RT list: The Wild Pansy

Is NOT whether Levi-Strauss argued that homosexuality was natural, but
rather ...
 
Levi-Strauss as a code theorist
From online Sperber/Wilson,REMARKS ON RELEVANCE THEORY AND THE SOCIAL
SCIENCES.Multilingua 16 (1997): 145-51]

"All sociological theories either explicitly or implicitly appeal to some
view of communication: any sociological description involves an account of
who communicates what, to whom, when, why, and how. What social scientists
have had to say on the 'how' question has mainly consisted in distinguishing
various media and forms of communication, and showing which are used to
communicate what. The question also needs to be approached at a more
fundamental level, where the issue is, what basic mechanisms make communication
possible at all? To the extent that social scientists have been concerned with
this fundamental issue, they have generally accepted that some version of
the code model explains the very possibility of communication, whatever the
medium. (See, for example, Levi-Strauss 1966; Leach 1976; Hodge & Kress
1988. Brown and Levinson's work on politeness (1987) is a rare exception in
approaching an important aspect of culture from a Gricean point of
view).This is not surprising since, until recently, the code model was the only one
available."
 

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Further references,
Diary of an Edwardian Lady (for 'wild pansy' -- 
 
 
In 1962, Lévi-Strauss published what is for many people his most important  
work, La Pensée Sauvage. The title is a pun untranslatable in English—in  
English the book is known as The Savage Mind, but this title fails to  
capture the other possible French meaning of 'Wild _Pansies_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansy) '. In French pensée means  both 'thought' and 'pansy,' the 
flower, while sauvage means 'wild' as well as  'savage' or 'primitive'. The 
book concerns primitive thought, forms of thought  we all use. (Lévi-Strauss 
suggested the English title be Pansies for  Thought, riffing off a speech by 
_Ophelia_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_(character))  in _Hamlet_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet) .) The French edition to  this day 
retains a flower on the cover. 
The pun on 'pansy' is possibly Italian. The pun by Levi-Strauss, "I don't  
like humans", is possibly French. 
--- Cheers 
JL Speranza