Transcript QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

CRITICAL TEXTUAL ANALYSIS, PART 2—MYTHIC
ANALYSIS, SEMIOTICS & STRUCTURALISM
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A. Myth involves a shared narrative or story
◦ 1. Operates at an unconscious level
◦ 2. Themes of myths are probably universal
◦ 3. Involves ultimate truths about life and death,
fate and nature, God & humans
B. Film in particular is receptive to myth
◦ 1. Means of modern mythmaking
◦ 2. Film "speaks the same language"
(picture/image)
◦ 3. Both are associated with dreams (S. Langer)
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C. Myths are symbolic representations
highly valued by societies
◦ 1. Have common characteristics
◦ 2. Powerful appeal, esp. to the
unconscious
◦ 3. Often have universal meanings,
understood within a cultural context
D. Films use both universal & cultural
archetypes, & universal & cultural myths
E. Types include character archetypes,
story archetypes, and symbols
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A. The study of the social production of meaning from
signs
◦ 1. The science of signs which investigates “the nature
of signs" & their social impact, so as to create laws
(Griffin 98)
◦ 2. Derived from linguistics (C. Pierce, F. Saussure, R.
Barthes)
B. The study of signs (both verbal & non-verbal) & how
they mean in a culture
◦ 1. Central focus of semiotics--"the relationship
between a sign and its meaning; and the way signs
are combined into codes" (Fiske & Hartley 34)
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2. Looks at how signs function, "how meaning is
generated & conveyed" (Berger 17) within "socially
shared discourse" (Trenholm, 47)
3. Looks at how the representation of signs & story
structures establish meaning for particular groups,
via discourse & specific texts
4. Textual analysis articulates how this struggle
between discourses is engaged.
◦ a. Texts are how discursive knowledge is
circulated, established, or suppressed
◦ b. A text is a signifying structure
composed of signs & codes
 1) A message that has a physical
existence beyond the sender & receiver,
composed of representational codes
 2) Also a network of codes working at a
number of levels, capable of producing a
variety of meanings
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4. Codes--A code is a system of signs, governed
by rules agreed upon (explicitly & implicitly) by a
culture
◦ a. Presentational codes use the body as a
transmitter & indicate a subject's internal or
social state
◦ b. Representational codes are free standing signs
isolated from the sender--abstract,
generalizable, iconic or symbolic
◦ c. Codes can be digital or analogic (particle/wave
idea)
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d. There are behavioral codes (e.g. law, rules of
football, etc.) & signifying codes
e. Signifying codes have these characteristics:
◦ 1) convey meaning which is shared, conventional,
& learned; and
◦ 2) transmittable through appropriate media of
communication
f. Language depends on verbal codes (primarily
representational & digital)
g. Non-verbal codes may be digital or analogic,
presentational or representational (more
ambiguous)
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5. A sign is something which designates
something other than itself.
◦ a. Signs are arbitrary & learned through culture
◦ b. Do not stand alone, but are part of a system of
classification (or codes)
◦ c. Have 3 characteristics:
 1) physical form
 2) reference to something other than itself
 3) recognizable as a sign
◦ d. have 2 elements—signified & signifier
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6. Types of signs (Pierce):
◦ a. Icon--signifies through a marked physical or
perceptual resemblance between signifier and
signified
◦ b. Index--signifies through a connection to its
object
 1) usually causal (but can also be existential);
e.g. smoke/fire, spots/measles,
footprint/person, snarl/anger
 2) Tend to operate metonymically (e.g. a
cowboy hat for the whole cowboy)
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c. Symbols--signifies through conventions or
rules; arbitrary, conventional signs which stand for
something other than themselves
◦ 1) Have to learn the meanings of symbols
◦ 2) All words are symbolic; other images may be a
mixture of types
◦ 3) Tend to be metaphoric or abstract (e.g. a gold
coin symbolizes wealth)
◦ 4) Symbols can be archetypal or stereotypical, as
well as cultural or individual
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7. Orders of signification (Barthes):
◦ a. Denotation, simple
 1) simple or literal relationship of a sign to its referent
 2) assumed to be "objective" & "value-free”
◦ b. Connotative, 2nd order--meaning extended
to the realm of values, associative, expressive,
attitudinal, evaluative meaning
◦ c. Ideological, 3rd order--the connotations &
myths of a culture are manifest signs of its
ideology (Fiske & Hartley)
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8. Signs can also be metaphoric or metonymic
◦ a. Metaphors—signs that stand for something
else than original; creates images & myths
◦ b. Metonymy--when part of a sign stands for the
whole, e.g. a city street for the city, 2 or 3 pickets
for an union trade strike, a soldier for Army etc.
9. Can analyze signs as part of a paradigm, or a
set of units which combine with others
◦ a. Meaning is determined by how units
(syntagms) interact with others (e.g. a sentence
forms paragraphs)
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b. Paradigmatic analysis focuses on
an associative metaphoric code
◦ 1) Examine vertical sets of units
representing latent meaning
◦ 2) Read synchronically or “down the
chart”
◦ 3) “Read against the grain," looking
for patterns of opposition or themes,
etc.
