus Saussures insights were embodiedin the French sociological school to which L6vi-Strauss is heir.In recent years the explication of Saussures thought has become majorindustry (see 67). Engler (44) has published a "critical edition" comparing



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506 KRONENFELD & DECKERthe Cours line by line with the student notes in parallel columns; thissupercedes Godels work (49). De Mauro has published an extensivelyannotated Italian translation of the Cours that clears up a great manyquestions and ambiguities in the original text; this edition has be.en trans-lated into French (33), and hopefully it will not be long until it is translatedinto English. Culler has written an excellent book on Saussure in the Mod-em Masters series (29).We hus begin our account of structuralism with a consideration of keySaussurean concepts which enter heavily into structuralist discussions, andabout which there is much confusion both within and without the move-ment. We consider how Saussure actually applied each concept in hisdiscussion of language and how he would have applied the concept inquestion to those wider semiological issues nowaddressed by modern truc-turalists. The first and perhaps most crucial of these conceptual problemsconcerns what Saussure meant when he referred to the arbitrary nature oflinguistic phenomena.Thins problem can best be elucidated by systemat-ically examining the major senses in which the concept has been used bySaussure and others.1. The strongest sense would be "absolutely arbitrary." In this sensesignifiers wouldhave no predictable relationships to their signifieds (func-tional, logical, social, historical... ); they wouldbe randomlyconnected.This absolute sense is far removed rom Saussures usage (34, Pl?. 68-69),but is one a numberof his critics have imputed to him (e.g. 7, p. 126);is also the sense which a numberof French literary lights have taken toapply to various classes of nonlinguistie (or extralinguistie) signs (efChap. 10).2. The next sense is Saussures "radically arbitrary" (34, pp. 113, 131),by which he means hat there is no intrinsic connection between he signifierand the signified (that is, there is no way that a stranger to English whoheard the word"tree" could guess that it referred to the willow outside ourwindow). Saussure does not rule out social motivation; in fact, with Durk-heim (41, pp. 2-8), he insists on social motivation as the only motivationfor linguistic signs (34, pp. 76--77, 113). Languages a collective re:presenta-tion; a person learns it from the communitynd is not free to change t, butsince the community s only made up of other persons who have similarlylearned it, the sign has no source outside the community.

3. In other places (p. 1112) Saussure, without using the word, refersanother kind of arbitrariness: the arbitrary segmentation of ones internalrepresentation of some ex~ernal natural continuum. This is the sense inwhich the referents of the word "sheep" form an arbitrary set and need notbe equivalent to the set formed by the referents of the French word "mou-ton" (pp. 115-16). It is in this sense that languagemay e said to arbitrarily



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STRUCTURALISM 507categorize the external world. This relationship betweenconcept and refer-ent and between sound image and physical sound is one that Jakobson hasmisconstruedas an identity (62, p. 280)---perhaps in part because of confu-sions in Bally & Sechehayescompilation--most blatantly on p. 68 (34) [seede Maurosnotes to this passage (33, pp. 442-45) and cf (44, pp. 149-52)].Such a view (that of Saussure) does not deny the reality of the externalworld, the connectedness that exists among ts parts, nor [contra Singer(129, p. 217)] the systematic relationship of linguistic concepts ("sig-nifieds") to the world; it only asserts the arbitrariness of the cuts by whichcontinuous (natural) phenomenaare grouped into discrete (conceptual)categories (34, pp. 114-17). A similar arbitrariness is asserted for therelationship between the phonic continuum of potential speech sounds andthe phonemic categories by which the continuum is represented in the"signifier" as a "sound mage" (pp. 117-19). Important here is the fact thatSassures assertions regarding this particular kind of arbitrariness are quitemodest and consistent with recent work (10, 51). This is contrary to thekind of language-creates-reality view that prevails in much ecent structur-alism.4. Another sense of partial "arbitrariness" or partial motivation (34, p.68) is what might be called "natural conventions." The choice of the sym-bolic means by which some information is to be represented maybe arbi-trary in the sense of not being necessary, while the values of the attributethat are selected to represent alternative states maybe morestrongly moti-vated; that is, there is no intrinsic reason for the ancient Egyptians o havechosen to represent social importance via size in paintings and sculpture,but once that decision is made here are strong reasons or motivations forusing "large" to represent "important" and "small" for "unimportant" (cf50, pp. 135-36). Symbolicassociations, for instance, of blood with bodyandsemen with bone might best be seen in this light, as opposed to the purerarbitrariness of many tructuralist accounts and the purer motivatednessasserted by manysymbolic accounts (cf 79, p. 46). Saussure did not havea theory of "symbols," but did explicitly contrast symbolswith signs on thebasis of the symbols more motivated relationship between signifier andsignified. Sanssures projected science of "semiology" was to embraceboth(p. 68), and thus one may nfer that Saussure had no intention of assertingany necessity to the arbitrariness of the signifier-signified relationship forsemiological systems in general.5. At the extreme motivated end of our continuum would be relation-ships such as that between he picture of peas on the can and the peas inside,or Leachs indexical one between smokeand fire (81, p. 12).Our next conceptual problem concerns the famous oppositions: langue/parole, synchrony/diachrony, and syntagmatic/paradigmatic. Various au-



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508 KRONENFELD & DECKERthors have erroneously treated these as if they referred to the same kind ofdistinction; in somecases the distinctions themselves have been conflatedor confounded with one another.

Languerefers to a particular code (or organized system of knowledge);it is equivalent to Chomskyscompetence [with the reservation thatChomskyefines as intrinsic to this system certain syntactic operations (23,pp. 59-60; 24, pp. 4, 23) that Saussure did not knowexisted]. Parole refersto the actual act of speech or performance in which the system of langueis brought to bear along with various other systems (which Saussure doesntname, .but which presumably include social class markers, situation mark-ers, etc), various communicative ntents, and chance factors. The, contrastbetween langue and parole, then, is not a symmetric one between onesystem and another, but is an asymmetricone between a system in isolationand the concrete situation in which that system interacts with other systemsand is instantiated. The asymmetryexplains whyvarious calls for a theoryof parole comparable o a theory of langue(e.g. 17) are misguided; the rulesof langue are the axioms which generate a system, while the "rules" ofparole are the devices by which the products of different systems are com-bined with each other and ~dapted to whatever situational constraints exist.The contrast between diachrony and synchrony thus refers to langue andnotparole [contra (96) p. 27]. Diachrony does not refer to time orderingper se [contra (63) p. 126; (81) pp. 44-45)], but refers to changes angue(that is, in the code or the set of rules) over time. Saussureknew hat a singlesentence has a temporal ordering, but that was not the kind of temporalordering that he meant by diachronic change, (cf 62, p. 227). In his famouschess analogy (34, pp. 88-89; cf 52, pp. 57-58; see also 2, pp. xxxvi-xxxviii)the history of a given lang~tage is represented by the game;a given configu-ration of the board represents a sychronic state of the language(langue,functioning system); time per se is not represented at all by diachrony, butrather diachrony represents successive changes in state. The rules of thegamewould be the panchronic rules of language, as opposed to a language(34, p. 95).It should also be pointed out that Saussure was aware that the synchronicstasis between moveswas a fictional construct abstracted from a continuingprocess of change (34, pp. 101-2) which was only approximated 52, p. 347).This working fiction could only be avoided after the distinction betweenlangueand parole, and the process by which regularities in parole graduallycame o be incorporated as changes in langue, were well understood (cf 53).That a language over time represented a succession of frozen states and thatchangesbetweenstates were instantaneous (as in the chess analog),) wasmajor aspect of Saussurcs Course hat troubled Mcillct in his review of theCourse (107).



