Chapter 3 is Reading for form II - French Structuralism (1950-1975) "Structuralism has its origin in the thinking of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure(1857-1913) who in the early 20th century revolutionized the study of language". Saussure felt that language should be seen as a system of signs. By 'signs', he meant words that we use like 'way', 'yard', 'yarn' etc. 'Way' is 'weg' in Dutch and German. In 1950, Dr. Seuss introduced a new word, nerd, in 'If I Ran the Zoo.'. Now, it has become commonplace, but at that time, his illustrations that came along with the story alone helped people understand its meaning. Linguistic Determinism "The position which claims that our reality is determined by language is called linguistic determinism.' Levi-Strauss felt the structure of primitive thinking was binary. He said our ancestors defined the word in opposites - light/darkness, human-made/natural, a...
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