Vilém Mathesius (, 3 August 1882 – 12 April 1945) was a
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
,
literary historian
The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment or education to the reader, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pie ...
and co-founder of the
Prague Linguistic Circle
The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of linguists, philologists and literary critics in Prague. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and ...
. He is considered one of the founders of
structural functionalism
Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is "a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability".
This approach looks at society through a macro-level o ...
in linguistics.
Mathesius was the editor-in-chief of two linguistic journals, ''Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague'' (“Works of the Prague Linguistic Circle”) and ''Slovo a slovesnost'' ("Word and Verbal Art"), and the co-founder of a third, ''Nové Athenaeum.''
His extensive publications in these journals and elsewhere cover a range of topics, including the history of English literature,
syntax
In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...
, Czech
stylistics
Stylistics, a branch of applied linguistics, is the study and interpretation of texts of all types, but particularly literary texts, and spoken language with regard to their linguistic and tonal style, where style is the particular variety of l ...
, and
cultural activism.
In addition to his work in linguistics, in 1912 he founded the department of
English philology at
Charles University
Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...
, which was the first such department in
Czech lands
The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands (, ) is a historical-geographical term which denotes the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia out of which Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic and Slovakia, were formed. ...
.
He remained head of the department until 1939, when the
Nazis closed all Czech universities. The department now exists as a branch of the Faculty of Arts, but it is called the "Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures."
Personal life and education
Vilém was born as the youngest of two sons of Bedřich and Evelina Mathesius. His father was a wealthy tanner in a long line of tanners of
Saxon
The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...
origin, claiming
Martin Luther
Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...
's biographer
Johannes Mathesius as an ancestor.
His cousin,
Bohumil Mathesius, was a poet and translator.
Vilém was born in
Pardubice
Pardubice (; ) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 92,000 inhabitants. It is the capital city of the Pardubice Region and lies on the Elbe River. The historic centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Repub ...
in Eastern
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...
in
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...
(now the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...
). When he was 11, his family moved west to
Kolín
Kolín (; ) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 33,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument reservations, urban monume ...
. There he attended a classic
gymnasium and took particular interest in the study of language, taking classes in
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
,
German, and
French, in addition to his native language of
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
. He also taught himself some
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
and
Russian, and met with the
pastor
A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...
Čeněk Dušek for private lessons in
English.
Dušek also instructed Mathesius in
Calvinism
Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Christian, Presbyteri ...
, the religion which Mathesius actively and devotedly practiced his whole life.
In 1901, Mathesius began his studies of
Germanic and
Romance philology under the
Neogrammarian
The Neogrammarians (, , ) were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change.
Overview
According to the Neogrammarian ...
Jan Gebauer at Charles University in Prague, earning both his B.A. and his PhD there.
The topic of his doctoral dissertation, which he submitted in 1907, was
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (21 April 1828 – 5 March 1893) was a French historian, critic and philosopher. He was the chief theoretical influence on French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practitione ...
's criticism of
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
.
While serving as an assistant teacher of German at a
secondary school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
in
Plzeň
Plzeň (), also known in English and German as Pilsen (), is a city in the Czech Republic. It is the Statutory city (Czech Republic), fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 188,000 inhabitants. It is located about west of P ...
, he wrote his
habilitation thesis
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellen ...
and submitted it in 1909. He spent the next 3 years working at Charles University as a ''
privatdozent
''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...
,'' then in 1912 he was appointed the university's first professor of
Anglistics (English philology), effectively founding the department.
He remained head of the department until Charles University, along with all other Czech universities, was forcibly shut down by the Nazis on
November 17, 1939.
In 1908 Mathesius married Růžena Moravcová with whom he later had a son, Vilém (known as Vilík). Moravcová died unexpectedly in 1933 during a routine operation. Soon after, Mathesius married her sister, Antonia.
Mathesius suffered a number of health problems during his lifetime. In 1922 he contracted an eye disease that eventually left him completely blind. This caused him to rely increasingly on his students, including
René Wellek
René Wellek (August 22, 1903 – November 10, 1995) was a Czech- American comparative literary critic. Like Erich Auerbach, Wellek was a product of the Central European philological tradition and was known as a "fair-minded critic of crit ...
and Bohumil Trnka, to assist him in his teaching, reading, and writing.
Ten years later, in 1932, he was diagnosed with
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
of the vertebrae, which caused him to be bed-ridden for a year and a half (1932–33).
In spite of these ailments, he continued to pursue his studies, teach his classes, and work with the Prague Circle,
until his death in Prague on 12 April 1945.
Work with the Prague Circle
Mathesius first met
Roman Jakobson
Roman Osipovich Jakobson (, ; 18 July 1982) was a Russian linguist and literary theorist. A pioneer of structural linguistics, Jakobson was one of the most celebrated and influential linguists of the twentieth century. With Nikolai Trubetzk ...
