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Dr.

Richard Clarke LITS3304 Notes 03A

CLAUDE LVI-STRAUSS "S TRUCTURAL ANALYSIS IN LINGUISTICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY" (1945) Lvi-Strauss argues that linguistics is a social science and may very well be the only one which can claim to be a science (31), having achieved both the formulation of an empirical method and an understanding of he nature of the data subm itted to its analysis (31). Other disciplines, notably psychology, sociology and anthropology are learning from modern linguistics the road which leads to the empirical knowledge of social phenomena (31). The close m ethodological analogy which exists between the two disciplines imposes a special obligation of collaboration upon them (32). Lvi-Strauss is most interested in the assistance which linguistics can render to the anthropologists in the study of kinship(32) which is the most elementary structure of social relationships shared by humans and which differentiates the human being from other animals. TO understand the kinship system is, in effect, to understand human nature. Previously, linguistics provided anthropology with etymologies (32) which permitted the establishment between certain kinship terms [of] relationships which were not imm ediately apparent (32). This was very useful, for example, in the case of the role of the uncle, the so-called avuncular relationship (32) in the kinship system. By exploring the roots of the term uncle in various cultures, Lvi-Strauss argues, the linguist contributes to the solution of the problem by revealing the tenacious survival in contemporary vocabulary of relationships which have long since disappeared (32). In other words, the role of the uncle has changed greatly over time, a change reflected in the sign uncle. Until recently, linguistic research leaned most heavily on historical analysis (33) (this would be a diachronic emphasis) but this has been changed by the advent of structural linguistics (33) and a new synchronic emphasis. Hitherto, Lvi-Strauss points out, the diachronic or historical approach to linguistics inherited from the nineteenth century, which sought to discover the meaning of a word in the present through an exploration of its historical roots, predom inated in the field. This was useful to anthropologists who w ere able to study the historical developm ent of the meanings of each of the terms designating the m ain participants in the kinship system, meanings that were not always immediately apparent. He argues that the study of kinship problems is today broached in the same terms and seems to be in the throes of the sam e difficulties as was linguistics on the eve of the structuralist revolution (34). The old linguistics (34) sought its explanatory principles first of all in history (34), that is, in diachronic analysis (34) and historical contingency (35). Its emphases are on individualism and atom ism (34). He quotes Troubetzkoys summation of the old diachronic approach: the evolution of a phonem ic system at any tim e is directed prim arily by the tendency toward a goal. . . . This evolution thus has a direction, an internal logic, which historical phonemics is called upon to elucidate (35). This approach has also been characteristic of anthropology and its focus on kinship problems to this point: Each detail of terminology and each special marriage rule is associated with a specific custom as either its consequence or its survival. W e thus meet with a chaos of discontinuity. No one asks how kinship systems, regarded as synchronic wholes, could be the arbitrary product of a convergence of several heterogeneous institutions (most of which are hypothetical), yet nevertheless function with some sort of regularity and effectiveness. (35) However, structural linguistics has initiated nothing less than a revolution (33) in how we understand the production of meaning. He summarises Troubetzkoys account of the four basic operations (33) in which the structural method (33) consists: First, structural linguistics shifts from the study of conscious linguistic phenom ena to study of their unconscious infrastructure; second, it does not treat terms as independent entities, taking instead as its basis of analysis the relations between terms; third, it introduces the concept of system Modern phonemics does not merely proclaim that phonemes are always part of a system; it shows concrete phonemic systems and elucidates their structure ; finally, structural linguistics aims at discovering general laws, either by induction or . . . by logical deduction, which would give them an absolute character. . . . Thus, for the first time, a social science is able to formulate necessary relationship. This is the meaning of Troubetzkoys last point, while the preceding rules show how linguistics must proceed in order to attain this end. (33) Structural linguistics as practised by linguists like Troubetzkoy and Jakobson, it should be noted , has focused on the phonem e, the signifier or sound-image, to paraphrase Saussure, that is, the tangible oral component of the sign, as opposed to the signified which cannot be accessed directly, that is, without the intervention of the signifier, and as opposed to the sign as a whole. It is the relationship betw een phonem es which is the focus rather than whole signs. The Structural view of language has opened up new perspectives for the anthropologist: In the study of kinship problems . . ., the anthropologist finds himself in a situation which form ally resem bles that of the structural linguist. Like phonem es, kinship terms are elem ents of meaning; like phonemes, they acquire meaning only if they are integrated into system s. Kinship systems, like phonemic system s, are built by the m ind on the level of unconscious thought. Finally, the recurrence of kinship patterns, marriage rules, similar prescribed attitudes betw een certain types of relatives, and so forth, in scattered regions of the globe, leads us to believe that, in the case of kinship as well as linguistics, the observable phenomena result from the action of laws which are general but implicit. The problem can

