Roman Jakobson

 Jakobson’s main contributions

Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) was one of the most powerful minds in twentieth century
intellectual history, though general recognition of this fact came rather late om his long
life. He was born in Russia and was a founder-member of the Moscow Linguistic Circle
which played a major part in the development of Russian Formalism. In 1920, he
moved to Czechoslovakia and helped to found the Prague Linguistic Circle, which
was de source of some of the important foundation work in structuralist linguistics
and poetics.
Two ideas in Jakobson’s contribution to modern literary theory deserve special
mention.
 One was his identification of the rhetorical figures, metaphor and
metonymy, as models for two fundamental ways of organizing discourse
that can be traced in every kind of cultural production.
 The other was his attempt to understand “literariness” – to define in
linguistic terms what makes a verbal message a work of art.

 Factors in the speech event/functions of language

Language must be investigated in all the variety of its functions. An outline of

these functions demands a concise survey of the constituent factors in any speech
event, in any act of verbal communication. The ADDRESSER sends a MESSAGE to
the ADDRESSEE. To be operative the message requires a CONTEXT referred to
(“referent” in another, somewhat ambiguous, nomenclature), seizable by the
addressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbalized; a CODE fully, or at least
partially, common to the addresser and addressee; and finally, A CONTACT, a physical
channel and psychological connection between the addresser and the addressee,
enabling both of them to enter and stay in communication. All this factors inalienably
involved in verbal communication may be schematized as follows:
Each of these factors determines a different function of language. Although we
distinguish six basic aspects of language, we could, however, hardly find verbal
messages that would fulfil only one function. The diversity lies in the different
hierarchical order of functions. The verbal structure of a message depends primarily on
the predominant function.
Jakobson studies messages in the different context. The context of use will
define the function.
The EMOTIVE or “expressive” function, focused on the ADDRESSER, aims a direct
expression of the speaker’s attitude towards what he is speaking about. (the purely
emotive stratum in language is presented by the interjections.)
Orientation towards the ADDRESSEE, the CONATIVE function, finds its purest
grammatical expression in the vocative and imperative, which syntactically,
morphologically, and often even phonemically deviate from other nominal and verbal
categories. (imperative vs declarative sentences).
There are messages serving to establish, to prolong, or to discontinue communication,
to check whether the channel works. This set for CONTACT or PHATIC function may
be displayed by a profuse exchange of ritualized formulas, by entire dialogues with the
mere purport of prolonging communication. This is for instance, the first verbal
function acquired by infants; they are prone to communicate before being able to
send or receive informative communication. (sustain a communication)
REFERENCIAL function of language: focus of the third person. / An utterance oriented
toward the context would mean that it has a referential function.
A distinction has been made in modern logic between two levels of language, “object
language” speaking of objects and “metalanguage” speaking of language. Whenever
the addresser and/or the addressee need to check up whether they use the same
code, speech is focused on the CODE: it performs a METALINGUAL function. “I don’t
follow you, what do you mean?”(what teachers use the most)
The set towards the MESSAGE as such, focus on the message for its own sake, is the
POETIC function of language. This is not the sole function of verbal art but only its
dominant, determining function, whereas in all other verbal activities it acts as a
subsidiary, accessory constituent. By promoting the palpability of sings, this deepens
the fundamental dichotomy of sings and objects. Hence, when dealing with poetic
function, linguistics cannot limit itself to the field of poetry. (The linguistic study of
poetic function must overstep the limits of poetry, and, on the other hand, the linguistic
scrutiny or poetry cannot limit itself to the poetic function.)
Now that our cursory description of the six basic function of verbal
communication is more or less complete, we may complement our scheme of the
fundamental factors by a corresponding scheme of functions:

A set towards the addresser will result in the expressive function.

A set towards the context will result in the referential function.
A set towards the channel will result in the phatic function.
A set towards the code will result in the meta-lingual function.
A set towards the addressee will result in the connative function.
A set towards the MESSAGE will result in the POETIC FUNCTION.

