English 3150 Critical Theory Today Ch. 7

Question 1

Structuralist Criticism

Answer 1

A method of systematizing human experience that is used in many different fields of study; for example, linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and literary studies. Consists of two fundamental levels -one visible, the other invisible.

Question 2

Surface Phenomena

Answer 2

All the countless objects, activities, and behaviors we observe, participate in, and interact with every day.

Question 3

Structure

Answer 3

A structure is any conceptual system that has the following three properties: (1) wholeness, (2) transformation, and (3) self-reg- ulation. Wholeness simply means that the system functions as a unit. Transformation means that the system is not static; it’s dynamic, capable of change.
Self-regulation means that the transformations of which a structure is capable never lead beyond its own structural system.

Question 4

Structuralism

Answer 4

It looks for the rules that underlie language and govern how it functions: it looks for the structure.

Question 5

Langue

Answer 5

Structure of language

Question 6

Parole

Answer 6

Speech

Question 7

Signifier

Answer 7

A “sound-image” (a mental imprint of a linguistic sound)

Question 8

Signified

Answer 8

Concept to which the signifier refers.

Question 9

Structural Anthropology

Answer 9

Created by Claude Lévi-Strauss in the late 1950s, seeks the underlying common denominators, the structures, that link all human beings regardless of the differences among the surface phenomena of the cul- tures to which they belong.

Question 10

Mytheme

Answer 10

The fundamental units of myths. A mytheme is analogous to a sentence in that it represents a relationship between two or more concepts, often in the form of a subject-verb relationship.

Question 11

Semiotics

Answer 11

Applies structuralist insights to the study of what it calls sign systems.
semiotics examines the ways linguistic and nonlinguistic objects and behaviors operate symbolically to “tell” us something.

Question 12

Sign System

Answer 12

A linguistic or nonlinguistic object or behavior (or collection of objects or behaviors).

Question 13

Mythoi

Answer 13

Term Frye uses to refer to the four narrative patterns that, he argues, structure myth. These mythoi, he claims, reveal the structural principles underlying liter- ary genres: specifically, comedy, romance, tragedy, and irony/satire.

Question 14

Mythos of Summer

Answer 14

World of Innocence, Plentitude & Fulfillment. Related to Romance.

Question 15

Mythos of Autumn

Answer 15

Movement from the Ideal to the real world, farm innocence to experience. Related to tragedy.

Question 16

Mythos of Winter

Answer 16

World of experience, uncertainty, & failure. Related to Irony and Satire.

Question 17

Mythos of Spring

Answer 17

Movement from the real world to the ideal, from experience to the innocence. Related to comedy.

Question 18

Contractual Structure

Answer 18

Involve the making/breaking of agreements or the establishment/violation of prohibitions and the alienation or reconciliation that follows.

Question 19

Performative Structures

Answer 19

Involve the Performance of tasks, trials, struggles, and the like.

Question 20

Disjunctive Structures

Answer 20

Involve travel, movement, arrivals and departures.