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,[verbal communication
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 ...]
can be described. Each of the functions has an associated factor. For this work, Jakobson was influenced by
Karl Bühler
Karl Ludwig Bühler (27 May 1879 – 24 October 1963) was a German psychologist and linguist. In psychology he is known for his work in gestalt psychology, and he was one of the founders of the Würzburg School of psychology. In linguistics he ...
's
organon model
The organon model is a model of communication by German psychologist and linguist Karl Ludwig Bühler (1879 – 1963). It was published in German in 1934. and not translated into English until 1990. In it he defined the functions of communicat ...
, to which he added the poetic, phatic and metalingual functions.
The six functions of language
* The ''referential function'': corresponds to the factor of
Context
Context may refer to:
* Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary
Computing
* Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...
and describes a situation, object or mental state. The descriptive statements of the referential function can consist of both definite descriptions and
deictic
In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words ''tomorrow'', ''there'', and ''they''. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their de ...
words, e.g. "The autumn leaves have all fallen now." Similarly, the referential function is associated with an element whose true value is under questioning especially when the truth value is identical in both the real and assumptive universe.
* The ''poetic function'': focuses on "the message for its own sake" (how the code is used) and is the operative function in poetry as well as slogans.
* The ''emotive'' ''function'': relates to the Addresser (sender) and is best exemplified by
interjections
An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...
and other sound changes that do not alter the
denotative meaning of an
utterance
In spoken language analysis, an utterance is a continuous piece of speech, often beginning and ending with a clear pause. In the case of oral languages, it is generally, but not always, bounded by silence. Utterances do not exist in written lang ...
but do add information about the Addresser's (speaker's) internal state, e.g. "Wow, what a view!" Whether a person is experiencing feelings of happiness, sadness, grief or otherwise, they use this function to express themselves.
* The ''conative function'': engages the Addressee (receiver) directly and is best illustrated by
vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numer ...
s and
imperatives, e.g. "Tom! Come inside and eat!"
* The ''
phatic
In linguistics, a phatic expression (, ) is a communication which primarily serves to establish or maintain social relationships. In other words, phatic expressions have mostly socio-pragmatic rather than denotational functions. They can be obse ...
function'': is language for the sake of interaction and is therefore associated with the Contact/Channel factor. The Phatic Function can be observed in greetings and casual discussions of the weather, particularly with strangers. It also provides the keys to open, maintain, verify or close the communication channel: "Hello?", "Ok?", "Hummm", "Bye"...
* The metalingual (alternatively called "metalinguistic" or "reflexive") function: is the use of language (what Jakobson calls "Code") to discuss or describe itself.
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
* {{cite book , last=Sebeok , first=Thomas Albert , author-link=Thomas Albert Sebeok , title=Style in language , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cbY6AAAAMAAJ , editor-last=Jakobson , editor-first=Roman , editor-link=Roman Jakobson , chapter=Closing statements: Linguistics and Poetics , chapter-url=https://monoskop.org/images/8/84/Jakobson_Roman_1960_Closing_statement_Linguistics_and_Poetics.pdf , publisher=
M.I.T. , location=New-York , year=1960 , pages=470
Theories of language
Information theory