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4 results for: deconstruction

Deconstructs
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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
de·con·struc·tion    Audio Help   [dee-kuhn-struhk-shuhn] Pronunciation Key
–noun
a philosophical and critical movement, starting in the 1960s and esp. applied to the study of literature, that questions all traditional assumptions about the ability of language to represent reality and emphasizes that a text has no stable reference or identification because words essentially only refer to other words and therefore a reader must approach a text by eliminating any metaphysical or ethnocentric assumptions through an active role of defining meaning, sometimes by a reliance on new word construction, etymology, puns, and other word play.
[Origin: de- + construction]

—Related forms
de·con·struc·tion·ist, adjective, noun
de·con·struc·tive, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
deconstruction

To learn more about deconstruction visit Britannica.com

© 2008 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
de·con·struc·tion    Audio Help   (dē'kən-strŭk'shən)  Pronunciation Key 
n.   A philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth; asserts that words can only refer to other words; and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings: "In deconstruction, the critic claims there is no meaning to be found in the actual text, but only in the various, often mutually irreconcilable, 'virtual texts' constructed by readers in their search for meaning" (Rebecca Goldstein).

de'con·struc'tive adj., de'con·struc'tion·ism n., de'con·struc'tion·ist n. & adj.
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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
deconstruction 
1973, as a strategy of critical analysis, in translations from Fr. of the works of philosopher Jacques Derrida (b.1930).

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

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