structuralism
/ˈstrʌktʃərəˌlɪzəm/
noun
- A method of analyzing things (like language, culture, or literature) by focusing on the underlying systems and relationships between parts, rather than on individual elements alone.
- The anthropologist used structuralism to understand how myths in different cultures share similar patterns.
- Many early 20th-century thinkers applied structuralism to literature, looking at the rules that shape stories.
- In linguistics, structuralism studies how words gain meaning from their relationships with other words in a language.