The Contribution of the Prague School to the Study of Language Short Summary

The Prague Linguistic Circle represented an important moment in the development of phonology, structuralism, and linguistics in general. It prepared the grounds for research and the subsequent evolution of linguistics. This paper attempts to provide a general view of what the Prague School meant for linguistics. It aims to give a survey of the activity and contributions made by the Prague Linguistic Circle.

The paper focuses on the novelty that the most important members of the Prague Linguistic Circle brought to linguistics. It points out the importance of the Prague School moment in the history of linguistics. The Prague Linguistic Circle began in 1926, the official year of its members’ first meeting, and the “so-called” classical period in the circle’s activity. However, the preoccupations and research of its members before this period should not be ignored.

These earlier preoccupations and research provided the material for the papers and works that were later written and published by the members of the Prague School. They represented the foundations on which further research was built. The circle’s roots can be traced back to 1911 when Vilem Mathesius, who later became an important member of the circle, independently predicted the synchronic study of language, without any connection to Ferdinand de Saussure.

The preoccupations and research of the circle’s members did not emerge out of nothing. They set out with a solid foundation behind them. The forerunners of the Prague Linguistic Circle were Ferdinand de Saussure’s “Course in General Linguistics” and the Moscow Linguistic Circle, founded in 1915. The members of the Moscow Linguistic Circle were interested in and dealt with problems regarding language and linguistics. The sources on which its members’ studies were based were the works of Ferdinand de Saussure and Baudouin de Courtenay.

Due to historical background and events, such as the October Revolution in Russia, the members of the Moscow Linguistic Circle were forced to leave Russia and continue their activity elsewhere. Roman Jakobson and Nicholay Serghey Trubetzkoy fled to Czechoslovakia, where they joined the Prague Linguistic Circle. Besides the scholars of Russian origin, the Prague Linguistic Circle also counted among its founding members personalities such as Vilem Mathesius, Seghey Karcevsky, and Jan Mukarovsky.

In the 1930s, younger members joined the circle, including Rene Wellek and Felix Vodicka, and many visitors, among whom Emile Benveniste had the opportunity to present papers in the circle. The circle united scholars who wrote and published their papers in German, French, Russian, and Czech. They had the same preoccupations and interests without creating or using the same language. Up to that point, mention should be made of an important aspect in the activity of the circle, namely its multilingualism.

Moreover, not only did the Prague Linguistic Circle benefit from the former activity of the Moscow Linguistic Circle, but it also inherited the legacy left in the field of language by Ferdinand de Saussure. All of these factors turned the Prague Linguistic Circle into one of the most influential, multilingual, and important schools of linguistics before the war. In 1928, at the first International Congress of Linguistics organized in The Hague, the Prague participants presented the Prague Circle program, which was drafted by Roman Jakobson and co-signed by Nicholay Sergey Trubetzkoy and Seghey Karcevsky. A year later, in 1929, at The First International Congress of Slavicists held in Prague, the Prague scholars launched the “Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague,” where they recorded and published the results of their efforts. The first volume of “Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague,” entitled “Theses du Cercle Linguistique de Prague,” sets out the principles of the new linguistics, a structural linguistics.

The war broke out with the consequences it brought about. One of the consequences was the non-stimulating intellectual background, and the lack of intellectual incentives, with Czech universities being closed by the Nazis. The members of the circle had time to make public their ideas and their program, but after the outbreak of the war, the circle could not properly continue its activity and toned it down. They continued to meet in private places until 1945 when they could publicly resume their activities. By this time, they had already lost some important members, either due to natural death (Nicholay Sergey Trubetzkoy and Vilem Mathesius) or due to exile (Roman Jakobson, who had fled to the United States of America).

However, even with the interruptions caused by the war, no area of language remained unexploited by the members of The Prague Linguistic Circle. As regards linguistics, the members of the circle laid down important concepts and theories, such as the approach to the study of language as a synchronic system, the functionality of elements of language, and the importance of the social function of language. In the field of linguistics, they were greatly influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure and his incipient structuralism.

Structuralism is unanimously believed to have appeared in 1916 when Ferdinand de Saussure’s “Course in General Linguistics” was published, and Ferdinand de Saussure is considered the father of structuralism. He left a legacy that greatly influenced linguistics in general, and the first to be influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure were the members of the Prague Linguistic Circle. It is the Prague School, with its exceptionally prolific scholar Roman Jakobson, that is responsible for coining the term “structuralism” in 1929. One can detect much of Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory in the earlier works of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Baudouin de Courtenay.

Ferdinand de Saussure’s structuralism is found in his two dichotomies: langue vs. parole and form vs. substance. Saussure defines langue as the totality of regularities and patterns of formation that underlie the utterances of a language, while parole represents language behavior. This is what Wilhelm von Humboldt and Baudouin de Courtenay referred to when they made the distinction between inner and outer form. The members of the Prague Linguistic Circle approached language systematically and structurally, and they defined language as a system of signs.

