Claude Levi-Strauss

Linguistics (def)
Assistance rendered by Linguistics to Anthropology
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Schradner: improbability of the hypothesis of matrilineal survivals in the

family in antiquity
o evidence: etymologies to establish between certain kinship terms
relationships that were not immediately apparent

Anthropologists
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bring to the attention of the linguist customs, prescriptions, and prohibitions

that help him to understand the persistence of certain features of language
or the instability of terms or groups of terms.
Linguists and anthropologists follow their own paths independently.

N. Troubetzkoy
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Structural method
(1) shift from study of conscious linguistic phenomena to study of their
unconscious infrastructure
(2) it does not treat terms as independent entities, taking instead as its basis
of analysis the relations between terms
(3) it introduces the concept of system Modern phonemics does not merely
proclaim that phonemes are always part of a system; it shows concrete
phonemic systems and elucidates their structure
(4) linguistics aims at discovering general laws, either by induction or. . .by
logical deduction, which would give them an absolute character.

We are no longer dealing with an occasional collaboration where the linguist and
the anthropologistoccasionally communicate

On kinship and phonemes:

Similarities
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Both are elements of meaning

Acquire meaning only when integrated into systems
Kinship system, like phonemic system are built by the mind on the level of
unconscious thought
Observable phenomena result from action of laws which are general but
implicit (recurrence of kinship patterns, marriage rules, similar prescribed
attitudes between certain types of relatives in scattered regions of globe and
fundamentally different societies)

QUESTION: Although they belong to another order of reality, kinship phenomena

are of the same type as linguistic phenomena. Can the anthropologist, using a
method analogous in form (if not in content) to the method used in
structural linguistics, achieve the same kind of progress in his own science
as that which has taken place in linguistics?
Similarities between Rivers and old linguistics : In both cases, it is solely (or almost
solely) diachronic analysis which must account for synchronic phenomena.

Structural linguistics vs old linguistics - Troubetzkoy

Structural linguistics as a systematic structuralism and universalism which he
contrasts with the individualism and atomism of former schools
Diachronic analysis: The evolution of a phonemic system at any given moment is
directed by the tendency toward a goal. . . .This evolution thus has a direction, an
internal logic, which historical phonemics is called upon to elucidate. Troubetzkoy
Individualistic and atomistic interpretation: founded exclusively on historical
contingency, criticized by Troubetzkoy and Jakobson; generally applied to kinship
problems
= each detail of terminology and each special marriage rule is associated with a
specific custom as either its consequence or survival. A chaos of discontinuity: No
one asks how kinship systems, regarded as synchronic wholes, could be the
arbitrary product of a convergence of several heterogenous intitutions (mostly
hypothetical) yet functions with some sort of regularity and effectiveness.

It is incorrect to equate kinship terms and linguistic phonemes from the

viewpoint of their formal treatment.
To obtain structural law, phonemes are analyzed into distinctive features which
can be grouped into one or several pairs of opposition, if analogous,
anthropologist might be tempted to break down analytically the kinship terms of
any given system into their components.
E.g: Father = positive connotations with respect to sex, relative age, and generation
but none on dimension of collaterality thus it cant express an affinal
relationship.
For each system, one might ask what relationships are expressed and, for each term
of the system, what connotation, positive or negativeit carries regarding each of
the following relationships: generation, collaterality, sex, relative age, affinity, etc.
Microsociological level: one can discover his most general structure laws (linguist:
infra-phonemic level or physicist: infra-molecular or sub-atomic level)
Objection: (1) Scientific analysis must be real, simplifying and explanatory.
Distinctive features which are the product of phonemic analysis have an objective
existence from 3 points of view: psychological, physiological and even physical; they
are fewer than phonemes which result from their combination. They allow us to

understand and reconstruct the system but the treatment of sketched kinship terms
is analytical in appearance onlythe result is more abstract than the principle;
definitive system is more conceptual. (2) System achieved through this procedure is
infinitely more complex and more difficult to interpret than empirical data (3)
hypothesis has no explanatory value; it doesnt lead to an understanding of the
system and still less to an understanding of the system.
Why did it fail?: Too literal adherence to linguistic method betrayed its essence. As
part of vocabulary, kinship terms must be treated with linguistic methods directly.
S.A cannot be applied to words but to words previously broken down into phonemes.
There are no necessary relationships at the vocabulary level.
Kroebers prophecy: He concluded that if a structural analysis of kinship terminology
is impossible, we must always remember that linguistics itself was then restricted to
phonetic, psychological and historical analysis.
Differences between phonemic chart of a language and kinship terms of society
- No question of function, language serves as means of communication; system
unknown
- Kinship terms constitute systems; we know not their function (Lewis Henry
Morgan)
Misinterpretation of this initial situation reduces most structural analyses of kinship
systems to pure repetitions, demonstrating the obvious and neglecting the
unknown.
Hope not lostintroducing order and discovering meaning in kinship nomenclature
still possible but special problems raised by the sociology of vocabulary and the
ambiguous character of relations between its methods and those of linguistics
should be recognized. Preferable to limit discussion to a case where analogy can be
clearly established.
Available case:
Kinship system comprises two different orders of reality: (1) there are terms
used through which kinds of family relationships are expressed (2) kinship is not
expressed solely through nomenclature.
System of terminology: vocabulary system
System of attitudes: psychological and social in nature; prescribed behavior in
relations with each other
while it is true that the study of systems of terminology places us in a
situation analogous but opposite to the situation in which we are dealing with
phonemic systems, this difficulty is INVERSED when we examine systems of
attitude
We can guess that the role played by systems of attitude is to ensure group
cohesion and equilibrium but we do not understand the nature of the
interconnections between various attitudes, now do we perceive their
necessity. SAME AS LANGUAGE, we know their function but The system is
unknown.
Profound difference between 2 systems, disagreeing with A.R Radcliffe Browns
belief that attitudes are nothing but the expression or transposition of terms on the

affective level. Examples of groups whose chart of kinship do not accurately reflect
family attitudes (20). Kinship system do not constitute the principal means of
regulating interpersonal relationships in all societies. Even in societies which
function in that manner, it does not fulfill that role everywhere in the same extent.
Necessary to distinguish two types of attitude: (1) the diffuse, uncrystallized and
non-institutionalized attitudes reflection or transposition of the terminology on the
psychological level (2) attitudes stylized, prescribed and sanctioned by taboos or
privileges and expressed through a fixed ritual BUT attitudes do not automatically
reflect nomenclature, often appearing as secondary elaboration that serves to
resolve contradictions and overcome deficiencies inherent in the terminological
system
Ex. Wik Munkan of Australia: joking privileges sanction a contradiction between the
kinship relations which link two unmarried men and the theoretical