levi strauss structuralism

• Binary Oppositions


  • a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning
  • argued all cultural practices had deep, underlying structures which led to binary opposites
  • binary opposites, form the basic structure of all human cultures, all human ways of thought, and all human signifying systems
• Mytheme

  • units of narrative features we can use to compare different myths from around the world.
  • generic unit of narrative structure from which myths are thought to be
  • A fundamental part of narrative structure (typically involving a relationship between a character, an event and a theme) from which myths are constructed.
• Cultural Codes


  • The identifiable categories of behaviors or practices repeated over time.
  • way in which ideologies are communicated to reflect rules, values, beliefs of certain cultures
• Ideological reading


  -The explicit political themes of a film or group of films

  -embedded values, beliefs, biases, and assumptions within a specific text,

  -The unexamined assumptions that the film suggests about the culture and historical time period in which the film was made, its historical context.

  -understanding the underlying beliefs and values formed
• Deconstruction


  a type of critical postmodern analysis that involves taking apart or disassembling old ways of thinking
• Structuralism

  Human culture most be understood by their relationship to a broader, overarching system or structure.
• Post-structuralism


  Challenges that a text has one single, identifiable meaning. It plays down the role of the 'author
• 1. Texts can be understood through an examination of their underlying structure
  2. The meaning is dependant upon pairs of opposition 
  3. The way in which these binary oppositions are resolved can have particular ideological significance