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Dictionary Language resources

structuralism

Pronunciation: /ˈstrʌktʃ(ə)r(ə)lɪz(ə)m/

Definition of structuralism

noun

[mass noun]

a method of interpretation and analysis of aspects of human cognition, behaviour, culture, and experience, which focuses on relationships of contrast between elements in a conceptual system.
the doctrine that structure is more important than function.

Originating in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, and extended into anthropology by Claude Lévi-Strauss, structuralism was adapted to a wide range of social and cultural studies, especially in the 1960s, by writers such as Roland Barthes, Louis Althusser, and Jacques Lacan