Theretical school in French anthropology, founded by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Like British structural functionalism, structuralism builds in part on the work of Durkheim and Mauss, but Lévi-Strauss was also inspired by linguistic and semiotic theories of meaning (Saussure, Jakobson). There are particularly two themes that dominate in structuralist thinking: (1) the emphasis on meaning and symbolism, particularly the subconscious aspects of meaning, and (2) the emphasis on exchange. Empirically, the structuralists have done much work with myth and kinship. While the structural functionalists concentrated on social structure, the structuralists focused on structures of meaning. (See also neo-marxism, postmodernism.)