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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS
Largely through the influence of Jakobson, the primary analytical
method employed by many structuralist semioticians involves the
identification of binary or polar semantic oppositions (e.g. us–them,
public–private) in texts or signifying practices. Claude Lévi-Strauss
described the initial steps in his own analytical procedure as being
to ‘define the phenomena under study as a relation between two
or more terms, real or supposed’ and then to ‘construct a table of
possible permutations between these terms’ (Lévi-Strauss 1964, 16).
People have believed in the fundamental character of binary
oppositions since at least classical times. For instance, in his
Metaphysics, Aristotle advanced as primary oppositions: form–
matter, natural–unnatural, active–passive, whole–part, unity–variety,
before–after and being–not-being. Jakobson and Halle observe that
‘the binary opposition is a child’s first logical operation’ (Jakobson
and Halle 1956, 60). While there are no opposites in nature, the
binary oppositions which we employ in our cultural practices help
to generate order out of the dynamic complexity of experience. At
the most basic level of individual survival humans share with other
animals the need to distinguish between our own species and others,
dominance and submission, sexual availability or non-availability,
the edible and the inedible (Leach 1970, 39). The range of human
distinctions is far more extensive than those which they share with
other animals since it is supported by the elaborate system of categorization
which language facilitates. The British anthropologist
Edmund Leach reflects that ‘a speechless ape presumably has some
sort of feelings for the opposition I/other, perhaps even for its
expanded version we/they, but the still more grandiose natural/supernatural
(man/God) could only occur within a linguistic frame . . .
The recognition of a distinction natural/supernatural (real/imaginary)
is a basic marker of humanity’ (Leach 1982, 108–9). So too is that
between (human) culture and (animal) nature. Lévi-Strauss, who sees
the opposition between nature and culture as of fundamental importance,
suggests that the primary reason that human beings have
employed fire since prehistoric times to transform raw into cooked
food is not because this was necessary for their survival but in order
to signify their otherness from beasts (Lévi-Strauss 1969).