Dr. Richard Clarke LITS3304 Notes 03A

therefore be formulated as follows: Although they belong to another order of reality, kinship phenomena are of the same type as linguistic phenomena. (34) A synchronic or structural approach to linguistics permits the kinship system at the core of any culture to be studied not only historically (or diachronically) but also as a synchronic system , in the process shifting the study from the phenomena themselves (e.g the role of the father) and their origin to the relationship between phenomena (e.g. to what degree is the role performed by the father a func tion of his relationships to other members of the kinship system). The focus shifts, therefore, from the terms themselves which constitute a particular kinship system to their unconscious infrastructure (the rules by which certain roles are unknowingly assigned to particular participants). Such an approach does not treat the terms which comprise that system as independent entities but rather analyses the relations between terms. The goal in so doing is to uncover the general law s or rules that govern human culture universally. Lvi-Strauss warns that the phonemic m ethod (35) cannot be applied without difficulty to the study of the kinship system: it is incorrect to equate kinship term s and linguistic phonem es form the viewpoint fo their formal treatment (35): W e know [following the work of Roman Jakobson] that to obtain a structural law the linguist analyses phonemes into distinctive features, which he can then group into one or several pairs of oppositions. Following an analogous method, the anthropologist might be tempted to break down analytically the kinship terms of any given system into their components. In our own kinship system, for instance, the te rm father has positive connotations with respect to sex, relative age, and generation; but it has zero value on the dimension of collaterality, and it cannot express an affinal relationship. Thus, for each system, one m ight ask what relationships are expressed and, for each term of the system, what connotation positive or negative it carries regarding each of the following relationships: generation, collaterality, sex, relative age, affinity, etc. It is at this microsociological level that one might hope to discover the most general structural laws, just as the linguist discovers his at the infraphonem ic level. . . . (35) However, Lvi-Strauss argues that a threefold objection immediately arises (35) in that a truly scientific analysis must be real, simplifying, and explanatory (35). W hile the structural method when applied to the analysis of phonem es may accom plish these three goals, this is not the case with the study of the kinship system which, through too ;literal adherence to linguistic method (36), actually becom es more abstract, rather than less concrete, emerges as more com plex rather than simplified, and ultimately has little explanatory value, allowing us little insight into the nature of the system (36). Lvi-Stra uss contends that one reason for the foregoing is that we often forget that where structural linguistics deals not with parole but with langue, that is, the principles which make parole possible, the kinship system is both langue and parole in that kinship terms . . . are also elements of speech (36), they have a sociological existence (36). Structural linguistics allows one to understand the workings of langue, the universal principles underlying all acts of signification, but do not shed any light on the meanings of actual utterances. This is what he m eans w hen writes that structural analysis cannot be applied to words directly, but only to words previously broken down into phonemes (36). This is inadequate where the kinship system is concerned because it comprises both a system from which the meaning of component terms such as uncle may derive their signification or role and an application of these principles. Secondly, while in language there can be no question as to function; we all know that language serves as a means of comm unication (37) (what structural linguistics alone has allowed him to discover is the way in which language achieves this end. The function was obvious; the system remained unknown [37]), the opposite is true of anthropology: he writes that we have long known that kinship terms constitute a system (37) but we still do not know their function (37). Lvi-Strauss proceeds to argue that there is another important difference between the phonemic system which linguists focus on and the kinship system of the anthropologist. Where the linguist can ignore the level of the signified in order to focus on the signifier, the anthropologist cannot ignore the equivalent of the level of the signified in the kinship system . He contends that any kinship system actually consists of two quite different orders of reality (37): a system of terminology (37) or nomenclature (37), that is, the terms through which various kinds of family relationships are expressed (37) (this is analogous to the level of the signifier or phoneme in language) , and a system of attitudes (37) which is both psychological and social in nature (37) that is analogous to the level of the signified in language: the individuals or classes of individuals who e m ploy these term s feel (or do not feel, as the case may be) bound by prescribed behaviour in their relationships with one another, such as respect or fam iliarity, rights or obligations, and affection or hostility (37). Where we understand how the system of nomenclature works but do not understand to what end it functions, the opposite is true of the system of attitudes, the function of which we can guess, he avers (to insure group cohesion and equilibrium [37]), but the nature of the interconnections between the various attitudes (37) and their necessity (38) we do not. In other words, as in the case of language, we know their function, but the system is unknown (38). Just as there is no necessary bond between the signifier and the signified, furthermore, there is no necessary correlation between the system of terms assigned to participants in the kinship system and the system of fam ily attitudes. In other words, just as different phonemes may be attached to the same signified in a given language, so too various attitudes may be attached in different cultures towards perform s roughly the same function in different systems. It is also necessary to distinguish between two different types

