Tar!K______ 1
The Impact of Structuralism on Some Schools of Linguistics
1- Prague School
The "Prague School" was an influential group of linguists and literary critics in Prague. It was
established in October 1926 on the initiative of Velim Mathesius (1882-1945). Around Mathesius,
and as a response to his call for a new non-historical approach to the study of language, there came
into existence a circle of like-minded scholars. What is called Prague School today is a body of
linguists, including “several post-war generations of pupils of such masters of their trade as Vilém
Mathesius, Vladimír Skalička, Bohuslav Havránek, Bohumil Trnka or Roman Jakobson.”
(Salih, 2009).
The school main aim was to clarify the function of the various elements of actual
utterances.
The function of language in the act of communication and the role of language in society,
the function of language in literature and the problem of the different aspects and levels of
language from a functional standpoint. (Garvin, 1969, p. 261)
Prague school linguists originated aspects of modern phonological theory, drew sociolinguistic
distinctions between various aspects of language use, and devised the concept of analyzing both speech
sounds and word meanings into ultimate components transcending individual languages (Salih, 2009).
Prague school research interests into five general areas (Salih, 2009):
• Phonology and its theoretical and methodological implications: including functional loads and
diachronic phonology, distinctive features in synchronic and diachronic phonology, and the
distinction between phonetics and phonology.
• Functional discourse analysis: which subsumes subdivisions: sign-oriented research and
sentence-oriented research
• Aspects of literary criticism
• The Sociological and ethnographical concerns of language
• Semiotic approach to the arts
2- London School
The London School founded by John Rupert Firth (1890-1960), deviates from the other schools by giving
priority of form over meaning, a fact which differentiates it most sharply from the Bloomfieldians. In fact,
Firth approached the whole systematic nature of language in an unparalleled way. Whereas other schools
conceived of language system as consisting small set of largely independent sub-systems (phonology,
morphology, syntax and suprasegmentals), for Firth, language was ‘polysynthetic’, incorporating an infinite
number of interdependent micro-systems which overlap the traditional levels of analysis (Palmer, 1995).
The Impact of Structuralism on Some Schools of Linguistics
1- Prague School
The "Prague School" was an influential group of linguists and literary critics in Prague. It was
established in October 1926 on the initiative of Velim Mathesius (1882-1945). Around Mathesius,
and as a response to his call for a new non-historical approach to the study of language, there came
into existence a circle of like-minded scholars. What is called Prague School today is a body of
linguists, including “several post-war generations of pupils of such masters of their trade as Vilém
Mathesius, Vladimír Skalička, Bohuslav Havránek, Bohumil Trnka or Roman Jakobson.”
(Salih, 2009).
The school main aim was to clarify the function of the various elements of actual
utterances.
The function of language in the act of communication and the role of language in society,
the function of language in literature and the problem of the different aspects and levels of
language from a functional standpoint. (Garvin, 1969, p. 261)
Prague school linguists originated aspects of modern phonological theory, drew sociolinguistic
distinctions between various aspects of language use, and devised the concept of analyzing both speech
sounds and word meanings into ultimate components transcending individual languages (Salih, 2009).
Prague school research interests into five general areas (Salih, 2009):
• Phonology and its theoretical and methodological implications: including functional loads and
diachronic phonology, distinctive features in synchronic and diachronic phonology, and the
distinction between phonetics and phonology.
• Functional discourse analysis: which subsumes subdivisions: sign-oriented research and
sentence-oriented research
• Aspects of literary criticism
• The Sociological and ethnographical concerns of language
• Semiotic approach to the arts
2- London School
The London School founded by John Rupert Firth (1890-1960), deviates from the other schools by giving
priority of form over meaning, a fact which differentiates it most sharply from the Bloomfieldians. In fact,
Firth approached the whole systematic nature of language in an unparalleled way. Whereas other schools
conceived of language system as consisting small set of largely independent sub-systems (phonology,
morphology, syntax and suprasegmentals), for Firth, language was ‘polysynthetic’, incorporating an infinite
number of interdependent micro-systems which overlap the traditional levels of analysis (Palmer, 1995).
