ThePrague school orPrague linguistic circle[1] is a language and literature society.[2] It started in 1926 as a group oflinguists,philologists andliterary critics inPrague. Its proponents developed methods ofstructuralist literary analysis[3] and a theory of thestandard 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.[4]
The Prague School has had a significant continuing influence onlinguistics andsemiotics. After theCzechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, the circle was disbanded in 1952, but the Prague School continued as a major force inlinguistic functionalism (distinct from theCopenhagen school or EnglishFirthian – laterHallidean – linguistics). The American scholarDell Hymes cites his 1962 paper "The Ethnography of Speaking" as the formal introduction of Prague functionalism to American linguistic anthropology.[5] The Prague structuralists also had a significant influence onstructuralist film theory, especially through the introduction of theostensive sign.[6]
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.[7]
The Prague linguistic circle included the Russian émigrésRoman Jakobson,Nikolai Trubetzkoy, andSergei Karcevskiy, as well as the famous Czech literary scholarsRené Wellek andJan Mukařovský. The instigator of the circle, and its first president until his death in 1945, was theCzech linguistVilém Mathesius.[8]
In 1929 the Circle promulgated its theses in a paper submitted to the First Congress ofSlavists. "The programmatic 1929 PragueTheses, surely one of the most imposing linguistic edifices of the 20th century, incapsulated [sic] the functionalist credo."[9] In the late 20th century, English translations of the Circle's seminal works were published by the Czech linguistJosef 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. TheTravaux was briefly resurrected in 1966–1971. The inaugural issue was devoted to the political science concept ofcenter and periphery. It was resurrected yet again in 1995. The group's Czech language work is published inSlovo a slovesnost (Word and Literature).
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