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structuralism

Syllabification: (struc·tur·al·ism)
Definition of structuralism

noun

  • a method of interpretation and analysis of aspects of human cognition, behavior, culture, and experience that focuses on relationships of contrast between elements in a conceptual system that reflect patterns underlying a superficial diversity.
  • 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

Derivatives

structuralist

noun & adjective

structuralism in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of structuralism in the British & World English dictionary