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c. Syntagmatic analysis looks at linear
patterns (such as syntax or the grammatical
structure)
◦ 1) Examine horizontal, systematic sets of
units linked to each other, representing
manifest meaning
◦ 2) Read diachronically or “across the chart”
◦ 3) Often chronological (e.g. the structure
of fairy tales & narratives)
◦ 4) Formulaic & logical in sequence
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A. Structuralism & post-structuralism are complex
theoretical positions
◦ 1. In general, structuralism dedicated to the
systematic elaboration of rules
◦ 2. Also looks at the constraints on such rules
◦ 3. Looks at systems, relations,& forms (the
"structures") that make meaning possible in any
cultural activity or artifact
B. Not an interpretative approach to meaning-does not seek to reveal hidden or intrinsic meaning
in a text
C. Instead texts reveal meanings through their
"structures" or relationships within a system of
signs
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D. One way of analyzing texts is to examine binary
oppositions
◦ 1. How meanings are generated out of two-term
systems
◦ 2. Originally developed from anthropological &
literary analysis of myth (e.g. Vladamir Propp's
Morphology of the Folktale & Claude Levi-Strauss,
Structural Anthropology)
◦ 3. Binaries arise out of culture, out of the nature
of language itself & the products of our signifying
systems (e.g. images)
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4. Binaries structure our perceptions of the natural
& social world in an orderly & meaningful way
5. Meaning is generated by opposition
◦ a. Signs mean most in terms of what they are not;
always imply their opposites
◦ b. Most extreme, yet basic form of difference is
binary--only two signs, e.g. LAND:SEA
 1) Mutually exclusive
 2) Yet together form a complete system--the
earth's surface
 3) Similar binaries: US:THEM, GOOD:BAD,
LIGHT:DARK, MEN:WOMEN, etc.
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c. Binary logic produces ambiguities
◦ 1) Repressed but often emerge as a sub-text (e.g.
between LAND & SEA is the BEACH--a territory
not quite land or sea)
◦ 2) Binary logic finds this "scandalous“
◦ 3) Often a site of taboo in a culture
 a) Activities or states that don’t fit the binary
system subjected to repression or ritual
 b) This taboo territory is a liminal, or
transitional, state--a state out of time, on the
edge of experience
 c) In many cultures this is a sacred time
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d. Transitional (liminal) states require a
rite-of-passage from one state to another,
e.g. passage between CHILD:ADULT (youth),
or between SINGLE:MARRIED (engaged)
e. Ambiguities also resolved through a type
of THESIS:ANTITHESIS:SYNTHESIS process
◦ 1) Often occurs through myth (see LeviStrauss)
◦ 2) Ambiguous term mediates between the
oppositional poles)
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f. Binary oppositions are structurally related
◦ 1) Function to order meanings
◦ 2) Lead to transformations of one underlying
binary running through a story structure, e.g.
MALE:FEMALE into terms like PUBLIC:PRIVATE,
NATURE:CULTURE; etc.
◦ 3) Each binary has an overlap representing the
overlap the taboo, ambiguous category
◦ 4) Although repressed, the ambiguous category
can be transformed as well
◦ 5) Each of the terms on one side is invested with
the qualities of the others on that side
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g. Thus binaries are highly ideological
◦ 1) Nothing natural about them
◦ 2) The logic of binaries is hard to escape (e.g.
GOOD:EVIL often gets linked to US:THEM)
◦ 3) The ideological nature of binaries is further
enhanced because positive & negative values
attach themselves to opposed terms
◦ 4) For example, in the current abortion debate,
the terms move as follows:
 GOOD is to EVIL as LIFE is to DEATH is to
ABORTION ACTIVISTS vs. ABORTION DOCTORS
◦ 5) This frames the debate in absolute moral
terms
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E. Another approach is deconstruction of texts
◦ 1. Deconstruction is a mode of literary analysis
 a. Derived from Jacques Derrida
 b. Argues philosophical assumptions
underlying writing do not guarantee their
meaning
 c. On the contrary, the discourses
systematically undermine the assumptions
◦ 2. The method takes nothing for granted
◦ 3. Challenges belief that language is merely
referential--naming an already existing reality
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4. Deconstruction dedicated to teasing out
the repressed, marginalized & absent in the
chosen discourse
5. This is not the same as looking for a
hidden meaning--the meaning is manifest,
extrinsic, it just needs to be
"deconstructed“
6. Deconstruction a method associated
with post-structuralism
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7. Post-structuralism combines structuralist ideas
with psychoanalytic theory (esp. looking at the role
of pleasure in producing & regulating meanings)
◦ a. Also concerned with external structures
(beyond the text), such as class, gender, &
ethnicity, which make meaning possible
◦ b. Original structuralism more concerned with
internal textual structures
◦ c. A shift in focus from text to reader (thus
sometimes also linked to reader-response theory)