Structural

结构的

A term used in linguistics referring to any approach to the analysis of language that pays explicit attention to the way in which linguistic features can be described in terms of structures and systems (structural or structuralist linguistics). In the general Saussurean sense, structuralist ideas enter into every school of linguistics. Structuralism does, however, have a more restricted definition, referring to the Bloomfieldian emphasis on the processes of segmenting and classifying the physical features of utterance (i.e. on what Noam Chomsky later called surface structures), with little reference to the abstract underlying structures (Chomsky’s deep structures) of language or their meaning.

The contribution of this notion in linguistics is apparent in the more general concept of structuralism. Here, any human institution or behaviour (e.g. dancing, courtship, religion) is considered analysable in terms of an underlying network of relationships, and the structures demonstrated referrable to basic modes of thought. The crucial point is that the elements which constitute a network have no validity apart from the relations (of equivalence, contrast, etc.) which hold between them, and it is this network of relations which constitutes the structures of the system.

语言学用来指任何一种注重用结构和系统明确描写语言特征的语言分析方法（结构）或结构主义语言学。一般的索绪尔式的结构主义思想已溶入语言学的每一个学派。但是结构主义还有一个较狭窄的定义，指的是布龙菲尔德式的方法，即强调话段（乔姆斯基后来称作表层结构的）有形特征的切分和分类程序，不怎么考虑语言抽象的底层机构（乔姆斯基的深层结构）或其意义。

这一概念对语言学的贡献明显地体现在更一般的概念结构主义中。按这一概念，任何人类制度或行为（例如舞蹈、求爱、宗教）都被认为可用一个底层的关系网络来分析，而证明存在的各种结构都可归因于一些基本思维方式。其最重要的观点是，组成一个网络的各个成分除了它们之间持有的各种关系（等值、对立关系等）外没有其他存在的理由，而正是这种关系网络构成系统的各个结构。