, an influential Russian linguist and co-founder of the
Moscow Linguistic Circle, soon after Jakobson's arrival in Prague in 1920.
It was Jakobson who pointed out the need for a center for work and discussion for young linguists in the city, which coincided with Mathesius's patriotic desire to improve the state of scholarship in Czechoslovakia.
However, their plans would not be realized for half a decade.
For a year and a half (March 1925 – October 1926), Mathesius hosted the sporadic and informal gatherings of young linguists that eventually became the
Prague Linguistic Circle
The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of linguists, philologists and literary critics in Prague. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and ...
at his own house.
The first official meeting took place on October 6, 1926, at Mathesius's office.
Henrik Becker, a young German linguist, was the first speaker invited to give a lecture, which was attended by five people (including Mathesius and Jakobson) and followed by a discussion.
The Circle applied for official status in 1930, and Mathesius, as a senior member and well-established academic, served as its president.
The Circle achieved international notice at two linguistic conferences: the First
International Congress of Linguists at
the Hague
The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
in 1928, then the First
International Congress of Slavists in Prague in 1929.
They used these conferences as an opportunity to develop and present a set of ten theses for linguistic research, promoting a "functionalist" approach to the study of language.
Soon after the Prague Congress they issued their first independent publication, two volumes of the journal ''Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague'' ("Works of the Prague Linguistic Circle")'','' of which Mathesius was the editor-in-chief.
In addition, in 1936 the Circle began issuing a Czech periodical called ''Slovo a slovesnost'' ("Word and verbal art"), also with Mathesius as editor-in-chief.
Publication of ''Travaux'' ceased in 1939 due to the onset of World War II, but the journal began to be reissued in 1995 as part of a general effort to revive the Circle. ''Slovo a slovesnost,'' which specializes in structuralist theory and Czech language, now continues (after a brief hiatus from 1942 to 1947) to be published as a quarterly.
Scholarship
Mathesius's scholarly work is typically divided into three periods based on his academic and intellectual focus and his increasing interest in linguistic concerns.
Literary History (1910–1926)
During the early stage of his career, Mathesius's interests were split between literary history and linguistics. He started to assemble a compendium of the history of English literature and managed to publish two volumes (1910–1915) before the loss of his eyesight cut his work short. These works, which cover the
Anglo-Saxon period through the late
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, were foundational in establishing the Anglistics department at the university.
He also wrote a number of articles on
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
and his critics in 1916, the year of Shakespeare's Jubilee.
Alongside his work with literature, he began exploring linguistic theory and questioning the
Neogrammarian
The Neogrammarians (, , ) were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change.
Overview
According to the Neogrammarian ...
emphasis on
diachronic, or historical, linguistics that defined the study of language at his time. In 1911 he presented one of his more famous lectures to the Royal Learned Society, "On the potentiality of the phenomena of language", which anticipates
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure (; ; 26 November 185722 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wi ...
's critical
distinction between ''langue'' and ''parole'' (1916) and emphasizes the importance of the
synchronic
Synchronic may refer to:
* ''Synchronic'' (film), a 2019 American science fiction film starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan
*Synchronic analysis, the analysis of a language at a specific point of time
*Synchronicity, the experience of two or m ...
(in his words, "static") study of language.
The Founding of the Circle (1926–1936)
In his second period of intellectual development, which coincided with the first decade of the Prague Linguistic Circle, Mathesius explored the nature of
syntax
In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...
and
semantics
Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
and also contributed to the Circle's work on
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
, introducing the ideas of
functional load and combining capacity of
phonemes. This is also the point at which he began to develop his idea of
functionalism in contrast to
Saussurean structuralism
Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns t ...
.
Linguistic Functionalism (1936–1945)
The third and final period of Mathesius's work, which lasted until his death, was devoted to
functionalist theories of grammar. He was a leading proponent of this school of thought, although he credits the followers of the Polish linguist
Jan Baudouin de Courtenay
Jan Niecisław Ignacy Baudouin de Courtenay, also Ivan Alexandrovich Baudouin de Courtenay (; 13 March 1845 – 3 November 1929), was a Polish linguist and Slavic studies, Slavist, best known for his theory of the phoneme and allophone, phoneti ...
and the Danish linguist
Otto Jespersen
Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (; 16 July 1860 – 30 April 1943) was a Danish linguist who worked in foreign-language pedagogy, historical phonetics, and other areas, but is best known for his description of the grammar of the English language. Ste ...
with having sowed the seeds of the movement.
Mathesius built up functionalism as an alternative to the approach of the
Neogrammarian
The Neogrammarians (, , ) were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian hypothesis of the regularity of sound change.
Overview
According to the Neogrammarian ...
s, which he criticized as failing to view language as a whole system, overly emphasizing written language at the expense of spoken, and neglecting the role of the speaker/writer in the production of language.
Functionalism remedied these problems, and it also preferred synchronic study over diachronic and favored an analytic approach over a genealogical one.
