In folklore studies, the view that every folklore item has to have a function. Here the expectation is that every proverb, tale, folk belief or ballad must satisfy some important cultural, social, or psychological function. This view of the functional in folklore is parallel to Bronislaw Malinowski's position that everything in human life must have a function. On a more theoretical level, three kinds of functionalism play an important role in social sciences literature on the topic. The first posits that it is the needs of the psychobiological human entity which is at center stage, the second is a functioning of its components or structures, and the third approach to functionalism posits social cohesion through the commonality of shared mental structures of the "conscience collective". The first of these is represented by the work of Bronislaw Malinowski, the second by the writings of Reginald Radcliffe-Brown, and the third by writings of Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss. Given that a great deal of folklore consists of either beliefs or the oral aspects of culture, it would seem that the works of Durkheim and Mauss are the most significant for many folklorists . Malinowski's biopsychological work, however, is relevant for folklorists who are interested in material folklore.

As one of the great field workers of all time, Malinowski was convinced that every detail of a culture, and this most certainly would include its folklore, had a function. If any social scientist would have the exclusive rights to be called an archfunctionalist, that would certainly be Bronislaw Malinowski. In anthropology, he and Radcliffe-Brown are viewed as the founders of modern functionalism. However, their functionalisms are dramatically different. While Radcliffe-Brown's is a structural functionalism, Malinowski's functionalism is based on human biology and psychology. It must be noted that this biopsychological approach pays close attention to the individual and de-emphasizes the importance of the social system as having a reason of existence beyond that of the individual, i.e. for Malinowski functionalism is a metamorphosis of the seven needs of the individual nutrition, reproduction, bodily comforts, safety, relation, movement, and growth into the secondary needs of society. The needs of the individual are satisfied by the social structure of his culture, whose function it is to satisfy those human needs. In other words, every social institution has a need to satisfy, and so does every item in a culture. For folklorists, this means that even the smallest item one collects, such as a single folk belief, has the function to perform both at the level of the individual and at the level of the society and the culture. Malinowski gives us the ultimate in a functional approach. Much as Malinowski was interested in the individual and biopsychological approaches, Radcliffe-Brown was interested in the functioning of the social structure. Radcliffe-Brown has had significant influence in both anthropology and sociology. The functionalist dimension of Radcliffe-Brown's work, combined with its structural underpinnings, constitutes the foundations of structural functionalism in social anthropology as well as in sociological thought. In a period when American anthropology under Franz Boas' influence was putting increasing emphasis on fieldwork, his main interests remained in generalization and theory. His two major methodological positions were a) that the individual is of no account and that it is only the social system that matters, and b) his use of the organic analogy, both these points have often been rejected in American anthropology. Radcliffe-Brown derived his concept of function from physiology. He believed that the term "function" in the social sciences meant the same process as in biology. A different way of putting this is to say that function is the contribution an element makes to the whole social system. The difference between Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski is, then, that Malinowski started with the individual. Individual needs were incidental to Radcliffe-Brown, who regarded the system of human interactions rather than human beings as being central in a functionalist approach to society. "Structure" refers to a system or organized parts. These parts are individual persons who participate in social life, occupying statuses within the system. The social network is made up of social relationships between individuals of a society. The individual is in turn controlled by norms or patterns. It is the function of folklore to maintain these norms and patterns. It is in his use of the concept of structure, and its maintenance that Radcliffe-Brown made his major contribution to functionalism. His approach is markedly different than Durkheim's or Mauss' view.

The work of Durkheim has had a profound influence on the social sciences; his views on why and how society functions have become an integral part of our intellectual heritage. The main subject that preoccupied Durkheim on this topic throughout his life was that of social solidarity or cohesion. He wanted to understand, more than anything else, how a social unit holds its members together. His used concepts such as organic solidarity and conscience connective to address this question.

In "The Division of Labor in Society" (1893), Durkheim concentrates on increased specialization of individuals as they key to social solidarity. Societies that have a great amount of specialization possess organic solidarity. Here each individual must work with others to survive. On the other hand, societies that have no differentiation of this type are held together by mechanical solidarity. Here individuals have a strong sense of sharing common experiences. However, cooperation with others is not necessary. What binds the group together is the cohesion of common experiences. Folklore is a very important part of this common experience, as every group and subgroup shares a folklore which helps cement the solidarity of the group. An aspect of this can be seen in internally undifferentiated occupational groups in contemporary culture where such groups have their own lore.

Later Durkheim added another explication of social solidarity: that which centers around conscience collective. The meaning of this phrase in English is something like "shared awareness" or "common understanding." Society must be studied by studying social facts which are parts of the shared awareness in a society. For Durkheim social facts are what anthropologists understand to be culture. An example of this can be seen in the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life where Durkheim claims that the totem the sacred object is a representation by which society symbolizes itself. The totem is the society rationalized through religion. Such a belief implies that a totem, like any other symbol, is a collective representation. This value is given to the representation by the society itself. This results in an epistemology that claims that individual knowledge results neither from the "mind" nor from the senses; rather, we know what we know because we learn socially devised "collective representations." Folklore is a group of these representations which comprises this social knowledge and social facts. Durkheim contributed further on this topic with Marcel Mauss.

Two aspects of Mauss' works that have had a major influence on social scientists are his analysis of gift giving and his analysis with Durkheim of primitive classifications. Mauss and Durkheim saw "primitive" classifications of categories of phenomena as being the first scientific classifications known to man; a view not very different than contemporary views about folk belief. They regarded such classificatory systems as systems of cognitive categories. The main function of these classifications is to make the relationship between phenomena understandable. As to gifts, Mauss recognized that gifts are obligatory and a part of a network of social obligations. In other words, gift giving and the repayment of gifts represent responsibilities within the social fabric which contribute to cohesion and social solidarity. The underlying importance of functional approaches for folklore studies is the theoretical contextualization of folklore materials within a conceptual framework which folklorists generally assume but do not attempt to cultivate. In this perspective all folklore materials are a function of a human need, a social and structural necessity, or a device for social cohesion. Functionalism, viewed as Malinowski's biological and psychological given, Radcliffe-Brown's interplay between the structures of society, and Durkheim and Mauss' social cohesiveness or cultural matrix provides folkloristics with a multi faceted theoretical matrix for any item in folklore.

Mark Glazer
McAllen, Texas

Bibliography

Durkheim, Émile

1915 (1912) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. J.W. Swain, trans. London: Allen & Unwin.
1933 (1893) Division of Labor in Society. G. Simpson, trans. New York: Macmillan.
1951 (1897) Suicide. J. Spaulding and G. Simpson, trans. New York: Free Press.

Jarvie, I.C.

1973 Functionalism. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Burgess.

Malinowski, Bronislaw

1922, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, New York, Dutton.
1939, "The Group and the Individual in Functionalist Analysis." American Journal of Sociology, 44: 938-64.
1944, A Scientific Theory of Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Parsons, Talcott

1951 The Social System. Glencoe: The Free Press.

Radcliffe-Brown, Reginald

1935 "On the Concept of Function in Social Science." American Anthropologist, 37: 394-402.
1952 (1940) "On Social Structure." Structure and Function in Primitive Society, New York: The Free Press.
1952 Structure and Function in Primitive Society, New York: The Free Press.

©Mark Glazer, 1996