[On September 10. 2019 Professor Constantine Nakassis presented a talk on Structuralism as part of the Modern and Critical Theory Lecture Series. Below is a response by Robin Turner (Department of French and Italian)] Engaging with Structuralism on its Own Terms Written by Robin Turner (Department of French and Italian) [caption id="attachment_1953" align="alignnone" width="560"]The Treachery of Images (or This is not a pipe) by René Magritte[/caption] Constantine V. Nakassis is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. In this year’s talk on Structuralism in the Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series hosted by the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, Prof. Nakassis discusses structuralism on its own terms; rather than tracing the historical implications of structuralist thought on language and other social objects such as myth, kinship, ritual, and film (where his own research lies), Prof. Nakassis examines the logic, structure, form and meaningfulness of structuralism as a system of thought. By approaching structuralism as dictated by its own methods of analysis, Prof. Nakassis demonstrates that structuralism at times fails to adhere to the tenants of its own systematic nature. What is structuralism? Prof. Nakassis offers three answers to this question. First, structuralism is a theoretical point of view that isolates its object of study in its systematicity by evoking its own internal logic and functionality. Second, structuralism constitutes a theoretical discourse that applies a method and vise-versa; evaluation of one is the evaluation of the other. Therefore, like two sides of a piece of paper that has been cut, there is no distinction of method and application; one inevitably requires the other. Third, Prof. Nakassis posits that structuralism serves as a kind of metaphysics: a set of claims on what its world is, fundamentally a set of relations preceding elements. However, the metaphysics that structuralism allows for a unique reflexivity which identifies and analyzes the world as seen from the position of its object of analysis. How do structuralists approach the study of language? The reflexivity of structuralism is at the core of Ferdinand de Saussure’s theories of language and the driving principles of studying language in a scientific way. Language, in the Saussurian tradition, is not autonomous, but rather heterogeneous, comprised of layers and variations that are impossible to boil down into a singular, unifying concept that can be examined in conventional scientific frameworks of thought. In attempts to deconstruct such a complex and multifaceted concept such as language, Saussure argues that language can be studied from the perspective of its realization albeit a realization continuously in dialogue with other semiotic factors and elements. These intricate layers of language use that Saussure designates as parole, also translated as ‘speech’, can orient language as an object of study by structuralist terms. Saussure further postulates that these layers in parole are external to the object of study in language science which he designates as langue (often referred to as “language” in opposition to “speech” in translation), that is essential to the capacity to denote. By examining langue and parole, a science of language can therefore study the system of signs and the human capacity of denotation, langage. The concept of langue is not an act of language. Instead, Prof. Nakassis explains, it is the precondition on acts of speech. Langue classifies sounds into acoustic images that are realized in particular sounds but not reducible to them. By this, langue supplies a set of relations that gives a regular form, a signifier, to an individual mental image as a concept, termed signified. Together, these elements constitute a sign. Again, in the reflexive nature of structuralist analysis, signified and signifier cannot exist without one another: the signified cannot exist without the signifier and the signifier has no reason to exist without the signified. [caption id="attachment_1960" align="align-left" width="500"]An illustration of the sign, according to Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)[/caption] The signifier and the signified have no natural relationship. They maintain an autonomy that together sustains the arbitrary status of the sign; the meaning of the sign is derived from beyond itself and is generated in langue. Meaning of the sign is linear in essence; its meaningfulness as realized in the langue unfolds one at a time. Prof. Nakassis designates this linear methodology as a manner by which structuralist thought deconstructs language and other social objects. Value of meaningfulness thus emerges from the relations between these signs. Value is not the result of a pairing of signifier and signified; it is the function of the distributional relationship between sign relations in the system of signs as a whole. This value, according to Saussure, is purely negative, relative, and oppositional in that it is determined through contrast with what it is not. How can structuralist approaches to value fail? Challenging these theories put forth by Saussure, Prof. Nakassis argues that signs and language, as well as other social objects, entail more than just negative value. Rather, there exists positive values that cannot be attributed to the ability to empirically detect that two signs are different and exist in a binary oppositional relationship. In order to understand distinctive semantic meanings of different units of speech, positive value accounts for qualities beyond negative value. Notional meanings like time, aspect, and tense, as Prof. Nakassis cites, are not adequately captured in this oppositional binary and thus their meaning comes from somewhere else. A plural marker such as -s does not uniquely obtain meaning by not being the zero marker of the singular. More accurately, -s gives itself a specific value and simultaneously gives value to the zero marker as well. The -s can indicate multiple meanings for its marked noun, but it cannot denote everything that the zero marker is not. Therefore, in terms of the essentializing structuralist parameters of binary “is or is not” relationships, meaningfulness of language extends beyond a system of values. Here, the notion of langue breaks down because it is incapable of capturing all meaning present in language. Otherwise, if the systematic oppositional binary was universally and exclusively all that constitutes langue, as the object of structuralist study of language, the nature of language as a system would be a set of formulas with interchangeable components that lack content. In reflecting on Professor Nakassis’s lecture, one can easily understand why his talk and those of other invited speakers of the Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series attract audiences of students and faculty that leave attendance to standing room only. Professor Nakassis’s perspective on structuralism – critiquing its methodology using its own framework and reflexive nature – offered a new personal interpretation on a theory that I have frequently come in to contact with respect to my own work and studies. In fact, his talk inspired some new perspectives in two of my linguistics seminars, given that most, if not all, of the students (and both professors) were in attendance. Professor Nakassis’s talk introduced in an accessible manner complex, new concepts that gave a renewed perspective on classical critical theory which enlightened my understanding of structuralist thought.