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STRUCTURALISM 509The contrast betweenparadigmatic and syntagmatic has sometimesbeenconfoundedwith that between synchronic and diachronic (e.g. 63, pp.37-38; 81, pp. 26-27). Leachs error stems from(a) his confusionof dia-

chrony with any kind of temporally ordered event as opposed o changesin the systemof rules or relations (63, p. 126) and (b) his confusionsyntagmaticwith sequential and paradigmaticwith contemporaneous. yn-tagmatic relations, according o Saussure, are relations of co-occurrence.Natural (spoken) anguage s linear, and hence the only kinds of co-occur-rence relations possibleare sequentialones;but in other less strictly linearformsof linguistic expression e.g. the deaf language) hose same elationsmaybe both contemporaneousi.e. spatially juxtaposed) and sequential.GeneralizingSaussuresconcepts o semiological ystems n general, syn-tagmatic relations include both Leachs Contemporaneity r harmony ndhis sequentiality or melody81, pp. 15, 43). Paradigmatic elations, forSaussure, are the relations whichobtain amonglternative possible fillersof someposition in a syntagmaticchain and amonghe alternative formsthat some articular filler might ake in alternative positions (34, pp. 125-26, 128-31).Such elations in language an be phonologicalspot vs. spi0,morphologicalrun vs. ran), syntactic (brought vs. had brought) semantic(hit the ball vs. catch the ball), or other (e.g. sociolinguistic;yes maamyeah). For semiological ystems n general, paradigmaticelations are thosewhichwe isolate whenwe ask "X as opposed o what?" For strncturalism,these relations are important because they represent all the nonpresentassociations (or planes of contrast) which he use of someparticular formraises or potentiallycan raise; it is through his aspect of the systematicity(cf 34, pp. 113-17)of languagehat a change n one place (e.g. the additionof "pork" to English along side of "pig") affects the whole systemoflanguage the meaning f "pig" in opposition o "pork" s notablydifferentfrom he meaning f "pig" in opposition to "cow,""sheep," etc; the mean-ing of syntagmatic nits that include "pig" is also therebyaffected.)

Saussureswork elates in various ways o that of other thinkers. A fewinstances are worth pointing to because hey represent areas of confusionabout structuralism. Saussures nitial work n structural linguistics wassignificantly developed,amplified, and integrated with that of the Kazanschool by Troubetzkoy, akobson,and others in the Pragueschool (62, pp.39g ~.28, 527-38). Jakobson, during the 1940s in NewYork, introducedL6vi-Stranss o structural linguistics in general and o Saussureswork nparticular [as well as to Boas cf 60, p. 190)]. GivenL6vi-Strausss akob-sonian sources, it is worth noting two important ways in which Pragueschool structuralism differed fromSaussurean.First, the Prague heoristsplacedmuchess emphasis n the sign itself (the unit of signifier/signified)or on relations among igns, and instead concentratedon the contrastive



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510 KRONENFELD & DECKERand sequential (paradigmatic and syntagmatic) relations of signifier to sig-nifier, and on the basic elements~distinctive features that tend to be binary---out of whichsignifiers are built (ef 62, p. 718). Jakobson 62, pp. 280-84)himself maintains that one must look at the whole sign ("signum") includ-ing both its signifier ("signans") and signified ("signatum"). However, isvery discussion illustrates the problem;he treats the signified (a la Peirce)as flit were itself tbe (exte~aal to the mind) object being referred to and nota mental eoncept relating to that object. Such a view, besides being toosimplistic, deprives the signified of any linguistic interest and thereby neces-sarily reduces the study of the sign to the study of its signifier (ef 62, pp.267-68).Second, this foeus on the relationship of Saussures "sound h~aage" toexternal sounds led them to think in terms of less arbitrary and moremotivated linguistic phenomena han had Saussure (62, p. 717). Addition-ally, the threat represented by archaic theories of the naturalness of linguis-tic signs was less significant than it had been whenSaussure did his work,and therefore they had less reason to makea point of stressing the arbitrarynature of linguistic phenomena.However, t is worth stressing thai: even forSaussure, different aspects of the sign were arbitrary in different ways, andit was only the relationship betweensignifier and signified that be called"radically arbitrary." As we shall see, these two points of Saussure-Praguecontrast are significant because l_~vi-Strauss initially adopted a Pragueanview of semiologieal structures and initially placed considerable emphasison motivated relations between signifier and signified. This retains a Pra-guean resonance, even thoul~h Saussure himself would have considered such"symbols" to be motivated.The question of motivations necessarily leads us to Saussures relation-ship to Durkbeim. The kinds of linguistic motivations that Jakobson hasconsidered are essentially ones that operate on an individual, while Saussurewas at one with Durkheim oncerning the collective and passive nature ofthe sign. LangUagewas, for Durldaeim, the example par excellence of acollective representation (41, pp. 2-8; cf 96, p. 84; 106, pp. 1-2). In Saus-sures formulations it was a humancreation that no single humancouldchange. The individual, and active pressures operating on the individual,enter into parole--which is a concept that Doroszewski 35) and others (el135) have considered as a device by which Saussure meant to link Durk-heimian-type theories to thCx~ries of individual motivation (even if Saussuredid not explain howparole became langue).

Langue was a collective phenomenon hat only existed in the sharedunderstandings that enabled communicationo take place; it was passive inthe sense that only the regularities and rules by which understanding wasenabled were part of lang~e itself~individual intentions and the active



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STRUCTURALISM 511process by which messages were actually constructed belonged instead toparole. Saussures strong assertion of the collective, social nature of lan-guage was basic to his conception of the science of linguistics (2, p. xxxiv),though not to his more general science of semiology, which would have toencompass ndividual as well as collective representations.For Saussure, language was furthermore a collective mental phenome-non. The mental nature of Saussures sign absolutely prevents it from beingthe kind of simplistic dyadic concept that Singer (129, pp. 216-17) amongothers (9) considers it to be. Singer opposes the supposedly dyadic Sans-surian sign to the triadic one of Peirce and subsequentderivative positivistphilosophers. For Singers Peirce (el 130), the "sign" is only the linguistictoken; the "object" is the external (to the sign) thing (with its associations,implications, etc) referred to, while the "interpretant" is the responseof theperson in whosemind the sign is linked to its object and who nterprets theimplications of the signs use (129, pp. 216-17, 220, 224). For Saussure thesign is a unit embodyinghe union of a signifier--a (mental) sound image--and a signified--a (mental) concept representing (possibly) someexternalreality. Seen thus narrowly, the Saussurean unit appears dyadic, but wemust remember hat the signifier and signified are both mental units andonly exist within a set of minds cf 2, p. xxxiii). If the signifier and signifiedare the first two elements of the Saussurean sign, then the mind (whoseconstructs they are), the external sounds represented by the sound image,and the external objects referred to by the concept represent the other threeessential elementsof the individual sign. Within this individual "pentadic"unit there are three relationships that can be investigated more or lessindependently:1. the relationship of sound o sound-imagesignifier); 2. therelationship of signifier to signified; and 3. the relationship of concept(signified) to external referent. At one step further removedare 4. therelations of signs to one another, the syntagmatic relations by which signsare combinedwith one another to make arger linguistic units; 5. the para-digmatic relations of contrast that exist among lternative signs and sets ofsigns; and 6. the relationship between he representation of signs or otherlinguistic phenomenan different minds.This latter relationship is by defini-tion constrained for signs in langue, but is more fully investigatable inparole and amongother semiological phenomena uch as symbols. Finally,a Saussurean view of the function of sign systems requires a considerationof the syntagmatic relations existing between concepts entailed in a signsystem and other pragmatic concepts and a similar consideration of para-digmatic relations amongalternative sign systems and amongalternativepragmaticpossibilities.Saussures conception of the role of mind in language seems richer thanthe interpreted nomenclature f Peirces that Singer presents (el 33, p. 439),



