The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
s,
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and a theory of the standard language and of language cultivation from 1928 to 1939. The linguistic circle was founded in the Café Derby in Prague, which is also where meetings took place during its first years.
The Prague School has had a significant continuing influence on
linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...
and
semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
. After the
Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948
Czechoslovak may refer to:
*A demonym or adjective pertaining to Czechoslovakia (1918–93)
**First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–38)
** Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938–39)
**Third Czechoslovak Republic (1948–60)
**Fourth Czechoslovak Repu ...
, the circle was disbanded in 1952, but the Prague School continued as a major force in linguistic functionalism (distinct from the Copenhagen school or English Firthian – later Hallidean – linguistics). The American scholar Dell Hymes cites his 1962 paper, "The Ethnography of Speaking," as the formal introduction of Prague functionalism to American linguistic anthropology.
The Prague structuralists also had a significant influence on structuralist film theory, especially through the introduction of the ostensive sign.
Today the Prague linguistic circle is a scholarly society which aims to contribute to the knowledge of language and related sign systems according to functionally structural principles. To this end, it organizes regular meetings with lectures and debates, publishes professional publications, and organizes international meetings.
History
The Prague linguistic circle included the Russian émigrés
Roman Jakobson
Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18,Nikolai Trubetzkoy
Prince Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy ( rus, Никола́й Серге́евич Трубецко́й, p=trʊbʲɪtsˈkoj; 16 April 1890 – 25 June 1938) was a Russian linguist and historian whose teachings formed a nucleus of the Prague Schoo ...
, and Sergei Karcevskiy, as well as the famous Czech literary scholars
René Wellek
René Wellek (August 22, 1903 – November 10, 1995) was a Czech- American comparative literary critic. Like Erich Auerbach, Wellek was an eminent product of the Central European philological tradition and was known as a vastly erudite and ...
and
Jan Mukařovský
Jan Mukařovský (11 November 1891 – 8 February 1975) was a Czech literary, linguistic, and aesthetic theorist.
Mukařovský was professor at the Charles University of Prague. He is well known for his association with early structuralism as we ...
. The instigator of the circle, and its first president until his death in 1945, was the
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
linguist
Vilém Mathesius
Vilém Mathesius (, 3 August 1882 – 12 April 1945) was a Czech linguist, literary historian and co-founder of the Prague Linguistic Circle. He is considered one of the founders of structural functionalism in linguistics.
Mathesius was the edi ...
.
In 1929 the Circle promulgated its theses in a paper submitted to the First Congress of Slavists. "The programmatic 1929 Prague ''Theses'', surely one of the most imposing linguistic edifices of the 20th century, incapsulated icthe functionalist credo."Luelsdorf, Philip A. (1983). On Praguian functionalism and some extensions. In Josef Vachek, Libuše Dušková, (eds.). ''Praguiana: Some Basic and Less Known Aspects of The Prague Linguistic School''. John Benjamins. Linguistic and literary studies in Eastern Europe; 12. p. xvi In the late 20th century, English translations of the Circle's seminal works were published by the Czech linguist
Josef Vachek Josef may refer to
*Josef (given name)
*Josef (surname) Josef is the surname of the following people:
* Jens Josef (born 1967), German composer of classical music, a flutist and academic teacher
* Michelle Josef (born 1954), Canadian musician and tr ...
in several collections.
Also in 1929, the group launched a journal, ''Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague''. World War II brought an end to it. The ''Travaux'' was briefly resurrected in 1966–1971. The inaugural issue was devoted to the political science concept of center and periphery. It was resurrected yet again in 1995. The group's Czech language work is published in ''
Slovo a slovesnost ''Slovo a slovesnost'' ("Word and word art"), is a Czech linguistic scholarly journal published four times a year by the Language Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It was founded in 1935 by the Prague Linguistic Circle.
It is one of the ...
'' (Word and Literature).
Members
See also
*
Czech studies
Bohemistics, also known as Czech studies, is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates Czech language and literature in both its historic and present-day forms. The common Czech name for the field is ''bohemistika''. A res ...
Markedness
In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...
*
Moscow linguistic circle
The Moscow linguistic circle was a group of social scientists in semiotics, literary theory, and linguistics active in Moscow from 1915 to ca. 1924. Its members included Filipp Fortunatov (its founder),OPOJAZ
* Russian formalism
*
Topic and comment
In linguistics, the topic, or theme, of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic. This division into old vs. new content is called information structure. It is generally a ...
References
Bibliography
* Luelsdorf, Philip A. (1983). On Praguian functionalism and some extensions. In Josef Vachek, Libuše Dušková, (eds.). ''Praguiana: Some Basic and Less Known Aspects of The Prague Linguistic School''. John Benjamins. Linguistic and literary studies in Eastern Europe; 12. pp. xi-xxx.
* Sériot, Patrick (2014). ''Structure and the Whole: East, West and Non-Darwinian Biology in the Origins of Structural Linguistics''. (Semiotics, Communication and Cognition 12.) Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
* Toman, Jindřich (1995). ''The Magic of a Common Language: Jakobson, Mathesius, Trubetzkoy, and the Prague Linguistic Circle.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.