Deconstruction

An analytic strategy most closely associated with poststructuralism and postmodernism and popularized by the work of Jacques Derrida, deconstruction grew out of the hermeneutic tradition (especially of Heidegger) of analysis of texts and is based on the assumption that language is ambiguous, indeterminant, and replete with taken-for-granted meanings. Deconstruction is the demystification of language by examining what is said, what is not said, what is obscured or hidden, and by considering oppositional positions (often defined as binary opposites such as good-evil, right-wrong, male-female) in their broader context. Take, for example, a common cultural claim, such as “the book is always better than the movie,” then consider the claim that Disney's Winnie the Pooh movies are better than the book. Deconstruction would examine this statement in ...