This is how Trubetzkoy, an important member of the circle, conceived the definition of language: “A phonological system is not a mechanical sum of isolated phonemes, but an organic whole of which the phonemes are the members, and whose structure is subject to laws.” In studying language, the Prague scholars took into account and attached great importance to external factors (political, social, and geographical). A strong emphasis was placed on the functions of language, including both the function of language in the act of communication and the role of language in society.

Linguists of the Prague Circle stressed the function of elements within language, the contrast of language elements to one another, and the total pattern or system formed by these contrasts, and they distinguished themselves in the study of the sound system. Prague structuralism is functionalistic, approaching language from the perspective of the functions performed by it. The Prague School became famous for its interest in the application of functionalism, the study of how elements of a language accomplish cognition, expression, and conation.

This combination of structuralism with functionalism is yet another contribution to modern linguistics. Starting from Karl Buhler’s tripartite system (emotive, conative, and referential), Roman Jakobson developed a model of the functions of language, which had a decisive influence on literary theory. Another distinction made by Ferdinand de Saussure and adopted by the members of the Prague Linguistic Circle is synchrony-diacrony. Ferdinand de Saussure made the distinction between diachronic and synchronic linguistics, maintaining that synchronic linguistics should deal with the structure of a language at a given point in time, while diachronic linguistics should be concerned with the historical development of isolated elements. To support this distinction, he argued that in the language system, there are only differences without positive terms, and every element derives its identity from its distinction to other elements in the same system. What the members of the Prague Linguistic Circle did was to try to reconcile Ferdinand de Saussure’s opposition of synchrony and diachrony.

In supporting this Vilem Mathesius pointed out the positive and negative aspects of descriptive and historical research and Roman Jakobson taking into account Saussure`s theory stated that Saussure tried to suppress the tie between the system of a language and its modifications by considering the system as exclusively belonging to synchrony and assigning modifications to the sphere of diachrony alone. Moreover Jakobson showed that, as indicated in the different social sciences, the concepts of a system and its change are not only compatible but also indissolubly tied.

The Prague School is basically associated with its phonology, with its phonologically relevant functions: expressive and demarcative and with the theory of oppositions which its members (Trubetzkoy) provided linguistics with. In fact, the distinction between phonetics and phonology is associated with The Prague Linguistic Circle. In the field of phonology two members of the circle stand out: Roman Jakobson and Nicholay Serghey Trubetzkoy, both of Russian origin and both former members of the Moscow Linguistic Circle.

The circle`s preoccupations in phonetics and phonology date from the outset of its coming into being. At the International Congress of Linguistics, held in 1928, the members of the Prague Linguistic Circle presented the famous Proposition 22, which became the manifesto of the circle. This program of the Prague Linguistic Circle changed the development of the European linguistics and marked the beginning of a new science- phonology. This new science operates with concepts, which are to become important for analytical grammar: opposition, synchrony, diachrony, marked, unmarked.

Phonology represented yet another contribution brought by the Prague Linguistic Circle. It introduced new concepts, which were further inherited by linguists and linguistics. This is how phonology is described by its founders: ‘’Toute description scientifique de la phonologie d’une langue doit avant tout comprendre la caracteristique du repertoire, propre a cette langue, des differences significatives entre les images acoustico- motrices. (…) La phonologie comparee a a formuler les lois generales qui regissent les rapports des correlations dans les cadres d`un systeme phonologique donne.

L`antinomie de la phonologie synchronique et de la phonetique diachronique se trouverait etre supprimee du moment que les changements phonetiques seraient consideres en fonction du systeme phonologique qui les subit. Le probleme du but dans lequel ces changements ont lieu doit etre pose. La phonetique historique se transforme ainsi en une histoire de l`evolution d`un systeme phonologique. D`autre part, le probleme du finalisme des phenomenes phonetiques fait, que dans l`etude du cote exterieur de ces phenomenes, c`est l`analyse acoustique qui doit ressortir au premier plan. 3. As it is conceived by the members of the circle, phonology has the following tasks: to identify the characteristics of particular phonological systems in terms of the language particular range of significant differences among “acoustico-motor images”; to specify the types of differences that can be found in general; to formulate laws governing the relations of these correlations to one another within particular phonological systems; to found phonetic studies on acoustic rather than articulatory basis.

Trubetzkoy chiefly contributed to phonology and phonological theory. He signed the birth certificate of functional phonology. He made the distinction between phonetics and phonology by taking into account the criterion of function, and he also formulated the principles of phonology. It is also Trubetzkoy who provided the school’s most encompassing and thorough work on phonology: “Principles of Phonology.” In separating phonetics from phonology and phoneme from sound, Trubetzkoy adopted Ferdinand de Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole.

Trubetzkoy defined the phoneme as a set of distinctive features, and he linked the concept of neutralization with the distinction marked/unmarked. According to his theory, when two phonemes are distinguished by the presence/absence of a single distinctive feature, one of them is marked, and the other is unmarked. Not only is he responsible for coining and circulating the concepts of neutralization and archiphoneme, but he also laid stress on the concept of phonological opposition and founded a new theory, the theory of opposition. However, Trubetzkoy did not develop this theory without a solid ground behind him.

