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. Lingui ...
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 ...
s and
literary critic
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
s in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
. 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 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. Lingu ...
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, the circle was disbanded in 1952, but the Prague School continued as a major force in
linguistic functionalism
Functional linguistics is an approach to the study of language characterized by taking systematically into account the speaker's and the hearer's side, and the communicative needs of the speaker and of the given language community. Linguistic fun ...
(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
Structuralist film theory is a branch of film theory that is rooted in structuralism, itself based on structural linguistics.
Overview
Structuralist film theory emphasizes how films convey meaning through the use of codes and conventions not dis ...
, especially through the introduction of the
ostensive
Ostension is the act of showing or demonstrating something.
In communication
In communication theory and especially in relevance theory, ''ostensive behaviour'' or ''ostension'' is a behaviour that signals the intention to communicate something. ...
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.
Sergei Karcevskiy
Sergius is a male given name of Ancient Roman origin after the name of the Latin ''gens'' Sergia or Sergii of regal and republican ages. It is a common Christian name, in honor of Saint Sergius, or in Russia, of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, and h ...
, 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 a ...
and Jan Mukařovský. The instigator of the circle, and its first president until his death in 1945, was the Czech linguist Vilém Mathesius.
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 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'' (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 ...
*
Functional generative description Functional generative description (FGD) is a linguistic framework developed at Charles University in Prague since the 1960s by a team led by Petr Sgall. Based on the dependency grammar formalism, it is a stratificational grammar formalism that treat ...
*
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 ...
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.