CRITICAL TEXTUAL ANALYSIS, PART 2—MYTHIC ANALYSIS, SEMIOTICS & STRUCTURALISM

 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)

 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

 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)

 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

 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)

 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)

 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

 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)

 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

 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)

 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)

 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.

 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

 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

 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)

 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.

 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

 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 Levi- Strauss) ◦ 2) Ambiguous term mediates between the oppositional poles)

 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

 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

 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

 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

 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)