During this time period, Mathesius also became more concerned with issues of
stylistics
Stylistics, a branch of applied linguistics, is the study and interpretation of texts of all types, but particularly literary texts, and spoken language with regard to their linguistic and tonal style, where style is the particular variety of l ...
, such as
rhythm
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...
and
intonation, in both Czech and English.
The total loss of his eyesight caused him to focus his attention on these aspects of spoken language, because spoken language was now more easily accessible to him.
Throughout his scholarly career and particularly after the
Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Mathesius advocated for
cultural activism, as defined by the first president of Czechoslovakia,
T. G. Masaryk. In Mathesius's mind, cultural activism entailed the revitalization of the Czech national spirit and reform of national holidays, among other things.
He published two major collections on the topic: ''Kulturní aktivismus'' ("Cultural Activism") in 1925, and ''Co daly naše země Evropě a lidstvu'' ("What Our Lands Contributed to Europe and Mankind") in 1940.
Legacy
Mathesius's ideas on linguistic functionalism remained central to the work of the Prague Linguistic Circle and have been expanded upon by modern linguists in many directions. Linguistic approaches to
information structure
In linguistics, information structure, also called information packaging, describes the way in which information is Formal semantics (natural language), formally packaged within a Sentence (linguistics), sentence.Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. ''Informati ...
, including
Functional Sentence Perspective and the
topic-comment dichotomy, have grown out of Mathesius's writings through the work of
Jan Firbas, František Daneš,
Petr Sgall
Petr Sgall (27 May 1926 – 28 May 2019) was a Czech linguist. He specialized in dependency grammar, topic–focus articulation and Common Czech.
Biography
Sgall was born on 27 May 1926 in České Budějovice. His father was an attorney and a ...
, and
Eva Hajičová
Eva Hajičová �ɛva ˈɦajɪt͡ʃovaː(born 23 August 1935) is a Czech linguist, specializing in topic–focus articulation and corpus linguistics. In 2006, she was awarded the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Lifetime Achievem ...
.
Mathesius's ideas also influenced
Michael Halliday
Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (often M. A. K. Halliday; 13 April 1925 – 15 April 2018) was a British linguist who developed the internationally influential systemic functional linguistics (SFL) model of language. His grammatical descri ...
's development of
systemic functional grammar
Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a form of grammatical description originated by Michael Halliday. It is part of a social semiotics, semiotic approach to language called ''systemic functional linguistics''. In these two terms, ''systemic'' ...
.
Critics maintain that Mathesius lacked refined methodology, and that his observations of data could not amount to much because of his reluctance to propose unified theories to account for them.
His work never achieved the international renown of that of his colleagues, possibly because he wrote almost exclusively in Czech.
Mathesius's brainchild, the Prague Circle, did much to elevate and improve Prague's reputation in the academic world and bring it to international attention.
Reflecting on the first ten years of the Circle, Mathesius summed up their contributions: "In foreign linguistics we fought for and won for our group the respectful title of the 'Prague School,' while at home, nobody can, without ill will, deny us the merit of having given many fresh impulses to Czech linguistic and literary research by our new standpoint and our new methods of work."
Although the Circle dissolved in 1949 due to internal political tension, it was revived in 1989 and now works to publish journals, host conferences, and promote academic work in language and linguistics.
Mathesius is memorialized at Charles University by the ''Vilém Mathesius Centre for Research and Education in Semiotics and Linguistics'' and by the ''Vilém Mathesius Foundation for the Promotion of English and American Studies in Prague'', which issues annual awards for the best MA and BA theses in the Department of English and American Studies.
Main works
* ''O potenciálnosti jevů jazykových'' (On the Potentiality of the Phenomena of Language ), 1911, English trans. J. Vachek 1964.
* ''Dějiny literatury anglické I–II'' (The History of English Literature I–II), 1910–1915
* ''Kulturní aktivismus'' (Cultural activism), 1925
* ''On Linguistic Characterology with Illustrations from Modern English'', 1928
ublished in English
* ''Co daly naše země Evropě a lidstvu'' (What our lands contributed to Europe and mankind), 1940
* ''Možnosti, které čekají'' (Possibilities that await), 1944
* ''Obsahový rozbor současné angličtiny na základě obečně lingvistickém'' (A functional analysis of present-day English on a general linguistic basis), 1961 (publ. posthumously)
* ''Jazyk, kultura a slovesnost'' (Language, culture and poetic art), 1982
Citation
It is necessary to subject the language to such simplification that allows further work on it. (source: Vilém Mathesius: Jazyk, kultura a slovesnost (Language, culture and poetic art), 1982
References
Further reading
*
See also
*
Prague Linguistic School
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathesius, Vilem
Linguists from Czechoslovakia
People of the Prague linguistic circle
Writers from Pardubice
1882 births
1945 deaths
20th-century Czech linguists
Linguists of English
Linguists of Slavic languages
Burials at Olšany Cemetery
Cultural activists