Structural Schools in Europe

1. Structural Schools in Europe

Structuralist ideas have gained a wide recognition in Europe following Saussure’s death. Many linguistic schools in Europe promoted structuralism, especially in Geneva, Prague, London, Copenhagen and France. These schools have subjected Saussure’s ideas to extension as well as criticism. Important in these works is the linguists’ attempt to build on the model laid down by Saussure hi

1.1. Prague School

Prague School of Linguistics is highly inspired by Saussure’s works. The founder of this school is Vilém Mathesius (1926). He took the step to integrate formal linguistics with the functional linguistics. This means that a relationship was created between the structure of the language (that looks at the patterns within a language) and its communicative properties (that is how a language functions). The school focuses more on the functional aspect of it nevertheless (Luelsdorff 1994). Two other prominent members of The Prague School of Linguistics are Nikolay Trubetskoy and Roman Jakobson. The school developed its famous “Distinctive-feature analysis” of sounds. This means that each sound has a number of distinctive acoustic features and two similar sounds can be distinctive if one of those features of a sound is different in juxtaposition to the other similar sound. Unlike Saussure, this European school does prefer prescriptive linguistics to a limited extent, bringing the social aspect of linguistics in the picture.

1.2. 1. Prague School

Prague School of Linguistics is highly inspired by Saussure’s works. The founder of this school is Vilém Mathesius (1926). He took the step to integrate formal linguistics with the functional linguistics. This means that a relationship was created between the structure of the language (that looks at the patterns within a language) and its communicative properties (that is how a language functions). The school focuses more on the functional aspect of it nevertheless (Luelsdorff 1994). Two other prominent members of The Prague School of Linguistics are Nikolay Trubetskoy and Roman Jakobson. The school developed its famous “Distinctive-feature analysis” of sounds. This means that each sound has a number of distinctive acoustic features and two similar sounds can be distinctive if one of those features of a sound is different in juxtaposition to the other similar sound. Unlike Saussure, this European school does prefer prescriptive linguistics to a limited extent, bringing the social aspect of linguistics in the picture.