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512 KRONENFELD & DECKERand its clear distinguishing of the cognitive structures by whichwe concep-tualize the external world fiom any structure automatically inherent in thatworld seems more in accord with the findings of modem ognitive psy-chology (of 18, 108, 116, 127). To Saussure, the function of language doesdepend on our knowledgeof the external world, but it also depends on theorganization which we impose on that world with language [of (34), thebanks of the river on p. 112; also pp. 115-17]. The active organizing roleof the mind in Saussures parole accords better with our creative use of signsystems than does Singer/Peirces more passive "interpretant"; langue pro-vides the passively received codes out of which such creations can beconstructed.The unconscious nature of linguistic phenomena s what has protectedsuch phenomena rom manipulation by particular individuals and has madethem lawful phenomenawhich could be studied in isolation from the spe-cifies of individual motivations, intentions, and explanations. It is this un-conscious nature of linguistic phenomenawhich precludes folk theories ofthem from having any privileged position. Saussure, Boas, and Sapir allrecognized this, though Jakobsons discussion (60, pp. 189-90) implies thatit was Boas who brought its importance for language-like anthropologicalphenomena ome o L6vi-Strauss. Rossi (123, p. 21) misses the point whenhe mistakes such an enabling assumption for a "fundamental hypothesis"of L6vi-Strauss.Somestructuralist writers have tried to link the Saussurean notion ofopposition (cf"value") in language--in which one element only acquiressignals meaning n contradistinction to some other element with which itcontrasts--with the Hegelian (and Marxist) opposition between opposedelements out of which comesa newsynthesis (of 63, pp. 22-24; 80, pp. 5-6).As Culler (28, pp. 14-16) and others have noted, the Saussurean oppositionrefers to a static condition, a set of existent differences whichcan be usedtoward some (not necessarily intrinsic) end, and which exists withinsystem of other such differences, while the Hegelian opposition is an activecontending of contradictory elements which necessarily pushes toward anew (intrinsically related) system in which those elements no longer exist,and which ends to absorb all other elements in itself. Saussurean truetural-ism provides neither a demonstration of the reasonableness of the Marxistdialectic nor a mechanismby which that dialectic might be implemented(83, pp. 120-21).Saussure described a lin~aistics that dealt directly and firmly with mean-ing. The central topic of linguistics for him was the sign, a unit that wasfrom one perspective a sound image and from another a concept. Linguisticsdealt first of all with the relationship betweensignifier and signified withsemantics. Derivatively one studied the paradigmatic relations by which



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STRUCTURALISM 513signs contrasted with one another and the syntagmatic patterns by whichthey were concatenated; in the Course [(34) pp. 122-31---especially 126,130] it is clear that syntagrnatic and paradigmatic relations refer as muchto conceptual relations as to grammaticalrelations.Saussurcs science of signs was not intended as the mere study of theforms of signs and the combinatorial properties of these signs abstractedfrom their meanings and their communicative unctions--as it has becomein most modern linguistics. The Americans, after Bloomfield, explicitlyeschewedmeaning. Jakobson and other Prague linguists dealt only with thestructure of form (that is, of signifiers) and ignored the structure of content(signifieds) even though they sometimes alked about meaning; heir distinc-tive feature analysis dealt with the elements out of which signifiers werebuilt and had nothing to do with significds; other grammaticalunits, paral-lels, and the like were described and were asserted to carry meaning, butno theory of meaning was ever provided. Transformational linguists havepresented themselves as mentalists, but their contributions have all dealtwith the structure of signifiersDthat is, with relations among orms. Theyhave developed a new and powerful syntactic theory out of a Bloomfieldianbase, specific philosophic disagreements notwithstanding (cf 61, p. 143),and have married it to a Praguean phonology. Semantic representationshave been mentioned,but relegated to a background osition (cf 101, p. 34);the only attempt within the orthodox school to deal with semantics has beenKatz & Fodors (65) unsubtle and inadequate stab; generative semanticistshave given semantics a more crucial role, but have provided no explicationof semantics tself [cf Jakobsons haracterization of Boas 61, p. 142) in thisconnection].Of the post-Saussureanschools of linguistics that have had any apprecia-ble effect on anthropology (this excludes London and Copenhagen) nonehas dealt with the aspect of language that is most central to its developmentand function--meaning. Jakobsens concern with the function of language(62, pp. 522-26) stoppedshort of this final step. It is as if they were tryingto describe the form of a ship without any mention of the fact that it wasdesigned to float, and without any consideration of the factors that enablethe ship to float or that affect its seaworthiness.LI~VI-STRAUSSL6vi-Strauss has returned to a genuinely Saussurean concern with meaning(cf 93; 96, p. 169), but from a roundabout route~since he learned hislinguistics, including apparently all that he knew about Saussure, fromJakobson(cf 94, p. xxvi) and so understood "structural linguistics" and theSaussurean frameworko refer to the binary-feature, componentialanalysis



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514 KRONENFELD & DECKERof Jakobsonianphonology cf 80, p. 23; 123, p. 27). Jakobsons phonologicalthrust was unfortunate because, even within the Saussurean paradigm,phonemeswere merelythe particular material out of which the signifier faceof the sign happened to be built--that is, phonemeswere not intrinsic tosigns per se (34, p. 10), and thus represented an unlikely basis for thegeneralization of specifically linguistic insights out to a general so.ience ofsigns (cf 2, p. xlix; 34, p. 11). The special contribution of Prague phonologyconcerned the substantive nature of phonology itself and not the formalproperties of sign systems cf 25, p. 65), The generalizable aspects of linguis-tics were more likely to concern the relations of signs to one another andthe relations of signifieds to the external world of phenomena.Particularly Jakobsonianare: L6vi-Strausss early insistence that all op-positions must be binary; his (implici0 view that linguistic analysis pertainsto the structure of the siglfifier, rather than to the structure of the sign asSaussure had it; his attention to relatively motivated kinds of symbolicsystems; and his emphasis on the importance of systems of contrast instructural analysis, as opposed o Saussures more balanced emphasison therole of syntagmatie struetares as well, and as opposed to more recentlinguistic concern with the hierarchical organization of language.I~vi-Strauss first tried to comeup with Jakobsoniananalyses of" culturalmaterials (89, pp. 41-49, 73, 14~. 60, 222, 226, 286; cf 60), including affectrelations in kinship and m.#hology; he seems to have been perhaps a bitnaive in the simplicity and directness with which he named a couple ofdimensions, rated sets of phenomenaon them with pluses and minuses;found that somepossible p,ttterus of signs existed in his corpus while somedid not; explained why t wasso; and called that an analysis (cf2, pp. lii-liv).Even apart from questions of replieability and validity, such analyses toldone very little; it appears to have been only subsequently, as he began toexplore the logic of his prolfered explanations, that he came o realize thathis concern in these studies was with the symbolic systems and the processthrough which cultural meaningswere workedout [that is, with species thatare "bonnes ~ penser" (90; cf 93, pp. 11-12; cf 80, pp. 31-39) and not withthe mere identification of a tales major issue]. With analyses such as thatof Asdiwal, and with Savable Thought, he begins to show a more explicitconcern with the content of the various cultural codes and with the waysin which these codes are l[aked together and ordered so as to encompassa cultural problem. He is back to a Saussurean concern with how meaningis expressed within (eultural) sign systems, but because of his Jakobsonianlens he does not realize that Saussure, too, was concerned with meaning(and not just form alone) and so he is unable to buiMon the theoretical basesthat Saussure has laid, and lie is unable to benefit from the rigor with whichSanssure approached linguistic problems. He feels he has to give up on the



