La conception de l’idéologie dans Sémantique structurale et au-delà
Nijolé KeršytėIn the context of the theoretical debates of the 1960s and 70s, the notion of ideology was confined to the sphere of politics and associated with the idea of domination and alienation. Assuming a negative meaning, the term was often used as an accusation: ideology was seen as a pathology that must be cured (Francfort School, Aron, Arendt). Against this background, the Greimasian semiotic approach implies that ideology is less of an evil or a deviation than a normal and inevitable social phenomenon – even more, a basis for any purposeful and value-invested human action. Although Greimas’s narrative semiotics uses the term in a strictly metalinguistic sense, its significance transcends grammatical technicalities. It offers what Geertz was looking for – a nonevaluative approach. Leaving aside all moral, accusatory or pejorative connotations of the term, it makes ideology an analytical tool.
