Prague Linguistic School The Prague Linguistic Circle was
- Slides: 6
Prague Linguistic School
�The Prague Linguistic Circle was one of the most influential schools of linguistic thought in pre-war linguistics. Through its former members like Roman Jakobson or René Wellek, it influenced modern American linguistics as well as many other linguists in the world. In the spring of 1996, many renowned linguists came to Prague to pay homage to the heritage of the Prague Linguistic Circle and to Roman Jakobson during a conference to 70 Years of Existence of the Prague Linguistic Circle and 100 th Anniversary of Roman Jakobson's Birthday.
Prominent members �Vilém Mathesius �Roman Jakobson �Nikolai Trubetzkoy �René Wellek �Jan Mukařovský �The Prague Linguistic Circle included Russian émigrés such as Roman Jakobson, Nikolai Trubetzkoy, and Sergei Karcevsky, as well as the famous Czech literary scholars René Wellek and Jan Mukařovský. The instigator of the Circle and its first president was the eminent Czech linguist Vilém Mathesius.
Key concepts �The general approach of the Prague school can be described as a combination of functionalism—every component of a language, such as phoneme, morpheme, word, sentence, exists to fulfill a particular function—and structuralism—the context not just the components is what is important. In addition, synchronic and diachronic approaches are seen as interconnected and influencing each other. They regard language as a system of subsystems, each of which has its own problems but these are never isolated since they are part of a larger whole. As such, a language is never in a state of equilibrium, but rather has many deviations. It is these deviations that allow the language to develop and function as a living system.
The Prague School today �Since 1989 under the leadership of Oldřich Leška, the Prague School's activity was renewed, resulting in the publication of the new Travaux in 1995 and a successful conference on 70 Years of PLC in 1996 which also commemorated the 100 th anniversary of Roman Jakobson's birthday. �Prague has become the site of many conferences on linguistics, in particular those organized by the Institute for Applied and Formal Linguistics (UFAL) at Charles University. Eva Hajicova, the director of UFAL, also became co-editor of the Cicle's Travaux.
