Levi Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) was a french anthropologist whose work helped develop the theory of structuralism and structural anthropology.

Structuralism = a method of interpretation and analysis of aspects of human cognitive, behaviour, culture and experience, which focuses on relationships of contrast between elements in a conceptual system.

Binary Opposites

One of Strauss's most famous theories is his theory of Binary Opposites. In the the mid 20th century, he and Roland Barthes came together and worked out the way we understand certain words does not depend on so much their meaning that they directly contain, but much more by their direct opposite as they call it 'binary opposites'. They stated that words simply act as symbols for society's ideas and that the meaning of words is a relationship rather than a fixed thing.

This idea can be applied to this 1950s Tide advert. Down the right hand side there are three paragraphs that have more factual information than the rest of the ad. The bold words is red are what Binary Opposites can be applied to. As an audience when we see 'cleanest' we instantly dissociate the binary opposite dirtiest, when we see 'Brightens' we instantly dissociate darkens and so forth.