Ring linguistic of Prague

The linguistic Circle of Prague or “school of Prague” (in Czech cz '' Pražský lingvistický kroužek '') was a group of Critique influential arts person and linguists of the 20th century. Its members developed methods of literary criticism Sémiotique of 1928 with 1939 which had a significant and durable influence in linguistics and semiotics.

The circle of Prague is composed of Russian emigrants like Roman Jakobson, Nicolaï Troubetzkoy, and Sergeï Karcevski, just like the famous Czech scholars Rene Wellek and Jan Mukařovský. The creator of the circle and its first president is the eminent Czech linguist Vilém Mathesius (president of the PLC until its death in 1945). Roman Jakobson was vice-president.

The work of the group before the Second world war was published in Travaux of the linguistic circle of Prague which represents the most significant contributions to the world congress of the Slavists. It is in these Travaux , written in French, that for the first time the term structure appears, in his linguistic direction. The first delivery of this Manifeste took place in 1929, date on which the circle is made known, at the time of the first international congress of the salvists. It will be the first proclamation of the Structuralisme.

The concept of function in the language is the key notion of work of the circle pragois. It is, in the great diversity of work pragois, the only common point which allows a cohesion of the circle. However, one would not have, as it is very widespread, to compare the linguistic circle of Prague to the invention of the Phonologie. Moreover, the term function has, in work of the circle, two quite different directions, which was resumed and validated thereafter:

the language has a function , i.e. which it is used for something: the diagram of the communication of Jakobson will be, later, a famous formalization;
a language is made up of elements which have or not a function: the Phonème S are used to distinguish from the minimal pairs, which founds the Phonologie, whereas the Phone S are nondiscriminating elements, which founds the Phonétique. The Fonctionnalisme of Trip hammer will take again this distinction.

The circle of Prague would not have however had any merit to redécouvrir the commonplace multimillénaire of the utility of the language: this concept is already present at Plato, and taken again by grammars of the Middle Ages. The originality of the circle pragois is to have articulated this concept of function with the apprehension of the language as a system.

Source of work

According to J. - L. Chiss and C. Puech,

“the function emerges in the current pragois starting from several sources: psychology Gestalt ist would partly inspire the Principes of historical phonology (1931) of Jakobson, which retains that the linguistic form is a function of several variables, giving thus undoubtedly one of its directions to the concept of structure. Husserl - whose certain members of the circle were the pupils - is often quoted with phenomenology, without it being possible to measure a direct influence. ”

Posterity

After the Second world war, the circle disappeared but the school of Prague remains like a major component of the linguistic functionalism. The American academic Dell Hymes introduced functionalism praguois into American linguistic anthropology in his article of 1962 entitled “ The Ethnography off Speaking ”.

The Travaux were briefly included in the Années 1960 to approach the concept postcolonial of “center and periphery” and are again published by John Benjamins. Work of the current Czech group is published in cz '' Slovo has slovesnost ''.

English translations of most important work of the Circle were published by the Czech linguist Josef Vachek in various collections.

External bond

Official site

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