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STRUCTURALISM 515formalism and rigor of linguistics in order to talk about cultural meanings(93, p. 7). He inherits Durkheims oncern with collective representations,but without Saussures and Whitneys (137) linguistic model for how hesecultural codes come to be implemented in messages of individuals. Therelatively strong Jakobsonianconcern with linguistic substance (as opposedto the more purely formal views of Saussure and later Hjelmslev), and itsattendant de-emphasis of the importance of the langue/parole contrast leave L~vi-Strauss with theoretical machinery hat is inade-quate for the task that he sets himself. While he aims at a science ofmeaning, he is forced, in part by his linguistic naivete, to discovery byinsightful guess and proof by "ifI see it the it mustbe there for other humanminds as well" type assertions. By not being nearly as clear as Saussure wasabout what he expected of an account, he leaves himself no theoretical basisfor telling a valid one from an invalid one, and exposeshimself to the attacksof looseness of execution which have so often obscured the importance ofhis analytic aims.Manye.g. 42, p. 375; 80, p. 66) claim that I_~vi-$trausss methodof mythanalysis is based directly on that of Propp (115). As L~vi-Stranss himselfpoints out, such claims are deeply in e~or (88). Propps analyses deal withthe syntactic formof tales--that is, with the permissible orderings of classesof elements. I_~vi-Strauss explicitly eschewsany concern with the sequentialordering or story lines of tales, but instead addresses the constraints oncontent--that is, the relations of contrast and co-occurrence that obtainamongvarious tale elements. Beidelmans (8, p. 220) claim that L~vi-Strauss minimizes"the significance of content in order to discern form andstructure", while explicable in terms of Beidelmans onception of content,seems quite far off the mark. Wehave often been told by linguisticallyknowledgeable olklorists (and have ourselves told others) that the t~ueimplementation f the methodsof structural linguistics for the study of folkliterature is that of Propp rather than that of L~vi-$trauss. If one under-stands structural linguistics to bc the study of the combinatorial propertiesof form classes (as it seems o have bccn for most post-Sanssurean linguis-tics), then these arguments are clearly correct. And, of course, if one isconcerned with the formal rigor of the analysis, then Propps work seemsmuch he better model. But Propp does not offer us anything about thespecific meaningsof folktales. If we return to Saussures concern with howlanguage has meaning, we find that L~vi-Strauss does have manyof theright concerns and does ask many of the right questions. His aims andmethods seem closer than Propps to Saussures original conception ofstructural linguistics. The issues that he raises are crucial for structurallinguistics itself; what now s needed are methods for dealing with thoseissues.



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516 KRONENFELD & DECKERL6vi-Strauss does not talk muchabout it, but his meetings in NewYorkwith Jakobson and Boas (ef 123 p. 25-26) point to another important strand

in his development.His inJ.tial attempts to apply linguistic insights to thestudy of social organization seem to owe nothing to North America beyonda few ethnographic examp]tes. Boas might have suggested to L6vi-Straussthe relevance of linguistics to the study of culture, but such was alreadyimplicit in Durkheimsdiscussion of the role of language as a collectiverepresentation and inthe role of Meillet in the Anndesociologique, and thusmay have come to L6vi-St:rauss in other ways. It does appear that L6vi-Strauss became familiar with Northwest Coast cultures and ethi~ographythrough the work of Boas (cf 60, p. 190). But more importantly, he seemsto have gotten from Boas the notion that important insights into culturecould come from the study of folklore (96, pp. 63-64), as well as someintuitive sense of how tructural patterns might work themselves out in thefolk forms of a culture (of 13; 14, pp. 403-6, 421,429, 433-34, 485, 488).He went beyond Boass particular forms of analysis and claims about theresults of analysis (as indeed have almost all of Boassstudents in linguisticsand in anthropology), but he does seem to have been influenced by Boas inhis conception of the nature of the enterprise--especially in his un-Bdtishand un-French concern with the specifics of cultural content (perhaps itwas, if belatedly, Boaswhofreed him from his Jakobsonian focus on forms?)(cf 8, p. 220).L6vi-Strausss early romances with cybernetics and information theorycame from the fact that they reinforced the binary thrust and the view offormal structures that he got from Jakobson. Additionally, in the notionsof feedback loops and anticipation of the movesof others that these newfields (including game heory) explicitly recognized, he found a mechanismby which collective mental structures could arise and operate, and thus hefound reassurance that the collective mental structures that he wanted tostudy were in the realm of science and not of mysticism. The idea ofcollective mental structures derives both from Saussure (via Jakobson) andfrom Du~kheim via French sociology). The question of how and wheresuch mental structures could exist (and of what one meant by emergentproperties) has been of particular concern to students of Durkheimswork,and has been consigned to mysticism by manyof Durkheims critics. L6vi-Strauss understood that the work of Wiener and of Shannon and Weaverprovided the general answer to those questions, and had no particularconcern with the specifics by which Durkheims assertions might be ac-counted for. Thus cybernetics and game theory were important to theemergence of L6vi-Straussean structuralism, but played no specific rolewithin it.



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STRUCTURALISM 517IAvi-Strauss himself cited geology as the final formative influence uponhis notion of structuralism. It was geology that showedhim howa jumbledsynchronic mass could contain origins, history, and synchronic structural

relations all at once, and thus geology that showed him how particularcultural products might be unraveled (91, pp. 60-62). In that discussion,however, he neglects to point out that the jumbled mass of rock revealshistory only because some past geologist has patiently worked out thestratigraphy elsewhere (in places where the rock was not so jumbled), andthat relations of synchrony an only be extracted in the light of this histori-cal information. Geology seems to have been a productive metaphor forhim; it is a shame hat he did not carry it further.Studies of IAvi-Strausss work are found in (4, 15, 47). Leach providesan interesting and useful introduction to L6vi-Strausss work in his ModemMasters volume(80). Leachs text (81) contains many nteresting examples,but is theoretically simple-minded;muchof the technical discussion, espe-cially of Saussure, is just plain wrong. Ardeners introduction to ASA 0(2) remains the best discussion available of the Saussurean and structurallinguistic background to Lgvi-Straussean anthropology. The best recentoverview of work on myth in the L6vi-Straussean framework hat we haveseen is that of Carroll (20). Commentaries n IAvi-Strausss kinship workinclude (6) and (54). Edited volumes focusing on the work of L6vi-Straussinclude Rossis useful collection (124) and Hayes & Hayes more pop cover-age of Lgvi-Strauss from a variety of perspectives (57). LaPointe & LaPointe(72) provide a general and extensive bibliography of L6vi-Strausss ownwork and of works about him.Ldvi-Strauss: KinshipL6vi-Strausss work on kinship is relatively old and has already been re-viewed extensively in a variety of places (16, 32, 59, 109), and so will notrequire muchdiscussion here. There are, however, a very few points thatstill merit someattention. The first has to do with the way n which L6vi-Strausss theoretical statements concerning marriage systems are to betaken. Following the original publication of ElementaryStructures, RodneyNeedhamried to make he theoretical assertions of that work available toEnglish-speaking anthropology. In so doing he (laudably) tried to clarifysomeof the more enigmatic assertions of the master--and thereby got intoa storm of controversy.L6vi-Strauss offers his particular discussion as a theory of elementary vscomplex) kinship structures. The questions concern what is meant by ele-mentary structures and wherein such structures exist. Needhammaintainedthat elementary structures were ones that had prescriptive marriage systems



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518 KRONENFELD & DECKERwhile complex structures were ones with preferential marriage systems.Needhammplied that this preseriptiveness or preferentiality inhered innative conceptions of their system (as opposed to statistical summariesofany actual behavior of the people in question), as expressed in their asser-tions about marriage choices and in the relationship of these assertions totheir terminologically recognized classes of kin. Prescriptive systems wereones in which the indicated kind of marriage was obligatory while preferen-tial systems were ones in which it was optional.Lounsbury, in his review of~ructure andSentirnent, demonstrated prob-lems of both logic and empirical application with Needhams orm of thecontrast. He suggested instead that the preferential/prescribed contrast hadto do with ones-right (ratlher than obligation) to contract a marriage andwith the consequences in folk law of such a marriage (100, pp. 130%8).Boon& Schneider (16) erroneously treat L6vi-Strausss kinship workif it represented a functionalist theory. A concern with the effects of socialforms and with the relative selective advantages for a society of one formvs another hardly constitutes the kind of functional prerequisites argumentor the kind of tdeological goal orientation that one normally associates withfunctionalist theories. Onealso remains doubtful about their assertion of thesimilarity of L6vi-Strausss work on myth to Sehneiders on kinship.L6vi-Strauss himself used the occasion of the emergenceof the Englishtranslation of Elementary ,Structures to publicly and strongly deny Need-hams assimilation of prescriptive/preferential to elementary/complex.Since he did so in his prefitee to an edition for the theoretical accuracy ofthe translation of which he: had just taken special responsibility, Needhamunderstandably felt somewhat hagrined. Needham as since disassociatedhimself from structuralism, while Ardener (3, p. 455) has maintained thatif Needhams nterpretation was indeed an emendation (instead of merelya clarification), it was one that Ldvi-Strauss wouldhave been well advisedto accept (ef 80, p. 4). Others have professed confusion, complaining hatL6vi-Strausss disavowal of Needhameaves everything as confi~sed as itwas before Needhamentered on the scene.Korn (68) shows convincingiy that L6vi-Strauss does indeed have manyof his facts wrong, that the various criteria he adduces for the linkage ofsystems to societies are often inconsistent with one another, and tlhat state-ments he makesabout theoretical entities contradict one another. That is,Korn does for Elementary Structures what others (133) have done forexample f L6vi-Strausss rnyth analysis; she has shownhat, taken, literally,L6vi-Strausss analyses are ill defined, self-contradictory, and empiricallysloppy (of 104). What she has not done is show what the conception wasthat accounted for the almost revolutionary impact of L6vi-Strausss workon kinship.



