Structuralism

Metalanguage

A language (words) used to describe or talk about language.

Sign

A linguistic term used to denote the definition for a word.

Phenomenology

A modern philosophical tendency that emphasizes the perceiver; objects exits and achieve meaning if and only if we register them on our consciousness.

Binary oppositions

A series of differences often pictures as a fraction, the top half being what is more valued than its related bottom half (e.g. good/evil).

Literary theory

A set of principles or assumptions on which our interpretation of a text is based; our conscious or unconscious development of a mindset - including values, aesthetic sense, and morals - concerning our expectations when reading any type of literature.

Intertextuality

A term denoting that any given text's meaning or interpretation is related or interrelated to the meaning of all other texts.

Signified

A term used to denote the concept portion of a word.

Signifier

A term used to denote the spoken or written constituent of a word.

Reception theory

An approach that derives a text's meaning from the present reader's personal response and from a critical examination of the history of the reception of the text through time, including contemporary critics and critics living t the present moment.

Structuralism

An approach to literary analysis that offers a scientific view of how we achieve meaning not only in literary analysis but in all forms of communication and social behavior; claims codes, signs, and rules govern all social and cultural practices, including language and literature.

Literary competence

An internalized set of rules that govern a reader's interpretation of a text.

Texts

Anything that can be "read" or interpreted; ranges from oral and written literature to TV shows and advertisements.

Reader oriented criticism

Asserts that the reader is active, not passive, during the reading process; both the reader and the text transact; the text acts as a stimulus for eliciting various experiences, thoughts, and ideas of the reader.

Identity theme

Received from out of mothers at birth; personalized through each of our life's experiences; becomes the lens through which we view the world.

Close reading

A detailed analysis of the text itself to arrive at an interpretation.

Literary criticism

A disciplined activity that attempts to study, analyze, interpret, and evaluate works of art.

Organic unity

Declares each part of a text reflects and helps support the text's central idea; no part of a text is superfluous, but similar to a living organism, each part serves to enhance the whole.

Interpretive community

Designates a group of readers who share the same interpretive strategies.

Tension

Designates the oppositions or conflicts operating within a text.

Narratology

Illustrates how a story's meaning develops from its overall structure rather than from each individual story's isolated theme; emphasizes grammatical elements such as verb tenses and configurations of figures of speech within the story.