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CLAUDE LVI-STRAUSS"STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS IN LINGUISTICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY" (1945)

"Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology." Structural Anthropology. Vol.

1. Trans. Clair Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Shoepf. New York: Basic, 1963. 31-54.

Lvi-Strauss argues that linguistics is a social science and may very well be the onlyone which can claim to be a science (31), having achieved both the formulation of anempirical method and an understanding of the nature of the data submitted to itsanalysis (31). Other disciplines, notably psychology, sociology and anthropology arelearning from modern linguistics the road which leads to the empirical knowledge ofsocial phenomena (31). The close methodological analogy which exists between thetwo disciplines imposes a special obligation of collaboration upon them (32). Lvi-Strauss is most interested in the assistance which linguistics can render to theanthropologists in the study of kinship(32) which is the most elementary structure ofthe social relationships shared by humans and which differentiates the human being

from other animals. To understand the kinship system is, in effect, to understandhuman nature. Previously, linguistics provided anthropology with etymologies (32)which permitted the establishment between certain kinship terms [of] relationshipswhich were not immediately apparent (32). This was very useful, for example, in thecase of the role of the uncle, the so-called avuncular relationship (32) in the kinshipsystem. By exploring the roots of the term uncle in various cultures, Lvi-Straussargues, the linguist contributes to the solution of the problem by revealing thetenacious survival in contemporary vocabulary of relationships which have long sincedisappeared (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 mostheavily on historical analysis (33) (this would be a diachronicemphasis) but this hasbeen 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 meaningof a word in the present through an exploration of its historical roots, predominated inthe field. This was useful to anthropologists who were able to study the historicaldevelopment of the meaning of each of the terms designating the main participants inthe kinship system, meanings that were not always immediately apparent. He arguesthat the study of kinship problems is today broached in the same terms and seems tobe in the throes of the same difficulties as was linguistics on the eve of the structuralistrevolution (34). The old linguistics (34) sought its explanatory principles first of allin history (34), that is, in diachronic analysis (34) and historical contingency (35).Its emphases are on individualism and atomism (34). He quotes Troubetzkoys

summation of the old diachronic approach: the evolution of a phonemic system at anytime is directed primarily by the tendency toward a goal. . . . This evolution thus has adirection, an internal logic, which historical phonemics is called upon to elucidate (35).This approach has also been characteristic of anthropology and its focus on kinshipproblems to this point:

Each detail of terminology and each special marriage rule is associatedwith a specific custom as either its consequence or its survival. We thusmeet with a chaos of discontinuity. No one asks how kinship systems,regarded as synchronic wholes, could be the arbitrary product of aconvergence of several heterogeneous institutions (most of which arehypothetical), yet nevertheless function with some sort of regularity andeffectiveness. (35)

However, structural linguistics has initiated nothing less than a revolution (33) in howwe understand the production of meaning. He summarises Troubetzkoys account ofthe four basic operations (33) in which the structural method (33) consists:

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First, structural linguistics shifts from the study ofconscious linguisticphenomena to study of their unconscious infrastructure; second, it doesnot treat terms as independent entities, taking instead as its basis ofanalysis the relations between terms; third, it introduces the concept of

system Modern phonemics does not merely proclaim that phonemesare always part of a system; it shows concrete phonemic systems andelucidates their structure ; finally, structural linguistics aims atdiscovering general laws, either by induction or . . . by logical deduction,which would give them an absolute character. . . . Thus, for the firsttime, a social science is able to formulate necessary relationships. This isthe meaning of Troubetzkoys last point, while the preceding rules showhow linguistics must proceed in order to attain this end. (33)

Structural linguistics as practised by linguists like Troubetzkoy and Jakobson, it shouldbe noted, has focused on the phoneme, the signifier or sound-image, to paraphraseSaussure, that is, the tangible oral component of the sign, as opposed to the signifiedwhich 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 between phonemes which isthe focus rather than whole signs. The Structural view of language has opened up newperspectives for the anthropologist:

In the study of kinship problems . . ., the anthropologist finds himself in asituation which formally resembles that of the structural linguist. Likephonemes, kinship terms are elements of meaning; like phonemes, theyacquire meaning only if they are integrated into systems. Kinshipsystems, like phonemic systems, are built by the mind on the level ofunconscious thought. Finally, the recurrence of kinship patterns,marriage rules, similar prescribed attitudes between certain types ofrelatives, and so forth, in scattered regions of the globe, leads us tobelieve 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 therefore be formulated as follows: Although theybelong to another order of reality, kinship phenomena are of the sametype as linguistic phenomena. (34)

A synchronic or structural approach to linguistics permits the kinship system at the coreof any culture to be studied not only historically (or diachronically) but also as asynchronic 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 function of his relationshipsto other members of the kinship system). The focus shifts, therefore, from the termsthemselves which constitute a particular kinship system to their unconsciousinfrastructure (the rules by which certain roles are unknowingly assigned to particular

participants). Such an approach does not treat the terms which comprise that systemas independent entities but rather analyses the relations between terms. The goal inso doing is to uncover the general laws or rules that govern human culture universally.