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STRUCrURALISM 519It seems possible that L~vi-Strauss, in writing Elementary Structures,might not have been altogether specific in his ownmind about what hemeant by prescriptive or preferential, nor about the sense in which some

particular society was to be considered to have an elementary structure ora complex one. But as the arguments developed, he mayhave becomeawareof the pitfalls of one or another interpretation. He did know hat he meanthis work to speak to the developmentof society generally, and not just todetails involving a few unusual societies (94, p. xxxi). Having ead Louns-burys review of Needham94, p. xxxii) and understood the weaknessesNeedhams nterpretation, he may have decided that he must have meantsomething else. If his attention to the issue of just what he did meanwaslate in coming, the genesis of what he decided to claim he meantwas alreadyclear in other works of his that date from the same general period asElementary Structures (89, pp. 229-287, 298, 311-12).In spite of claims to the contrary, the new preface to ElementaryStruc-tures does make the issue clear enough. In talking about elementary orcomplex tructures in terms of marriage rules, L6vi-Strauss is not referringto the actual pattern one observes of actual marriages (94, p. xxxii; cf 45,p. 453); he is aware that by this distinction demographicfactors wouldpreclude the existence of societies with elementary structures (94, p. xxx).He also is not referring to the explicit rules whichnatives espouse (94, pp.xxxii-xxxiii), an interpretation which would lead naturally to Needhamsdistinction between preference and prescription. Basically he is talkingabout the effects of different kinds of marriage rules on models of societieswith different kinds of descent groups. His analysis is of these models, notof the actual social facts of the societies that they represent. The models rcsimplified axiomatic systems and the relations that he is most concernedwith are logical deductions from these axioms. [Caws (21) provides a nicediscussion of the issues involved in various kinds of models.] He goes onto maintain, though, that to the degree that any particular society embracesthese axioms the consequences of the axioms to that degree apply to thatsociety (94, pp. xxxiii-xxxv). Different societies can take these axioms ntoaccount in different ways. Somewill have explicit rules that embody heaxioms and will thus have some kind of conceptual dependency on thededucedrelations (94, pp. xxxii-xxxiv) even if they dont clearly or unam-biguously follow the rules. Others will more or less inadvertantly tend tomarry in patterns that to some degree match one of the models; to thisdegree they will reap the predicted structural effects. In other words, L6vi-Strausss kinship models can be implemented ither mechanicallyor statisti-cally, either conceptually or behaviorally, and either prescriptively orpreferentially, but his modelsare not defined as or boundup in any of theseparticular implementations. For him the distinction between prescription



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520 KRONENFELD & DECKERand preference has to do with the natives degree of self-consciousnessconcerning their following of the model.Social anthropology has. been bedeviled by an inability to conceive of atheory as anything but a one-to-one relationship between theory and a bodyof data. For social anthropologya theory could only be valid if it had beendirectly induced from a given body of data, and if one could totally deducethat data from it. This is precisely the kind of behaviorist notion for whichChomsky22, pp. 49-60) has so soundly castigated Bloomfieldian linguis-tics. Like the Bloomfieldians, the classic Radcliffe-Brownians e.g. Fortes)tried to induce their theories from behavioral data. Needham,n rebellionagainst the Radcliffe-Brownian orthodoxy, turned from such data to nativerules and normative statements. But Needhamreats these rules and norma-tive statements in the same manner hat Fortes treated behavioral data; hetries to induce his theoretical statements about somegroup directly fromtheir rules and norms, and. he still sees his theory as being in a one-to-onerelationship with his natives "behavior"---only he substitutes conceptualbehavior for observed actions [cf Friedmans (45, p. 452) characterizationof Needham nd Maybury-Lewisas "empiricist" even if "mentalist," andBlochs (12, p. 363) contrast of L6vi-Strausss concern with underlyingstructure with Maybury-Lewissmore empiricist concerns].L6vi-Strauss, if sloppy and careless [to a degree, even by his ownadmis-sion (94, p. xxvii)], and if too quick to push a strained metaphor oo far (cfreferences to puzzles and cams, tale elements on cards, binary oppositions,linguistics and whatnot), does understand hat a theory, to be useful, shouldgo beyondaccounting for tlhe facts at hand (though it should indeed accountfor them); it should go on to generate a wide range of additional proposi-tions which may hemselves be empirically evaluated. The attraction thathis work on kinship holds for so manyanthropologists seems not to lie inthe particular ethnographic; cases which he mayor maynot have explicated.The attraction seems ather to lie in the very rich set of formal implicationsthat he was able to demonstrate (or claimed to be able to demonstrate) fora set of abstract kinship patterns which he had distilled from a variety ofspecific cases and models hat anthropologists had already been discussing.His theories represent conceptions and understandings that to some degreeat least he brought to the data rather than abstracted from it; his famerestsnot on the sociological or ethnological accuracy of his theories but on hisdemonstration of the kind of powerful and general theories that one mightlook for and that might eventually be brought to bear on ethnographic data.He reintroduced the kind of theoretical scope that had been lost sinceMorgan n the descriptive particularism of the Radcliffe-Brownians, in thelinguistic particularism of much American work on kinship, and in thestatistical induction of Murdock--even f actual empirical assertions arehard to come by in his work.



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STRUCTURALISM 521Having briefly looked at the kinship problem, we might now considerwhat it is about L6vi-Strausss work on kinship that is structuralist orSaussurean.He is dealing with formal concepts and relations rather than with actualsubstantive units and marriages--that is, with an abstracted pattern ratherthan with any simple summationof what people in any particular culture

do or say. This is the aspect of his work which seems most successfully tohave eluded Needhams nd Korns attention (at least as an overt aim asopposed to an inadvertent by-product of sloppy work). He is talking aboutformal structures.Like structural linguists, IAvi-Strauss has abstracted out frozen and com-plete synchronic states from the inconsistencies and flux that occur in anyactual system as a result of normal and constant diachronic change. Heprovides a formal analysis of the attributes of such synchronic states thatallows a consideration of which states are possible immediateprecursors orfollowers of which others.However, his work on kinship contrasts with the Saussurean model inother ways. He is concerned with evolutionary relations among tates--which is perhaps a reasonable object of investigation for the study of socialstructure, but which in linguistics proved to be a distraction of whichstructuralists found they had to rid themselves. This concern of L6vi-Strauss with primitive systems and basic oppositions is, of course, highlyreminiscent of Jakobsons work on the emergence of phonemic contrasts.IAvi-Strauss especially contrasts here with Saussure, as well as with hisown ater work on mythology, n his concern with logical (or mathematical)structures or systems as opposed to mental ones. His kinship structures,unlike Saussures langue or L6vi-Strausss ownmythemes, are not mentalrepresentations, collective or otherwise. Whether his concern with logical(vs mental) structures was the result of his brush with cybernetics, orsomemisunderstandingof the linguistic enterprise, or simply of some ntui-tive sense of where the significant problems ay, it contrasted sharply withhis overt role-models in structural linguistics as well as (in an identicalmanner) with his French forebears in the Annie sociologique.A final red herring: L6vi-Strausss attempt to assimilate the exchangeofwomen o the exchange of words--as another kind of "communication"--was an ill-considered overextension of a bad metaphor at best. The meta-phor (or analogy) represented a first, too literal stab at generalizing thelinguistic mode. Communication s between people and relies on mentalstructures (at least in the sense he means); his disembodied ogical struc-tures do not communicate nd do not constitute any kind of a cultural signsystem. L6vi-Strausss work on kinship really, if unsurprisingly, owes moreto Durldaeims and Mausss discussion of the role of exchange in producingsolidarity than to any other obviousoutside source (cf 2, p. liv; 45, p. 452).



