n="justify"> The focus of post-structuralism is on the inherent uncertainty in our various systems of expression, beginning with language. Post-structuralism features a critique of the assumption of meaning in language when meaning is no longer distinguished by a shared social agreement. Post-structuralism thus clarifies the function of choice in human action.structuralism offers a study of how knowledge is produced and a critique of structuralism. It doesn t approve of the study of underlying structur es. To understand an object (eg one of the many meanings of a text), a post-structuralist approach argues, it is necessary to study both the object itself and the systems of knowledge that produced the object.
From the point of view of textual analysis post-structuralism doesn t focus on the author, but on the reader. The reader replaces the author as the primary subject of inquiry. And without a central fixation on the author, post-structuralists examine other sources for meaning (readers, cultural norms, other literature, etc.), Which are therefore never authoritative, and promise no consistency.are some theoretical differences between structuralism and post- structuralism:
. Structuralism derives ultimately from linguistics. It inherits this confidently scientific outlook: it too believes in method, system, and reason as being able to establish reliable truths. Post-structuralism derives ultimately from philosophy. It inherits this habit of scepticism, and intensifies it. It regards any confidence in the scientific method as naive, and proclaims the idea that we can't know anything for certain.
2. Structuralist writing tends towards abstraction and generalisation: it aims for a detached, scientific coolness of tone. Post-structuralist writing, by contrast, tends to be much more emotive. It seems to aim for an engaged warmth rather than detached coolness.
. Structuralists accept that the world is constructed through language, in the sense that we do not have access to reality other than through the linguistic medium. Post-structuralism argues that reality itself is textual. People are not fully in control of the medium of language, so meanings cannot be planted in set places. That s why linguistic anxiety is a keynote of the post-structuralist outlook.
. Structuralism questions our way of structuring and categorising reality, and inspires us to break free of habitual modes of categorisation, but it believes that we can thereby attain a more reliable view of things. Post-structuralism distrusts the very notion of reason, and the idea of ​​the human being as an independent entity, preferring the notion of the constructed subject, whereby what we may think of as the individual is really a product of social and linguistic forces.
post structuralism derrida barthes foucault
CHAPTER 2. MAJOR WORKS AND CONCEPTS OF POST-STRUCTURALISM
2.1. Derrida s Deconstruction
Jacques Derrida is a central figure in the development of post-structuralism. He believed that at the root of Western philosophical thought is a fundamental distinction between speech (logos) and writing. Speech is privileged as the expression of what is immediate and present, the source, accordingly, of what is real, true and certain. Writing, on the other hand, is derogated as an inferior imitation of speech, the residue of speech that is no longer present and, therefore, the locus of appearance, deceptions and uncertainty. Derrida finds the distinction pervading Western philosophy and regards it as not just a preference for one form of communication over another but the basis for the entire set of hierarchical oppositions that characterize philosophical thought. Speech offers presence, truth, reality, whereas writing, a derivative presentation employed in the absence of living speech, inevitably misleads us into accepting illusions. p align="justify"> Derrida s critiques of the speech/writing opposition - and of all the hierarchical oppositions that attend it - proceed by what he calls the method of deconstruction . This is the process of showing, through close textual and conceptual analysis, how such oppositions are contradicted by the very effort to formulate and employ them [3, p.829-830]. His book
