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STRUCTURES OF LANGUAGE AND MYTH: AN ANALYSIS OF A GOONIYANDI TEXT
Author(s) -
Hodge R.,
McGregor W.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1834-4461
pISSN - 0029-8077
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1989.tb00349.x
Subject(s) - mythology , structuralism (philosophy of science) , linguistics , variety (cybernetics) , point (geometry) , sociology , history , computer science , artificial intelligence , literature , philosophy , epistemology , mathematics , art , geometry
In this paper we analyse a text in Gooniyandi (southern Kimberley, Western Australia), a myth about the acquisition of fire. Our analysis, broadly structuralist‐functionalist in orientation, uses a number of complementary modes of myth analysis, including a variety of structuralism which draws on Lévi‐Strauss. Our main point, however, differs from his concerns. It is that the analysis of a myth (indeed, of any text) cannot be pursued independently of its language, and of the linguistic choices implemented by the narrator. Relevant choices include not just lexical, but also grammatical ones, selections of grammatical construction (and patterns in them), not, of course, in the language of translation (English), but in the language of the text. We suggest that our method should be generally applicable to myths in any language.