© 2008 Steve Campsall
 

BINARY

OPPOSITION

 

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Binary opposition is a brilliant way of analysing and revealing the full potential meaning of any kind of text whether literary, non-fiction or media language. The technique can show how innocent seeming, 'ordinary' words and phrases can in reality be working at a much deeper and more powerful level that reinforces particular ways of thinking, i.e., it shows how language acts at an ideological level.

Applying the theory can quite easily enable you to analyse many different kinds of text at a very subtle level indeed - a level that can help you gain the highest grades. Whether you are analysing a text for English Literature, English Language or Media Studies you'll find the idea very useful indeed - and if you're a bright GCSE student you might well find the techniques within your grasp.

• The trick when using a tool like this to help your analysis is to use it only to reveal important aspects of the text.

Looking for the 'binary oppositions' that exist in a text (and they exist in all texts) can help uncover the so-called 'hidden' meanings within the text, those that operate almost as a kind of 'subtext' to the more obvious meanings of the text. Binary opposition arose from a major twentieth century 'theory of meaning' which came to be called structuralism. This important idea was developed by various linguists and philosophers such as Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida. These theorists were fascinated by the earlier twentieth century work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and they went on to develop Saussure's work in interesting and useful ways.