Once again, they turned to Ferdinand de Saussure’s “Course in General Linguistics.” It is Ferdinand de Saussure who creates and initiates this term of opposition: “De indata ce comparam intre ele semnele-termeni pozitivi-, nu mai putem vorbi de diferenta; expresia ar fi improprie, pentru ca ea nu se aplica bine decit comparatiei dintre doua imagini acustice, de exemplu tata si mama, sau la cea dintre doua idei, de exemplu ideea de „tata” si ideea de „mama”; doua semne ce comporta fiecare un semnificat si un semnificant nu sunt diferite; ele sunt numai distincte.

Intre ele nu exista decit opozitie. Intreg mecanismul limbajului, despre care vom vorbi mai departe, se bazeaza pe opozitii de acest gen si pe diferentele fonice sau conceptuale pe care le implica ele” 4. Trubetzkoy did more than Saussure. In analyzing oppositions, he stated that oppositions suppose a base of comparison, similarity, and properties, which are different. It is he who distinguished different types of oppositions, who gave a classification of oppositions and extensive examples of the different oppositions of various languages. Along with Roman Jakobson, Trubetzkoy attached great importance to the oppositions among phonemes rather than to phonemes themselves. For Roman Jakobson, oppositions represent the constitutive features of relations among phonemes. Jakobson initiated the theory of binary oppositions by which he states that the system of linguistic units depends on the idea of difference, and the idea of difference depends on binary opposites.

This is how Jakobson describes the system of binary oppositions: “L’ensemble de choix par oui ou non qui est sous-jacent a chaque faisceau de ces traits discrets par le linguiste: ces choix sont reelement effectues par le destinataire du message chaque fois que les suggestions du contexte, verbal ou non verbalise, ne rendent pas inutile la reconnaissance des traits.” 5 Jakobson’s contribution to linguistics and phonetics can be represented by concepts such as feature, binary, redundancy, universals, and by his rich publishing activity.

The Prague phonology, concepts, and theory did not remain without an echo. Its contribution and manifesto changed the direction of the development of European phonology. Notions and concepts developed in Prague phonology, such as markedness, were subsequently extended to morphology and syntax. The most important and valuable contribution of the Prague Linguistic Circle after the war was brought by Vilem Mathesius in the field of syntax, namely the distinction he made between theme and rheme. He tried to surpass phonology and to study grammar, especially syntax.

Vilem Mathesius approached and analyzed the sentence from a functional perspective. He stated that the sentence has two parts: the theme and the rheme. By the theme of a sentence, it is meant the part that refers to what is already known or given in the context, while the rheme is the part that conveys new information. Although this contribution represents the school’s last efforts to tackle and conquer another area of linguistics, syntax, Mathesius’ work and terminology remained unknown and without an echo in the world of linguistics.

In 1948, Prague scholars went public for the last time, the year when the last lecture of the circle took place. It is also the year when the school’s last representative works, Vodicka’s monograph “The Beginnings of Czech Artistic Prose,” and the three-volume edition of Mukarovsky’s selected works “Chapters from Czech Poetics” were published. The Prague Linguistic Circle greatly contributed to the way linguistics developed by coining new concepts and theories and providing rich material for the following generations of linguists. Their works and papers are widely consulted nowadays, such as Trubetzkoy’s “Principles of Phonology,” Roman Jakobson’s “Comments on Phonological Change in Russian Compared with that in Other Slavic Languages” (1929), and “Characteristics of the Eurasian Language Affinity” (1931). The Prague School’s linguistics, theory, and activity influenced and changed the character of European linguistics.

Trubetzkoy’s contributions were inherited and further elaborated by Andre Martinet, who founded the functionalist school and developed functionalist linguistics. The new concepts and theories launched by The Prague Linguistic Circle became key concepts in linguistics. So happened with the concept of neutralization and the theory of markedness, which were inherited by generative grammar. It anticipated and supported the emergence of new movements in linguistics. Prague scholars provided the first systematic formulation of semiotic structuralism.

Semiotics emerged from the structuralism of the Prague Linguistic Circle. The members of the Prague Linguistic Circle were the first to claim that literary history had to be based on literary theory, and they were also the first to develop a comprehensive theory of literary history. Without the Prague School, the image of twentieth-century structuralism and linguistics would be incomplete, both historically and theoretically. They made innovations and contributions not only to the development of linguistics but also to the development of phonetics, phonology, and syntax.

Notes:

1. Ionescu, Emil – Manual de lingvistica generala, Editura All, Bucuresti, 1997, p. 86.
2. La phonologie actuelle in Psihologie du langage, Paris, 1923, p. 245 apud Maria Manoliu Manea, Structuralismul lingvistic, p. 87.
3. Actele Primului Congres International al Lingvistilor de la Haga, p. 33 apud Maria Manoliu Manea, Structuralismul lingvistic, p. 26-27.
4. Saussure, Ferdinand de – Curs de lingvistica generala, Editura Polirom, Iasi, 1998, p. 133.
5. Jakobson, Roman – Essais, p. 92 apud Maria Manoliu Manea, Structuralismul lingvistic, p. 133.

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