Theoretical or Interpretive Approaches to Folklore

The theoretical or interpretive approach to Folklore that I find most compelling is Structuralism. According to this mode of thought, all forms of folklore take on a certain form within the given context of a society. This means that many different genres of folklore have a basic pattern which consists of certain parts that relate to each other to form a structure that is the entirety of a given form of folklore. In other words, all forms of folklore have given parts which fit together to create a formula that is recognizable to anyone who is part of the cultural context in which the given genre exists. This suggests that while each given construct of a genre of folklore is not necessarily culturally specific in that a formula may somehow be universal, each culture does have certain forms that are only understood within a specific cultural context. For example, the concept of a certain kind of joke may exist across cultural lines, yet the actual contents of the joke may only be understood in a certain group. This may be due to the humor of a joke or the general understanding of another given form of discourse to be reliant upon a given form of esoteric knowledge. In addition to this, narrative forms often fit into a given formula based on the type style, form, and aims of a given narrative. This means many commonalities can be found in the structural forms of narratives based on the reason for the composition of the narrative. In my view, Structuralism is in fact a great mode of interpreting verbal and literary forms of folklore through semiotic codes, but it seems that it is a bit more difficult to detect such formulas in other genres of folklore while still focusing on its relevance and function within a given context. This means that structuralism seems to focus more on the concept of classifying and understanding type of folklore rather than on the way that a given text was given cultural significance by being interrelated to other facets of a social group.

This blog entry is my response to the Chapter Six Reflection Question