Binaries: Theory backdrop

1. Binaries: Theory backdrop Prof. MeghannMeeusen

2. Critical Backdrop • 20th century European academic thinkers, • Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes, believed: • the way we understand certain words depends on our understanding of the difference between the word and its ‘opposite,’not on the direct definition • words merely act as symbols for society's ideas • the meaning of words, therefore, was a relationship rather than a fixed thing: a relationship between opposing ideas

3. Structuralism • Studies the systems of relationships that are embedded in words and items, positing that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. • It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel. • Acknowledges the arbitrariness of assigning certain series of letters to represent specific ideas. • Focuses on the opposites that often appear in literary constructs.

4. Foundational theorists • Ferdinand de Saussure, professor at University of Geneva, Switzerland, developed structural linguistics between 1906 and 1911. He argued for a distinction between langue (an idealized abstraction of language) and parole (language as actually used in daily life), emphasizing that language is arbitrary– that signs (like words) gain their meaning from their relationships and contrasts with other signs. • Claude Levi-Strauss introduced the binary approach to structuralism. He focused on studying opposites and how they interplay in the text.

5. signifier • According to Saussure, relation between the signifier and the signified is "arbitrary", i.e. there is no direct connection between the sign and the concept. • For instance, there is no reason why the letters C-A-T (or the sound produced when we say it) results in exactly the image of the small, domesticated animal with fur, four legs and a tail in our minds. • It is a result of convention: speakers of the same language group have agreed (and learned) that these letters or sounds evoke a certain image. • Derrida takes this one step further, asserting that the signified can also only be known through relationships.

6. From Saussure to derrida • We understand a word’s meaning because of it’s relationship to other words: • We built a fire when we were camping. • I hope our boss does not fire him after than incident. • Derrida suggests, however, that it is not simply relationships that govern meaning, but binary oppositions. For example: • Male/Female, Adult/Child, Good/Evil, Rich/Poor • We understand these concepts by positioning them as opposites, wherein one is the power position over the other.

7. Derrida & Deconstruction • According to Jacques Derrida, meaning is defined in terms of binary oppositions, “a violent hierarchy” • where “one of the two terms governs the other.” • Argues that all structures have an implied center, and all systems have binary oppositions. Within these systems, one part more important than another (good/evil, male/female). This is problematic. • Deconstruction is a theory of reading which aims to • underminethe logic of opposition within texts.

8. Apply to a text • Discover binary oppositions that govern a text– these can be binaries that are presented/reinforced or seem to be broken. • Comment on values, concepts, ideas beyond the binaries– how do the binaries of the text represent dominant ideologies? • Reverse these binaries and/or dismantle previously held worldviews. What value is there when a text reverses the binary? How is reversing different than “complicating” a binary? How is this sometimes difficult to do? • This can allow individuals to see the world differently, accepting possibilities of various perspectives or levels of meaning, or evenallowing meaning to be undecidable or unknowable.