This chapter begins with a definition of structuralism against the background of other anthropological approaches followed by a brief diachronic sketch. It then reviews some recent contributions, such as Levi-Strauss, Kongas Maranda, Dumont, and Mauss and then focuses on transformational analysis before examining a few testable hypothesis and their verification. The author concludes that the two major results of structural analysis are: (1) the definition of basic mechanisms at work in ideological systems which rests on the construction of homomorphisms (transformations); and (2) the hypothesis that myths, like other major semantic mechanisms, are erogdic systems–in other words, Propp’s approach leads to valid predictions.