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522 KRONENFELD& DECKERMythAs we have already said, IAvi-Strausss work on folklore/mythology isquite different fromhis workon kinship (cf 16). He does deal here withmentalstructures that permit communication;e does here utilize a verySaussurean onceptionof the problems nd of the goal of analysis---perhapsmore o than he realizes.Thereappear to be two central concerns hat characterize structuralistanthropology--at east as represented by structuralist analyses of myth:(a) there is a concern with the nature of the shared understandings nculture that constitute the "codes" by means f whichparticular culturalmessages re constructed; and (b) there is a concernwith the intellectualprocess by whichcontradictions (or deep problems)within systems of cul-tural values or norms re ~ransformed, ia these cultural codes, into moretractable forms hat allow l~he contradictions to be encompassednd/or theproblems o be resolved.The irst characteristic is exhibited n Ldvi-Strausss nalysis of the As-diwal ale when e considers hat the presence n the tale of"a single rottenhawberry" epresents the minimalpresenceof vegetable food vs the "maxi-mal" absence of animal food from the sea and animal food from the land(87, pp. 36-39; cf 133, p. 165). In the Sanssureanparadigm,and by andlarge in its Praguean ffshoot, signs only acquire value through he combi-nation of their syntagmatic ssociations with their paradigmatic ontrasts.In any given syntagmaticsituation a particular item represents a choiceamongets of alternatives, and the presenceof one tem implies the absenceof these contrasting alternatives. An"item" can be a unit of any level ofthe linguistic hierarchy,a word,phrase, clanse, sentence, hematic lement,setting, and so forth. The.. meaning f an assertion, such as that in theAsdiwal ale, hinges on the attributes by which he given item differs fromthose over which t waschosen.Theattributes are identified by contrastingthe given element with what rise it might have been, and by consideringwhat elementsout of that set normallywouldbe expected to go into thatsyntagmatic lot.So L6vi-Strauss sserts that the hawberrys an example f vegetable ood.As such it contrasts with animal food, which n this context is not anundifferentiated class, but instead is composedf two major subclasses:animal food from the sea and animal food from the land. The ypical kindof animal ood from he sea is fish and the typical kind of animal ood fromthe land is meat. Since the tale is concernedwith social relations amonghumans, he assertions made n the tale about food must concern socialrelations amonghe people whoprovide these various kinds of food; andso we have womenthe p:roviders of vegetable food) in their ownplace,



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STRUCTURALISM 523isolated both from the men whoprovide fish and from the menwhoprovidemeat.The connections outlined above are not implausible; it wouldbe strangeto have the hawberryspecifically mentioned n the tale unless its presencewas meant to convey something (of 127)~and so we do need to knowwhatits presence might bring to mind to a Tshimshian. However, he answer tothat question is not as obvious as Ldvi-Strauss would have it. Howdo weknow hat he erry eferredo a food ype nsteadf, ay, meal art--why ould t not, vcn ithin dvi-Strausssramework,e desserts amain ourse implyingn the talc hat he omen ave he uxury findependencerom heir en, ut nly t the rice f foregoinghe asicsupportrovidedy hose en), r hy ould t not c ne articularindof bcrry s some ther implyingssociationith omc articularommu-nityminhe anner fPensee auvage92)], r one articularlassvegetableood s nothersay,ruits starchytaple,ignifyingelationsof elativemportancemong ocialroups).ven f one akes he awberryas exemplifyingegetableood tself,ne hen ondershy nimalooddoes ot onstitutesimilarlyndifferentiatedlassperhapsmplyingenvs women),hy animalood rom he ea" oes ot efer o sea ions(implyingeat, untersnd o forth),hy animalood rom he and"does ot efer o fish aught n spawningeason n strcarnsimplyingdifferentategoriesf peoplen a differentet f relationsrom hoseconsideredn Ldvi-Strausssnterpretation),nd o forth.he roblem,then, oes ot ic n dvi-Strausssntention,ut athern the ethodsywhich hat intention is realized.This treament of structuralism as being about the systems of under-standings or "codes" which enable cultural communication o take placealso characterizes structuralist French literary critic Roland Barthes mostanthopological work, Mythologies (7). Barthes stress on history in thatwork represents a concern with the experiences which produce the (passive---el Saussure) understandings that constitute the codes. In terms of thecommunicativemport of cultural forms and objects, it is not, to Barthes,their current functions which are important, but rather the functions thatthey have had in the (cxperientialmand hence relatively recent) past andthat have defined the understandings and expectations of their currentusers.Barthes emphasizes the social motivation of the cultural signs that heanalyzes as if he were contradicting Saussures claims concerning the arbi-trariness of the sign (7, p. 126). He ails to appreciate that Saussure eferredonly to the lack of any natural relationship between the substance of thesignifier and the substance of the signified; social motivation, formedby thefacts of history but acting at any given moment s a timeless system, was



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524 KRONENFELD & DECKERprecisely what Saussure (and Durkheim) felt to be the very basis of lan-guage. Barthes position is perfectly consistent with Saussures. We re notworrying about the fact that the Saussurean paradigm does allow for "m~ti-vated" signs--ie, symbols---since the signs that Barthes treats are genuine("unmotivated" in Saussures sense). Barthes avowedconcern with speech(vs language) does not represent the inversion of Saussure that ihe claims;rather, we should see him (and other strueturalists) as exploring the other,nonlinguistic, codes that ~dongwith language itself are brought to bear inany specific speechact. Lel: us set aside Barthes analysis of his ownanalysismwhich rrs in other ways as well as in those we have mentioned (cf 2, p.xi)--and attend to what it is that makeshis work.of interest to anthropolo-gists.

Barthes is interested in the cultural information transmitted by the useof certain kinds of items or materials; his various "neologisms" representthe cultural codes which enable the transmission. Thus, to use an examplecloser to home, f a friend suggests going out for a "hamburger," he friendis not simply saying "lets go eat." The friend is picking a certain kind offood, "fast food" vs other possibilities, e.g. haute cuisine, family restaurant,foreign restaurant, food at home, etc. The kind of food does not just entaila style of cooking, but has other direct entailments including speed, cost,and so forth. A style suc]h as "fast food" additionally has another moregeneral set of associations; these associations include a social class, a lackof aesthetic culinary discrinainations, and a lack of individuality (of the mealand of its consumer).Thai: last set of associations brings to minda class ofmachine-like proletarians who have been tricked into preferring the cheap,fast glop that it is most efficient to feed them; such socio-political implica-tions of the choice of one set of products over another explain whyBarthessees such products as political statements (and, as a Marxist, condemnsmost of these political statements).The implications of the choice of one code over another need not bepolitical, but Barthes has made an important contribution by emphasizinghow uch choices among lternative codes (whether in life itself or in storiesabout life, including myths) do transmit information. In a folktale, forinstance, it is not just the message mplied by the sequence of events thathas meaning; the choice of which categories of objects and events to includeitself conveys information.. This kind of information seems to be the basis(even if only implicitly) for strncturalist discussions of meaningwithin someworkwhere he discussions ignore story line, plot, and the detail of particu-lar story elements. Besides the paradigmatic relations of items to one an-other within a code, Bartl~tes has shownus that the codes themselves existin a paradigmatic relationship to one another.Barthes does not consider the signiffeanee of one message vs anotherwithin a given code. That is, he does not consider what meaning s conveyed



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STRUCTURALISM 525by the choice of a hamburger nstead of a hot dog, or of onion rings insteadof fries. IAvi-Strauss similarly ignores such messages n his Oedipusanaly-sis, but does seem to be attending to them implicitly in his Asdiwal one.

