Required Reading Saussure, General Principles (p 65-78, 88-91) Emile Benveniste, Four: The Nature of the Linguistic Sign RECOMMENDED: Benveniste, Three: Saussure After Half a Century

Structuralism Claude Levi-Strauss Edmund Leach Rodney Needham Dual oppositions Structures need not be pairs. Can be triads (Turner) or encompassing hierarchies (Dumont)

Speech and communication Speech is one-dimensional, sequence of signs Communication includes gestures and other signals Operates in parallel to speech Reinforcing ideas Contradicting (mixed signals)

Charles Sanders Peirce Founder of semiotics with other Americans and Britons Picked up by Europeans such as Umberto Eco and Thomas Sebeok and re-imported to US and UK in Saussures semiology usually called semiotics –Sign = signifier + signified Peircean semiotics is not dualistic, does not privilege language Sign objectinterpretant

Peircean semiotics Typology of the sign: icon, index, symbol Icon is a sign which resembles is object Index = meaning comes from a direct, physical connection Symbol = meaning is arbitrary, conventional connection Tree, ran, sleep

Writing anthropology Clear thesis statement in the first paragraph Structured argument –One point follows from the previous points Avoid Passive voice Repetitions of the same word or phrase Empty it

Clear Writing is active & linear AVOID The animals are honoured for their gifts of themselves to people USE INSTEAD People honour the animals for giving themsevles to humans. AVOID It is the problem of change that needs to be addressed here. USE INSTEAD I will address the problem of social change in this essay.