Deconstruction versus Structuralism: From Ferdinand de Saussure to Derrida

Abstract

This paper examines the theoretical relationship between structuralism and deconstruction with special reference to Ferdinand de Saussure and Jacques Derrida. A significant critical theory of the twentieth century, Structuralism was a study of language, literature and culture as a series of signs, codes and structures. This method was based on Saussure's structural linguistics that described language as a system which generates meaning in terms of differences and relations between signs. His ideas of signifier, signified, langue, parole, arbitrariness and synchronic study turned the course of modern linguistic and literary criticism. These concepts are used with literary texts, in the context of structuralism, to examine patterns, binary oppositions, narrative forms and cultural codes. But Jacques Derrida's deconstruction called into question the concept of “fixed structure” and “stable meaning” that was held by Structuralist. According to Derrida, language is unstable because there isn't a final meaning; rather, meaning is continually delayed by difference. His idea of différance, trace, supplement, logocentrism and free play uncovers the paradoxes and ambiguities of texts. The paper lets one know that structuralism is an attempt to discover order, unity and systematic meaning and that deconstruction is an attempt to question that order and discover multiple interpretations within the text. Accordingly, the transition from Saussure to Derrida is a significant development in modern literary criticism from a fixed structure to the instability of meaning.