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of attitude: those which are diffuse, uncrystallised, and non-institutionalised (38) and those which are stylised, prescribed, and sanctioned by taboos or privileges and expressed through a fixed ritual (38). The latter, far from automatically reflecting the nomenclature, often appear as secondary elaborations, w hich serve to resolve the contradictions and overcome the deficiencies inherent in the terminological system (38). Fortunately, however, Lvi-Strauss believes that there does exists a case where the analogy between linguistics and anthropology can be established clearly: the case of the relationship between nephew and maternal uncle (39) in different cultures. He spends several pages surveying the literature dominant to that point on the subject by celebrated anthropologists such as A. R. Radcliffe-B row n on this issue. W hat is important for the philosophical anthropologist is not the specifics of Lvi-Strausss survey of different views of the avunculate, but the conclusions to which Lvi-Strauss comes about the nature of the kinship system and, ultimately, what this says about humans. He argues that in order to understand the avunculate we must treat it as one relationship within a system, while the system itself must be considered as a whole in order to grasp its structure. This structure resets upon four terms (brother, sister, father, and son), which are linked by two pairs of correlative oppositions in such a way that in each of the two generations there is always a positive and a negative one. Now, what is the nature of this structure, and what is its function? The answer is as follows: This structure is the most elementary form of kinship that can exist. It is, properly speaking, the unit of kinship. (46) He puts it a different way: In order for a kinship structure to exist, three types of family relationship must always be present: one of consanguinity, a relation of affinity, and a relation of descent in other words, a relation between siblings, a relation between spouses, and a relation between between parent and child. . . . The prim itive and irreducible character of the basic unit of kinship . . . is actually a direct result of the universal presence of an incest taboo. This is really saying that in human society a m an m ust obtain a woman from another man who gives him a daughter or a sister. Thus we do not need to explain how the maternal uncle emerged in the kinship structure: He does not em erge he is present initially. Indee d, the presence of the maternal uncle is a necessary precondition for the structure to exist. The error of traditional anthropology, like that of traditional linguistics, was to consider the term s, and not the relations between the terms. (46) Lvi-Strauss concludes that the avunculate is a characteristic trait (48) of an elementary structure which is the product of defined relations involving four term s (48). This structure, he proposes, is the true atom of kinship (48) and becomes the sole building block of more com plex systems (48). In the final analysis, Levi-Strauss argues, the idea that it is the biological family which is the point of departure from which all societies elaborate their kinship system s (50) is a dangerous one. W hile the biological family is ubiquitous in human society (50), what conf ers upon kinship its socio-cultural character is not what it retains from nature, but, rather, the essential way in which it diverges from nature. A kinship system does not consist in the objective ties of descent or consanguinity between individuals. It exists only in human consciousness; it is an arbitrary system of representations, not the spontaneous developm ent of a real situation. (50) The kinship system, in other words, is not a natural or biological phenomenon but an expression of nurture or culture. It is not the families which are truly elementary, but rather the relations between those terms. No other interpretation can account for the universality of the incest taboo; and the avuncular relationship, in its most general form, is nothing but a corollary, now covert, now explicit, of this taboo (51).

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