 The metaphoric / metonymic poles (define)

Metonymy depends on contiguity in space/time (the keel is part of a ship, depth is a

property of sea), and thus corresponds to the combination axis of language.
Metaphor, in contrast, corresponds to the selection axis of language, and depends on
similarity between things not normally contiguous.

Jakobson’s seminal discussion of metaphor and metonymy comes at the end of highly
technical discussion of aphasia (i.e. language disorder). He begins by formulating one
of the basic principles of Saussurean linguistics, that language, like all system of signs,
has two-fold character, involving two distinct operations, selection and combination. To
produce a sentence like “ships crossed the sea”, I select the words I need from the
appropriate sets of paradigms of the English Language and combine them according
to the rules of that language. If a substitute “ploughed” for “crossed”, I create a
Metaphor based on similarity between things otherwise different. If I substitutes “keels”
for “ships”, I have used the figure of synecdoche (a part for a whole). If I substitute
“deep” for “sea” I have used the figure of “metonymy” (an attribute or cause or effect of
a thing signifies the thing).

METAPHORIC POLE METONYMIC POLE

• It corresponds to the code. • It corresponds to the message.

• It's related to the paradigmatic axis. • • It's related to the syntagmatic axis. •
Metaphor is related to selection*, so it Metonymy is related to combination*: any
implies a choice between alternatives of linguistic sign is made up of constituent signs and
a repository. occur only in combination with other signs.

• It is held in absentia and together with • It's held in praesentia, and together with
substitution they are two sides of the contexture are two sides of the same coin.
same coin.

Jakobson and the poetic function of language

 A structure superimposed on the message - - -> work of art

 The superimposed structure is supplementary to the message - - - > style

A structuralist stylistic theory based on Jakobson’s theory of poetics conceives of style,

in the first instance, a structure superimposed on a linguistic message. A simplified
explanation of this point of view might say that a message with literary style is
organized not only by its ‘ordinary’ linguistic structure – i.e.by what linguists would call
its grammar – but also by an arbitrary arrangement of some of the linguistic features
into patterns and repetitions. The first, a priori structure – the grammar – is obligatory
for any message. It is the grammar which gives a string of sounds a structure without
which communication would be impossible. The – superimposed – structure is the a
posteriori stylistic structure. This in neither obligatory for any or every utterance nor
vital to the referential function of the utterance. The important point here is that this
superimposed structure is, in a sense, supplementary. Furthermore, Granger claims
that the stylistic structure is imposed on the ‘variable features of the code’ (those that
are redundant, residual, or inessential as far as the communication of meaning by the
message is concerned), rather than on the obligatory features.
In other words, a message may acquire a second communicational function,
besides that of transmitting meaning, as a result of a specific type of structure
being superimposed on the variable features in its expression-plane. (example
page 46)

Jakobson is not forced to turn to extra-linguistic sources to explain the phenomena of

style. Instead, he attributes the source of the phenomena to a second, supplementary
application to the utterance of the same conventions of language which give the
utterance its primary structure. - - - > literary style: the poetic function.

 the poetic function

The POETIC function of language it is said to account for the literarity or

literariness, or style, of an utterance, ‘Is the set towards the MESSAGE as such,
focus on the message for its own sake’.

This function is not the sole function of verbal art but only its dominant, determining
function, whereas in all other verbal activities it acts as a subsidiary, accessory
constituent. This one, by promoting the palpability of sings, deepens the fundamental
dichotomy of sings and objects. Hence, when dealing with poetic function, linguistics
cannot limit itself to the field of poetry.

