Im Wald der Zeichen

The book is a popular introduction to the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss from a linguistic point of view. It reconstructs, how Lévi-Strauss projects the linguistic and semiotic model of Ferdinand de Saussure on diverse phenomena of so-called primitive cultures in order to demonstrate that these phenomena are structured like languages and that they have the status of signs. After a preliminary sketch of the Saussurean model, the book offers an introduction into Lévi-Strauss' three major fields of research: kinship structures and rules of matrimony; totemism and the savage mind; mythology. The book concludes with a critical presentation of the main characteristics of Lévi-Straussian anthropology.