Page 40 - Critical and Cultural Theory

THE SIGN
elemental form of poetic wisdom through which humans endea-
vour to understand the world through the mediation of stories.
Levi-Strauss believes that in order to grasp the complexity of
myths, a methodical analysis of their structure is required. Mytho-
logical stories can be read diachronically, in the order they
actually present certain events and situations. But they should also
be read synchronically, in terms of the specific relevance of any
one of their items at any one moment in the narrative. This is
achieved by breaking the story down into minimal units
(mythemes] and reorganizing them in terms of relationships and
oppositions.
According to Levi-Strauss, the very systems of kinship on which
all cultures varyingly hinge constitute a language enabling commu-
nication amongst the members of a community. While in verbal
language, messages are based on the circulation of words, in the
language of kinship, messages depend on the circulation of
women, for all societies tend to contain rules and taboos concern-
ing who one is allowed to marry or be sexually associated with. In
Levi-Strauss's theories of kinship, woman is fundamentally a sign.
The system of food also constitutes a language. Although
shopping lists vary hugely from one culture to another, in all
societies, the gathering, processing and consumption of food form
a code. This is because all cultures rely on conventional decisions
regarding what can and cannot be eaten, when, by whom, with
whom, and in combination with what else. Levi-Strauss uses the
binary opposition Nature versus Culture to construct a culinary
triangle which differentiates, structurally and semiotically, between
the transformation of food by natural means ('raw' —> 'rotten')
and the transformation of food by cultural means ('raw' -»•
'cooked'):

raw

cooked rotten
It is undeniable that Structuralism has played a key role in
unsettling conventional ideas about language, in showing that
meaning is not a given but rather a cultural construct, in inviting

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