An understanding of the paradigmatic meaning implied by the choice ofone code over another allows us to see what kind of meaning L6vi-Strausshas in mind n his analysis of the Oedipus ale, and to see howhe could talkof a structuralist analysis of folktales while ignoring all the advances n theanalysis of syntagmatic structures produced by modeminguistics and bylinguistically derived work n folklore such as that of Propp.In stating that "it is in the last resort immaterial whether in this bookthe thought processes of the South American Indians take shape throughthe mediumof my thought, or whether mine take place through the mediumof theirs" (93, p. 13), L6vi-Strauss appears to be asserting that many odescan lie behind any one message, and that any code which one humanmindcan find in a message s there for any other humanmind to find (of 91, p.59). This seems to be a reasonable claim. In kinship studies where a claimsuch as this has been rigorously explored, it does appear that the search fora single "psychologically real" analysis has been misguided. It appears thatany reasonably parsimonious analysis of any part of English kinship termi-nology that any anthropologist has been able to comeup with will actuallybe used at one time or another by any native speaker of English (48).other words, any conceivable analysis is a true one--at least within somebroad limits. If this is true, then the analyst of a native folktale deals withwhichever codes she or he finds most approachable.L6vi-Strauss has not himself done any intensive fieldwork anywhere, andknows o particular culture really well (cf 80, p. 12), but he has an extensivefamiliarity with a large set of similar texts from a great variety and spanof cultures. Consequently, t is natural enough or him to turn to reasonablyuniversal codes in his explications. He necessarily analyzes the universalcodes that all humans nderstand because these are the only ones to whichhe has access.On he other hand, French anthropologists of his students generation aregoing out into the field and conducting ntensive field studies [(e.g. 27, 31,84, 99, 113, 131); but see also the Panoffs discussion (112) of the problemsof doing fieldwork within the French academic framework]. They lack hisencyclopedic knowledgeof the forms that various tales take in differentcultures, and so they cannot duplicate his analyses. However, hey makeupfor this lack with their intensive knowledge f their field cultures, and sothey tend to comeup with particular codes that inhere more particularisti-tally in their specific cultures.In structural analysis, the primary sense in whichevery version of a taleis equi~,alent to every other (cf 89, pp. 216-17) might seem o be that whichdepends on native judgments of whether two stories are or are not the



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526 KRONENFELD & DECKER"same" story. The same/different test is the classical device in structurallinguistics for separating out the regularities of languefrom the incidentaldetails of any particular act of parole. Even in linguistics such a devicerequires a fair understanding by ones informants of what one is ~ter--andthus of the various linguistic levels at which the question of "same ordifferent" could be answered. In folklore the question becomeseven harderbecause there are manym~oresenses in which "it" may or may not be the"same story," as the variety of forms that I~vi-Strauss provides in Myth-ologiques (93, 95, 97, 98) makesclear. One mayhave the same incident withdifferent characters; an incident in one tale may in another become hewhole tale; the major story outline maybe the samewhile all the details arechanged; and so forth. Andremember he linguistic test depends on havingan informant at hand whohas a "native" commandf all of the items beingcompared.In L~vi-Strausss Oedipus analysis, the variants involved span inexcess of 2000 years; he himself/s a "native informant"--but only for thelatest synchronic state. To a "native" now, all versions look to be the same,but who knows how thes~ variants would have seemed to Sophocles. Thefact that all versions are (now) called "the Oedipus tale" makes I~vi-Strausss judgment eem less subjective, but no less specific in its temporalperspective. The complete set of versions only constitutes a single syn-chronic system now, at the~ end of the diachronic chain, and yet the meatof l.~vi-Strausss analysis (the concepts and meaningshe uses) belongsthe beginning of the chain. The problem hat temporally vitiates l~is Oedipusanalysis has the same effect spatially on his Mythologiques; the tales aremore or less contemporancous ut collectively belong to no single "native."There exists no one whohas the privileged position from which to call themall "the same"; the linguistic analogy--the analytic basis for separating theinvariants of langue (or code) from the ephemera of parole (or message)--has broken down. Whatwe, or l_~vi-Strauss, are left with are the myriadways in which tales resemble one another--and the problem that Tale Amay resemble B in one respect but not in some other respect, whereininstead it resembles C. Two ales which are each separately "similar" tosome hird tale maynot be.. similar to each other in any direct sense; indirectbases of similarity Coased on the separate knowledge of the two directsimilarities) represent no synchronic system, but instead depend on theaccidents of ones previous personal experience of particular tales. He cantbe using "communicative content" as his basis for such similarity judg-ments because such content is the very goal of his analysis.

Andso one must conclude that in his analyses of folk tales I_~vi-Straussis dealing with the codes l~rom which the tales are constituted rather thanthe messages which the ~ales represent. He cannot be dealing with thetotality of codes implicit ha the tales, but only with selected universal ones,



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STRUCTURALISM 527and these codes must be directly inferable from the specific message ele-ments that we (and he) attend to whenwe recognize some particular textas a version of someparticular story (say, the Oedipus ale). These factsallow us finally to understand his claim that every version of the tale isequivalent to every other one (el 95, pp. 565, 567) and his feeling thatneed not worry about different meaningsof different texts (even differenttexts produced n different cultures). Theclaim refers only to the codes, andnot to messagesexpressed in the codes; the claim does not refer to all thecodes entailed by the texts, but only to the consistently present codes thathe chooses o attend to. In this sense the claim is a reasonable one, and fairlyhard to argue with; it is also a bit less impressive than it first sounds.In a typical analysis, L6vi-Strauss dentifies a code and then identifies thefocal concern of the tale with the implicit meaning which underlies thatcode. If we accept his implicit claim that any code which within reason ananalyst can find is there for natives as well, then we have to recognize thatmuch f the criticism of I~vi-Strausss analyses of folk tales (including ourown) has been slightly offthe mark. The typical criticism amounts o askinghow we know that the indicated codes are indeed entailed by the tale.However, f all possible codes are automatically present, then that becomesa meaningless question. Even if a great manycodes can be used in a giventale and entailed by it, and even if each code can refer back to any of severalunderlying implicit meanings, it does not seem obvious that all of thosemeaningscan at the same time be the central or focal concern of the tale--the "what it is about" (cf 93, p. 347). The question that critics shouldasking instead of "Howdo we know hat this code is truly entailed by thetale?" is "Howdo we know hat this particular underlying meaning repre-sented by this particular code) is one that is at issue in this tale?" (cf 28,p. 53) This is the question that Cod~re (26) so charmingly--if alsodevastatingly--raises; this proper question concerns the focus (or loci)the tale, not its contents.No criteria are anywherediscussed for making his determination. Dis-cussions of tale topics concern the way the tale handles supposedly focalproblems, not how hese are identified.Our second central characteristic of structural anthropology s the dialec-tical process by which deep problems with, or contradictions within, sys-tems of cultural values or norms are supposedly transformed into moretractable forms that allow the contradictions to be encompassedor theproblems o be solved (89, p. 240). This process is built on the focal codeswhich we have just been discussing. It consists of taking the relativelyabstract contrasts entailed by the initial code nwhich the problem s stated,finding other codes which entail similar contrasts, transforming the prob-lem statement into whichever of these other codes allows the problem to be



