Binary Opposition in the Proverbs of the Ilami People

Binary opposition is one of the fundamental concepts in the critique of structuralism, and post-structuralism as well as the theories of linguistics and semiotics which are rooted in the mythological and cultural beliefs. Binary opposition shifted from linguistics to cultural studies and was challenged in the postmodern condition eventually. Claude Levi-Strauss espouses a bipolar-oppositional structure to the logic of myth, including proverbs. In his view, the structure of the human mind to understand phenomena puts each continuum in a binary reciprocal polarity. This pervasive mental action will eventually lead to the binary opposition, such as nature and culture. The purpose of the present study, however, is to represent the value binaries in the proverbs of the Ilami people. Due to the reconstructural nature of the case study, the research paradigm was qualitative and the method used was qualitative content analysis. The data is the published books about the proverbs of the Ilami people and some key informants were asked to supplement the information. These people were selected through purposeful sampling and were questioned through semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that the binary value of the Ilami proverbs includes the following general binary oppositions: rational/irrational; collective/individual; dynamism / stagnation; universalism / particularism; order/ disorder; social capital development/ social capital erosion; moderation/ extremism; and justice/ oppression. These binaries consist of more detailed subcategories that represent a society saturated with opposition. The binary oppositions derived from the findings are largely consistent with the Talcot Parsons model variables.