Poststructuralism challenges the structuralist/formalist notions of language as a “prison-house” to argue that the meaning of language is a social construction by participants who are using language to mean often conflicting different things. One important code system is that of language. Language codes or categories mediate our perceptions and constructions of experience. For example, people’s notion of what is means to be “male” or “female” or “masculine” and “feminine” is mediated by the cultural meanings they assign to these categories.

For example, a poststructuralist approach focuses on how language categories or concepts shape or mediate our perceptions of media texts. (The National Council of Teachers of English Chalkface high school literature textbook series draws heavily on a poststructuralist approach (Martino & Mellor, 2000; Mellor, O’Neill, & Patterson, 2000; Mellor & Patterson, 2001; Mellor, Patterson, & O’Neill, 1999; Moon, 2000, 2001).

Michael Peters: Postructuralism and Education

Viewers may apply essentialist gender categories to a text, assuming, that males typically are strong, assertive, physically active, domineering, and females are weak, passive, not physically active, and reticent, categories that would be challenged in this approach. What language categories are shaping my response? How do these language categories reflect my beliefs and attitudes?

In reflecting on their responses, students may note how those responses are shaped by various categories: “good/evil,” “right/wrong,” “male/female,” “black/white,” “high/low,” “real/artificial,” “love/hate,” etc. As poststructuralist critics point out, these categories themselves are suspect in that, as binary, either/or constructions, for example, “male”/“female,” or “white”/”black,” that limit or essentialize an understanding of the complexity of experience.

In responding to images associated with portrayals of masculinity or femininity, audiences apply their knowledge of these categories, often in highly stereotypical ways. Theorists such as Derrida argue that language categories therefore need to be contested and challenged as slippery, unstable, and continually changing. They also challenge the category distinctions between “black” and “white” or “male” and “female” as categories that serve to create the false dualities inherent in either/or categories. They argue that once you begin to examine carefully these categories or oppositions, they no longer work effectively.

They are also highly skeptical about “humanist” beliefs or truths — that “humans are basically good,” as fictions/myths. They perceive these beliefs or truths as central to much of English instruction that attempts to use texts to imply or promote these beliefs or truths.

They are also critical of notions of the self as a coherent, unified identity, positing the alternative notion of self as conflicted and often incoherent. Consistent with critical discourses analysis, they perceive different, competing aspects of the self as constituted by different, competing discourses.

Extreme versions of poststructuralism or deconstruction as positing a completely indeterminate nature of meaning have been challenged as failing to recognize the fact that meaning is not totally illusionary or relative.

How is all of this related to media studies? Poststructualists propose close analysis of language use in media texts of the categories used in order to demonstrate how categories that seem to be in opposition to each other actually have a lot of overlapping meaning. For example, an ad showing “bad breath” as adversely affecting one’s popularity when others shun a person and the use of a mouth spray leading to a positive sense of popularity is based on the opposition between “being shunned” versus “popularity.” By examining or deconstructing these underlying distinctions, students may note that “being shunned” isn’t necessarily always negative, while being “popular,” isn’t necessarily always positive (although adolescents may have difficulty believing that).

In a study of adolescents’ after-school book-club discussions, Alvermann, Young, and Green (1997) found that participants frequently challenged essentialist gender categories. Because these adolescents selected their own texts and topics for discussion, they were willing to openly grapple with issues and values. In some cases, however, they were reticent to do so fearing social repercussions. For example, females in one group were reluctant to talk about magazines geared for females because they were concerned with the fact that the males in the group would not be interested in discussing these magazines. These females were importing an essential frame regarding male behavior to construct their group stance. In other cases, group members did openly challenge essentialist categorization. In one group, some female members challenged the notion that only males were interested in talking about sports, making references to their frequent discussion of sports in other contexts. In another group, members discussed the ways in which women were excluded from history texts. In some cases, members employed double-voiced language or playful use of gossip to challenge exclusionary stances. By surfacing the tensions between competing stances towards gender and class, the students in this study began to interrogate value assumptions associated with perceived gender and class categories.

The NCTE Chalkface Series

One useful application of postsructuralism to English instruction is the NCTE Chalkface Series: Mellor & Patterson, Investigating Texts Analyzing Fiction and Nonfiction in High School; Mellor, Patterson, & O’Neil, Reading Fictions Applying Literary Theory to Short Stories; Moon, Studying Literature; Mellor, O’Neil, & Patterson, Reading Stories Activities and Texts for Critical Readings; Martino & Mellor, Gendered Fictions. These books for high school students are based largely on a post-structuralist approach — students self-interrogating the categories of gender, class, race that shape their perceptions of life and texts.

Click here for more information on poststructualism.

For further reading on poststructuralist theory:

Belsey, B. (2002). Poststructuralism: A very short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bannet, E. T. (1989). Structuralism and the logic of dissent: Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Palmer, D. (1997). Structuralism and poststructuralism for beginners. New York: Writers and Readers.

For application of poststructuralist theory to film:

Stam, R. (1992). New vocabularies in film semiotics: Structuralism,
poststructuralism and beyond. New York: Routledge.

Module 4: Word document

Applying Critical Perspectives to an Ad

Rhetorical/Audience Analysis

Semiotic Theory

Poststructuralist/ Deconstructivist Theory: Interrogating Language Codes/Categories

Critical Discourse Analysis

Psychoanalytic Theories

Feminist Criticism

Postmodern Theory

Postcolonial Theory

References