GENEVA SCHOOL

Ferdinand de Saussure is considered to be the father of modern linguistics, the

founder of the Geneva school and structuralism in linguistics. His Cours de
Linguistique Generale, a posthumously published work by his students Charles
Bally and Albert Sechehaye; Saussure is the author of many terms and concepts
used even as a part of modern linguistic terminology: synchrony, diachrony,
language, parole, langue, significant, signifier, phoneme, phonology, syntagma,
sign, model , economy of speech.
Semiology

is

science

studying

signs

or

signals

for

the

purpose

of

communication of human society. The most important semiotic system is human

language, but there are other systems, e. g .Morse code, sign code, traffic
signals.
The value of each sign is determined by its meaning and by its relationship to
other signs within the system.
The linguistic sign is a connection of phonic substance (significant- what signifies,
reflection of a physical sound in our brain) and the concept of signifie- what is
signified, abstract notion).These both facets are inseparable.
Language is a system of signs, arbitrary and socially conditioned; it is supra
individual, abstract and hierarchical system of signs, their interrelations, values and
combinatory possibilities.
Diachronic linguistics studies how a language changes over a period of time.
Synchronic linguistics is the study of a language system or one particular point of
time (emphasised by Saussure).
Language is an ability of humans to create in language a system of signs that is not
inherited, as opposed to animals.
Langue is an abstract system of conventional rules that are generally recognized by
all speakers of the particular language; it covers elements, rules, models and
codifications. It enables individuals to communicate and to understand each other,
thus it is a social phenomenon.

Parole is a concrete manifestation of langue uttered by an individual in a given

moment. Such utterance contains errors, hesitations, false starts, sentences broken
off half way through, etc.
The Prague School
In 1926, the Cercle Linguistic de Prague, later known as The Prague School of
Linguistics, was established. The most remarkable representatives were: V. B. Trnka,
J. Vachek and a group of ovsk nek, J. MukaMathesius, B. Havr Russians R. Jakobson,
N. Trubetzkoy, S. Kracevskij and others.
In 1929, the Circle published Theses submitted to the first Congress of Slavonic
Philologists:

Language is a system of expressive means, and serves for communication.

Its functions are a system of its components.

It is dependent on external (non-linguistic) factors, eg language of a particular

culture, language of literature, of science.

Linguistic investigation must be based on synchronic approach.

Language is a system in development.

It should be distinguished between the spoken and written form.

Vilem Mathesius
The most influential personality of the Prague School. He was one of the
representative of synchronic approach to facts of language (he used terms "static"
for synchronic and "dynamic" for diachronic). However, within this "static" there is a
certain potentiality. It means a synchronous oscillation

of speech in the particular

language community; a precondition for the development of language itself.

There are two ways of the description of a language stemming from the process of
communication:

functional onomatology - the first stage of encoding: the study of the naming
units, elements capable of being denominated by language

functional syntax is a study of the means by which naming units are brought
into mutual relations to form an utterance

Josef Vachek
He was interested mainly in the concept of phoneme.
The written language has its specific functions and means of expression and should
be investigated
The Copenhagen School
Their theory was called glossematics and based on an abstract logical-mathematical
theory.
American Descriptivism
In 1924, the Linguist Society of America was established. They issued a journal
called Language. They worked mainly with original Indian languages. It was Franz
Boas who gave the basis for their method:

practical orientation;

structuralistic (each language has its own rules and categories, which cannot
be based on those of Latin and Greek);

the language was associated also with the culture and behaviour of the nation;

over-emphasis of synchronic method;

the form was prior to lexical meaning;

orientation to mathematical methods in linguistics, the effort to formalize the

analysis

of

language,

and

to

develop

various

models

of

grammatical

descriptions.
Edward Sapir
He worked with American-Indian languages; was interested in psychology and
anthropology.

The potentiality to learn a language is dependent on society. The language itself is

largely linked to human culture. That is why he conceived language as an acquired
cultural function.
Language is a conventional, arbitrary system, purely human and non-instinctive
method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of
voluntarily produced symbols. (In modern time terminology symbol is sign.) He
conceived linguistic signs as bilateral units having form (speech sounds) and
meaning (elements of experience).
Language is characterized by its ideal system of sounds - phonemes. There are four
criteria:

position of the vocal cords

passage of breath through the mouth of nose

free or impeded passage

precise points of articulation

He distinguished six main types of grammatical processes:

word order: juxtaposing two of more words in succession

composition: the uniting into a single word of two or more elements

affixation: distinguishes prefixes, suffixes and infixes

internal modification: entailing vocalic or consonantal change that indicates

fundamental change of grammatical function

reduplication: repetition of all or part of the root element

variations in accent: stress or pitch

Language is a dynamic system under a constant process of change. Sapir speaks

about so-called drift of languages and linguistic features concerning morphological
type as well as changes of grammatical classes and word significances.
Leonard Bloomfield
4

Leonard Bloomfield (April 1, 1887- April8, 1949 was an American linguist, whose
influence dominated the development of structural linguistics in America between
the 1930s and the 1950s. He is especially known for his book Language (1933),
describing the state of the art of linguistics at its time.
Bloomfield was the main founder of the Linguistic Society of America ( The Linguistic
Society of America (LSA) is an organization devoted to the scientific study of human
language, and is the major professional society for linguistic researchers in North
America and beyond. The LSA was formed in 1924. Its first president was Hermann
Collitz, elected in 1925. The current president of the LSA (2006) is Sally McConnellGinet. A few prominent past presidents are Joseph Greenberg, Calvert Watkins,
Morris Halle and Ken Hale.)
Behaviorism is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior

can be researched scientifically without recourse to inner mental states. It is a form

of materialism, denying any independent significance for the mind. A similar
approach to.
One of the assumptions of many behaviorists is that free will is illusory, and that all
behavior is determined by a combination of forces comprising genetic factors and
the environment, either through association or reinforcement.
The behaviorist school of thought ran concurrent with the psychoanalysis movement
in psychology in the 20th century. Its main influences were Ivan Pavlov, who
investigated classical conditioning, John B. Watson who rejected introspective
methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods, and B.F.
Skinner who sought to give ethical grounding to behaviorism, relating it to
pragmatism, and conducted research on operant conditioning.
for the study of meaning, its insistence on formal procedures for the analysis of
language data, as well as a general concern to provide linguistics with rigorous
scientific methodology. Its pre-eminence decreased in the late 1950s and 1960s,
after the emergence of Generative Grammar.
Bloomfield also began the genetic examination of the Algonquian language family
with his reconstruction of Proto-Algonquian; his seminal paper on the family remains
a cornerstone of Algonquian historical linguistics today.
J. R. Firth
5

He worked at the University of London. He was mainly focused on phonology prosodic analysis, and semantics; contextual theory of language.