Lvi-Strauss warns that the phonemic method (35) cannot be applied withoutdifficulty to the study of the kinship system: it is incorrect to equate kinship terms andlinguistic phonemes from the viewpoint of their formal treatment (35):

We know [following the work of Roman Jakobson] that to obtain astructural 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 tobreak down analytically the kinship terms of any given system into theircomponents. In our own kinship system, for instance, the term father

has positive connotations with respect to sex, relative age, andgeneration; but it has zero value on the dimension of collaterality, and itcannot express an affinal relationship. Thus, for each system, one might

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ask what relationships are expressed and, for each term of the system,what connotation positive or negative it carries regarding each of thefollowing 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 discovershis at the infraphonemic level. . . . (35)

However, Lvi-Strauss argues that a threefold objection immediately arises (35) inthat a truly scientific analysis must be real, simplifying, and explanatory (35). Whilethe structural method when applied to the analysis of phonemes may accomplish thesethree goals, this is not the case with the study of the kinship system which, through

too literal adherence to linguistic method (36), actually becomes more abstract,rather than concrete, emerges as more complex rather than simplified, and ultimatelyhas little explanatory value, allowing us little insight into the nature of the system(36).

Lvi-Strauss contends that one reason for the foregoing is that we often forgetthat 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 inthat kinship terms . . . are also elements of speech (36), they have a sociologicalexistence (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 onthe meanings of actual utterances. This is what he means when writes that structuralanalysis cannot be applied to words directly, but only to words previously broken downinto phonemes (36). This is inadequate where the kinship system is concernedbecause it comprises both a system from which the meaning of component terms suchas 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 thatlanguage serves as a means of communication (37) (what structural linguistics alonehas 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 ofanthropology: he writes that we have long known that kinship terms constitute asystem (37) but we still do not know their function (37).

Lvi-Strauss proceeds to argue that there is another important differencebetween the phonemic system which linguists focus on and the kinship system of theanthropologist. Where the linguist can ignore the level of the signified in order to focuson the signifier, the anthropologist cannot ignore the equivalent of the level of thesignified in the kinship system. He contends that any kinship system actually consistsof two quite different orders of reality (37): a system of terminology (37) or

nomenclature (37), that is, the terms through which various kinds of familyrelationships are expressed (37) (this is analogous to the level of the signifier orphoneme 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: theindividuals or classes of individuals who employ these terms feel (or do not feel, as thecase may be) bound by prescribed behaviour in their relationships with one another,such as respect or familiarity, rights or obligations, and affection or hostility (37).Where we understand how the system of nomenclature works but do not understand towhat end it functions, the opposite is true of the system of attitudes, the function ofwhich we can guess, he avers (to insure group cohesion and equilibrium [37]), butthe nature of the interconnections between the various attitudes (37) and theirnecessity (38) we do not. In other words, as in the case of language, we know theirfunction, but the system is unknown (38). Just as there is no necessary bond betweenthe signifier and the signified, there is no necessary correlation between the system ofterms assigned to participants in the kinship system and the system of family attitudes.

In other words, just as different phonemes may be attached to the same signified in agiven language, so too various attitudes may be attached in different cultures towardsterms performing roughly the same function in different systems. It is also necessary

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to distinguish between two different types 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). Thelatter, far from automatically reflecting the nomenclature, often appear as secondary

elaborations, which serve to resolve the contradictions and overcome the deficienciesinherent in the terminological system (38).

Fortunately, however, Lvi-Strauss believes that there does exists a case wherethe analogy between linguistics and anthropology can be established clearly: the caseof the relationship between nephew and maternal uncle (39) in different cultures. Hespends several pages surveying the literature dominant to that point on the subject bycelebrated anthropologists such as A. R. Radcliffe-Brown on this issue. What isimportant for the philosophical anthropologist is not the specifics of Lvi-Straussssurvey of different views of the avunculate, but the conclusions to which Lvi-Strausscomes about the nature of the kinship system and, ultimately, what this says abouthumans. 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 consideredas a whole in order to grasp its structure. This structure rests upon fourterms (brother, sister, father, and son), which are linked by two pairs ofcorrelative oppositions in such a way that in each of the two generationsthere is always a positive and a negative one. Now, what is the nature ofthis structure, and what is its function? The answer is as follows: Thisstructure 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 relationshipmust always be present: one of consanguinity, a relation of affinity, and arelation of descent in other words, a relation between siblings, a

relation between spouses, and a relation between parent and child. . . .The primitive and irreducible character of the basic unit of kinship . . . isactually a direct result of the universal presence of an incest taboo. Thisis really saying that in human society a man must obtain a woman fromanother man who gives him a daughter or a sister. Thus we do not needto explain how the maternal uncle emerged in the kinship structure: Hedoes not emerge he is present initially. Indeed, the presence of thematernal uncle is a necessary precondition for the structure to exist. Theerror of traditional anthropology, like that of traditional linguistics, was toconsider the terms, and not the relations between the terms. (46)

Lvi-Strauss concludes that the avunculate is a characteristic trait (48) of anelementary structure which is the product of defined relations involving four terms

(48). This structure, he proposes, is the true atom of kinship (48) and becomes thesole building block of more complex systems (48).

In the final analysis, Levi-Strauss argues, the idea that it is the biological familywhich is the point of departure from which all societies elaborate their kinshipsystems (50) is a dangerous one. While the biological family is ubiquitous in humansociety (50),

what confers upon kinship its socio-cultural character is not what itretains from nature, but, rather, the essential way in which it divergesfrom nature. A kinship system does not consist in the objective ties ofdescent or consanguinity between individuals. It exists only in humanconsciousness; it is an arbitrary system of representations, not thespontaneous development of a real situation. (50)

The kinship system, in other words, is not a natural or biological phenomenon but anexpression 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

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the universality of the incest taboo; and the avuncular relationship, in its most generalform, is nothing but a corollary, now covert, now explicit, of this taboo (51).