The “Symbolic Order” achieved its currency in Anglo-Saxon human sciences by way of Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory but originated in Claude Lévi-Strauss's

(1949)

[translated into English as

1969] which used the term to group the many different codes which constitute human societies—from social identities and kinship relations to cooking and feasting rituals and religious observances—in short all cultural practices and inscriptions, whatever their language. Lévi-Strauss showed that patterns we can observe in one level are invariably linked to and determined by similar patterns in other levels. Lévi-Strauss would appear to have derived this theory in part from Ferdinand de Saussure's

718 words

Citation: Clark, Robert. "The Symbolic Order". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 March 2004; last revised 06 January 2009. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1082, accessed 23 November 2024.]