Prague linguistic circle

The Prague linguistic circle (or the Prague school) was officially founded in 1930, although Vilém Mathesius (afterwards its long-time president), Bohuslav Havránek, Roman Jakobson, Jan Rypka and Bohumil Trnka had actually founded it as early as 1926. Apart from Czechs, its members also included Russian and Ukrainian immigrants. Its programme was formulated in 1929 by Roman Jakobson, Bohuslav Havránek, Jan Mukařovský and others, titled Theses of the Prague Linguistic Circle. The periodical Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague was also founded and it is still occasionally published. French is still its dominant language, and members have also published papers in German and English as well, which allowed their ideas to be internationally recognised.

In 1930 the Prague linguistic circle organised an international phonological conference in Prague, where the concept of a unique phonological terminology was proposed; it defined such terms as opposition and markedness. The International Phonological Association was founded on the occasion, headed by Nikolai Trubetzkoy. The acclaimed Central European journal Slovo a slovesnost was founded in 1935 and is still published; such figures as František Xaver Šalda and Karel Čapek contributed to it. The circle fell apart after 1950 and was partly replaced by the Linguistic Association and the Circle of Modern Philologists. It was restored in 1990 by Oldřich Leška.

The Prague linguistic circle significantly contributed to the methodology of linguistic and aesthetic disciplines, but also ethnography. Its members developed the methodology of functional linguistics and the Prague school thus became one of the important centres of structuralism. They studied language in its social dimensions as well, developed language functions and communicative situations, as well as functional styles, and they also studied language culture. They took a dynamic view of the synchronic description of language. The school was highly acclaimed by foreign linguists, e.g. in the Netherlands, Great Britain and the USA (e.g. it influenced Noam Chomsky).