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528 KRONENFELD & DECKERsimplified and encompassed,and then solving (or dealing with) this trans-formed version of the problem. It is the abstract entailed contrasts, whichone keeps constant throughout the process, that represent the structurewhich is preserved under the transformations, and that ensure that thesolution to the final (transformed) version of the problem s felt or seenrefer to the initial version. This is the process by which, according toL6vi-Strauss, the Oedipu~,~ tale deals with the contradiction between oneancestry and two parents, and by which the Asdiwal tale deals with theinability of a new couple to live at once with both the brides parents andthe grooms parents.In the insoluble problertLs whichL6vi-Strauss considers, the goal of analy-sis is not to explain hownatives solve their problems, but rather to explainhow they encompass them and make them manageable (ef 80, p. 71, 95).The process is one of successive narrowings, in which a basic opposition istransformed into an equivalent opposition between two elements that areboth on one side of the original opposition. The antinomy between the tworemains, but is nowbrought within a commonramework; in the transfor-mation, other attributes that might have been central to the original opposi-tion can be lost, and such loss becomes a device for asserting theinessentiality of those attributes for the original opposition. In a sense thetransformation becomesa way of asserting that the opposed elements arereally the same, but the as.,~ertion can never be allowed o stand because thenthe story wouldcease to speak to the insolubility of the original opposition.And so the opposition reemerges--if in a reduced form--and the transfor-mation/reduction process then maybe recursively applied to the new re-duced opposition.One might take a literary example adapted from (69), ef (70)] whichthe advantage of involving both cultural and historical material that ismuchbetter knownand understood than is the case with most anthropolog-ical examples. Several of Leachs examples of a different kind of analysis(e.g. 74, 75, 77, 82) seem o have been selected for similar reasons. Pastoralliterature of the English Renaissance s concerned, in part, with the opposi-tion between nobles and peasants. The nobility and would-be nobility (theendowers f the literature.,) appreciate the benefits of being rich (includingboth power and poetry) but espouse a moral code that emphasizes thevirtues (and heavenly rewards) of poverty. Their problem is to reap thevirtues of being both rich and poor at the same time. Their solution is totransform the insoluble opposition between rich and poor into a less ex-treme one between kinds, of poor by seeking an analogy for themselveswithin the third estate; they pick the poor side of the original oppositionbecause that is where virtue lies. They pick the shepherd as their analogbecause of his classical a.ssociations with poetry and the other arts and



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STRUCTURALISM 529because of his Christian associations with meeknessand the acceptance ofGods bounty (vs the grubbing and instrumental nature of ploughmen). Thenobility shows hat they, represented by shepherds, are just like peasants,represented by farmers, but for a slight difference in occupation. However,the position of the nobility depends on the intrinsic differences betweenthose fit to rule and those not, and so even as nobles merge hemselves intothe third estate they must reassert their distinctions lest they lose therationale for their position. And o, within the third estate, shepherds aredistinguished from ploughmenby their courtly skills and protective prow-ess; the opposition remains, if on a smaller scale. Within the realm ofshepherds the contrast sometimes again is transformed--into a contrastbetween noble shepherds whoplay panpipes and write of love and cloddishworking shepherds who talk funny and smell of sheep. The successivetransformations allow the opposition to be reduced from a global onebetween estates to a very local one between kinds of shepherds; however,the initial distinction continues to exist because of the intrinsic contradic-tions within the aims of the nobility, whose iterature this is.The process of successive narrowing of oppositions shown in L6vi-Strausss work is somewhateminiscent of the dialectical process describedby Hegel (and Marx)~thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (cf 80, pp. 6-7).However, here are differences. In L6vi-Strauss the opposed elements seemcoevally present; there is no evidence that the one develops as a reaction to(or outgrowth of) the other. In L6vi-Strauss the movementn the processis illusory: no synthesis is ever reached and nothing intrinsic is everchanged; here is only an increasingly restricted restatement of the problem.In short, L6vi-Strauss provides us with a way of thinking about culturalproblems; he does not (in his myth analysis) provide any model for howcultural forms change (a la Marx) nor for how the ideas that shape ourcomprehension f the physical world might change. His concern is with thesign systems by which thought is expressed and with the ways in whichthese are used (93, pp. 13, 14); as such his workclearly belongs in Saussuresuniverse rather than in Marxs however strange an inhabitant of thatuniverse it may occasionally seem.

As was the case with the codes themselves, these structuralist claimsabout mythological handling of problems do not strike us as inherentlyimplausible, even if they do seem somewhat ess inevitable than do theclaims about the codes. But again there remains the problem of passing fromplausibility to probability or certainty. Given hat in the kind of code systemthat we are dealing with, one tale mayexemplify at the same time a largenumberof codes, it seems unlikely that every underlying contrast of everyrelevant code represents a basic problem with which people in the cultureat hand are trying to wrestle. But unless such is the ease, we need some



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530 KRONENFELD & DECKERcriteria for deciding which codes pertain to basic problems and which donot; and we need some criteria for deciding which of the several deepcontrasts entailed by any particular code are relevant and which are not.Such criteria (or procedures) are precisely what L6vi-Strauss does not giveus. This problem s central, not just for structuralist analysis, but for sym-bolic anthropology as wel]~ where, instead of providing criteria (or proce-dures) for recognizing the concerns that are inherent in some particularsystem or work, manypractitioners have come up with a universal set ofsymbols and concerns that they impose on whatever work they consider.The aims and general assumptions of the structuralists seem to us to bereasonable and preferable ~o those of other symbolic schools; what is neededare the methods and standards which will enable these aims and assump-tions to be validly implemented n actual analyses.A paradox seems to confront many eaders of L6vi-Strausss myth analy-ses: on the one hand they find the texture of the analyses very convincingand very satisfying, but on the other hand they find that his oit assertedmethodremains forever out of reach and that manyof his particular deduc-tive claims seem either weakor nonexistent (cf 80, p. 13; 104). His theoryis often considered brilliant while his control of the ethnographic materialsrequired to evaluate it is found wanting.This little piece of academic mythologyseems to have things backwards.L~vi-Strauss is thoroughly familiar with the mythologyand folklore, thepublished ethnography, and the pre-Western ecology of NewWorld cul-tures (even if he is often careless and selective in his use of this material).What he lacks is any theory about how particular myths operate or whatthey accomplish. Weare aware that this claim flies in the face of mostI_~vi-Strauss criticism, anti that it apparently contradicts the explication ofhis theory that we have just provided, but consider the following arguments.Wc irst distinguish among hree analytic levels: (meta-) theories aboutmythology (including what it does, how t works, and so forth); theoriesabout the operations of particular bodies of folk or mythic material; andcharacterizations of the patterns of similarity and interrclatedncss that onefinds in some particular body of folk or mythic material. L6vi-Strausssintroduction to The Raw and the Cooked, his concluding chapters toLHommeu, and various articles constitute the first kind of metatheory;it is this theory about theories of myth which strikes us as eminentlyreasonable. It is this meta~heorywhich we have just attempted to explicateand show he usefulness of. Even so, we have complained about his execu-tion, by which we refer not to his grasp of the facts but to the particulartheories which he claims account for the specific body of ethnographicmaterial he is treating. This actual, concrete theory is missing in his work.He constantly talks as if he has such a theory, speaking of formal analysis



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STRUCTURALISM 531(93, p. 108), of isomorphisms pp. 97-98), of transformations (pp. 2,118), of inversions, of demonstrations (p. 105), of proof (p. 138), andforth, but he never lays out any set of formal concepts or propositions fromwhich anything could actually be deduced. Whenhe goes through the setof items that are supposed to make up a deductive argument (e.g. 93, pp.96, 101, 105, 108), the specific connections or logic are never explained; theactual structure of his arguments s really one of free association rather thanof logical deduction or inference. He does not explain what a transformationis (93, p. 108, 118; 95, p. 449)--i.e. howwe might recognize one that hehad not shownus. Nor does he tell us what it accomplishe~--are the itemsthus related to be considered equivalent to each other (in general, in someparticular context, or in conjunction with someother pair, and to what end)or are they supposed o perform similar functions in contrasting situations.At the third analytic level, which amountssimply to somekind of orderedrecapitulation of the data itself, his work s, as is his metatheoretic discus-sion, quite good. But here, wewould ike to suggest, the basis for his successlies not in his theories, nor even in his analytic ability, but instead in thevery nature of such a large and dense body of regional mythic material ashe has chosen to examine. The connections that he makes among thevarious tales are indeed in the tales themselves, as is the complexity,heterogeneity, and convolutedness exhibited by the set of connections takentogether; the richness of the connections that he makes is thus furtherimpressive testimony in favor of the breadth and intensity of his control ofthe relevant data. Tales in such a group constantly echo one another in agreat vari

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-Kronenfeld Decker(1979) Structuralism