The Danish linguist and semiotician, Louis Hjelmslev, was born in 1899 and died on 30 May 1965. Hjelmslev, who founded the Copenhagen Linguistic Circle, attempted to render more rigorous and clear Saussure’s general theory of language and semiotics. In particular, Hjelmslev… Read More ›
Born in Aleppo in 1902, Emile Benveniste was professor of linguistics at the Colle’ge de France from 1937 to 1969, when he was forced to retire due to ill-health, tragically caused by aphasia. He died in 1976. After being educated… Read More ›
French literary critic, Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a key figure both in the development of structuralism — in particular in the application of techniques derived from semiology to the analysis of everyday life and popular (as well as high) culture… Read More ›
A.J. Greimas‘ work has been an effort to analyse all forms of discourse. Greimas emphasizes the idea that language is an “assemblage of structures of signification” which implies that the language system cannot be “given” in advance but must be… Read More ›
C.S. Peirce worked on logic and semiotics (this latter term he translated from the Greek), frequently linking the two. He argued that signs are the vehicles for thought as well as the articulation of logical forms. Peirce differs from Saussure… Read More ›
One of the most distinguished thinkers in linguistics, philology and aesthetics, Jakobson was responsible for the development of semiotics as a critical practice. Since his work is extremely wide-ranging in scope, Jakobson’s contribution to semiotics and structuralism alone are discussed… Read More ›
The most important of the structural narratologists, Gerard Genette, has argued for the autonomous nature of the literary text. Genette’s work has been of particular use to literary critics for his attempts to develop models of reading texts in a… Read More ›
