1. Structuralist Versus Analogical Descriptions ONE important
purpose of this book is to compare two completely dif ferent
approaches to describing language. The first of these approaches,
commonly called stnlctllralist, is the traditional method for
describing behavior. Its methods are found in many diverse fields -
from biological taxonomy to literary criticism. A structuralist
description can be broadly characterized as a system of
classification. The fundamental question that a structuralist
description attempts to answer is how a general contextual space
should be partitioned. For each context in the partition, a rule is
defined. The rule either specifies the behavior of that context or
(as in a taxonomy) assigns a name to that context. Structuralists
have implicitly assumed that descriptions of behavior should not
only be correct, but should also minimize the number of rules and
permit only the simplest possible contextual specifications. It
turns out that these intuitive notions can actually be derived from
more fundamental statements about the uncertainty of rule systems.
Traditionally, linguistic analyses have been based on the idea that
a language is a system of rules. Saussure, of course, is well known
as an early proponent of linguistic structuralism, as exemplified
by his characterization of language as "a self-contained whole and
principle of classification" (Saussure 1966:9). Yet linguistic
structuralism did not originate with Saussure - nor did it end with
"American structuralism.""
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