The Prague Linguistic Circle

Abstract

The Prague linguistic circle was founded in 1926 by Vilém Mathesius (b. 1882–d. 1945), professor of Anglistics at the Charles University of Prague, who acted as its president until his death. Other members of the circle were the Russian Roman Jakobson (b. 1896–d. 1982) and the Czechs Bohuslav Havránek (b. 1893–d. 1978) and Bohumil Trnka (b. 1895–d. 1984), the latter its first secretary. Among the foreign members, those most connected with the circle were the Russian Sergej Karcevskij (b. 1884–d. 1955), a former student of Ferdinand de Saussure’s and Charles Bally’s in Geneva, and Nikolai S. Trubetzkoy (also transliterated as Troubetzkoy or Trubeckoj; b. 1890–d. 1938), professor at the University of Vienna. About Trubetzkoy and his work, see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics article “Nikolai Trubetzkoy.” Several other linguists were also in close contact with the Prague circle: for example, the Dutchman Albert Willem de Groot (b. 1892–d. 1963) or the Frenchmen Lucien Tesnière (b. 1893–d. 1954) and André Martinet (b. 1908–d. 1999). Two younger Czech members of the circle were Vladimir Skalička (b. 1909–d. 1991) and Josef Vachek (b. 1909–d. 1996), the latter of whom became the first historiographer of the circle. The Prague linguists also held mutual relationships with other scholars, among whom Karl Bühler (b. 1879–d. 1963), professor of psychology at the University of Vienna. Prague circle members also devoted much attention to the problem of literary and poetic language; the most-outstanding contributions in this field are by Jan Mukařovský (b. 1891–d. 1975). The “golden age” (or “classical period”) of the Prague linguistic circle ended in 1939, after Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. The activity of the circle did not completely stop even during war years (1939–1945), but it was severely hindered after 1948, when it was charged as being of a “bourgeois” character by the Communist regime. The circle virtually ceased to operate in 1952, without formally dissolving. Some of its research topics have been renewed since the 1960s by its original members still living in Czechoslovakia, and by a new generation of scholars. The circle was restored in 1990 and is still active. Prague linguists (often also labeled “Prague linguistic school” or just “Prague school”) are normally considered as the initiators of linguistic functionalism; namely, of the attempt to explain the structures of language on the basis of its function as a means of communication. This article almost exclusively refers to the “classical” period of the activity of the circle, only occasionally mentioning the subsequent years. The first sections list and describe the “programmatic” works by the Prague linguists; the following sections present their contributions to the general theory of language and to specific linguistic domains (phonology, syntax, etc.), and the final sections deal with the critical literature on the Prague school.