The fact that a message has a poetic function is determined solely by certain linguistic
features. Thus the situational meaning of the poetic message, the message with what
is called “style” by the Jakobsonians, is not determined by any other factor of the
speech event rather than the linguistic form of the message itself.
The poetic message remains, in this sense ambiguous and autonomous, since no
other factor of the speech events serves to reduce its limitless potential for meaning.
Nonetheless, the poetic message is distinctive for other reasons:
 It focuses on its own constitutive linguistic structure. The word is seen not as a
substitute for the referent but as indicating its own operability as a sign.
 The linguistic message with a poetic function calls attention to the way in which
it functions as a linguistic sign; i.e.the interpretation of the poetic message is
nothing but itself.
 This function, by promoting the palpability of signs deepens the fundamental
dichotomy of signs and objects.
Phenomenon of apperception: (page 50 and 51) We have seen that the “focus” of a
message determines which factor of the speech event is the most relevant to the
interpretation of the message. According to Holenstein, this is related to the
phenomenological notions of apperception, that is, to the notion of the interpretive role
of the subject in perception. To the phenomenologist, perception is not a passive but
an active event to which the perceiver contributes as much as does the object
perceived.
For the phenomenologist the notion of apperception is especially relevant to an
understanding of the constitution of the linguistic message as an object of
perception. Without the interpretive contribution by the subject (the language
user) to the act of perceiving the utterance, the latter would be no more than a
string of sounds.

 The linguistic criterion of the poetic

What is the empirical linguistic criterion of the poetic function? In particular,

what is the indispensable feature inherent in any piece of poetry? To answer this
question, we must recall the two basic modes of arrangement used in verbal behaviour
selection (is produced on the base of equivalence, similarity and dissimilarity,
synonymity and anonymity) and combination (the building up of the sequence is
based on contiguity.)

The poetic function projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of
selection into the axis of combination. The conceptual background for this
statement lies in the Saussurean notion of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic
structures of language. This is a view to which Jakobson subscribes, seeing it as a
general organising principle which underlies the structure of all languages. This two-
fold character of language can be explained as follows.
According to Jakobson, any linguistic sign involves two modes of arrangement:
Combination: any sign is made up of constituent signs and or occurs only in
combination with other signs.
Selection: a selection between alternatives implies the possibility of substituting one
for the other, equivalent in some respect, and different from it in another. Selection and
substitution are two faces of the same operation.
 Saussure maintained that “in a language state everything is based on relations” and
that “relations” and differences between linguistic terms fall into two distinct groups.
These two groups he describes as relations in absentia, which are equivalent to
Jakobson’s syntagmatic relations and in praesentia, which are equivalent to
Jakobson’s paradigmatic relations.
It's important that we pay particular attention to Jakobson’s notion of paradigmatic
structure, since it is this structure's organising principle of equivalence which is
projected into the axis of combination, that is, into the syntagmatic sequence of the
message to create the focus towards the message, i.e. the poetic function. The
structure that is superimposed on the message is in fact of the same type as the
paradigmatic structure. This superimposed structure, like the structure of the
paradigmatic axis, is formulated “on the base of equivalence, similarity and
dissimilarity, synonymy and antonymy”. Thus, Jakobson, sees the criterion of the poetic
function of a message as the repetition (total or partial) of sounds, meanings, of
complete signs, of intonation patterns and so on. In this way, in addition to the normal
relations between words in a sequence, i.e. relations in praesentia or of contiguity,
there is incorporated into the structure of the sequence a supplementary set of
relations, based on the criterion of code-determined equivalence.

The modes of modern writing

Jakobson begins by formulating one of the basic principles of structural linguistics

deriving from Saussure: that language, like other system of signs, has a twofold
character. Its use involves two operation – selection and combination:

SELECTION COMBINATION

• It's based on equivalence, synonymy, antonymy, • It's based on contiguity.

similarity and dissimilarity.

• Related to langue, paradigm and code. • Related to parole, syntagm and message.

• Selection involves the perception of similarity and the • It entails the operation of deletion. Both
possibility of substitution. metonymy and synecdoche are produced by
deleting one or more items from a natural
combination, but not the items that would be
 most natural to omit. In short, deletion is to
combination what substitution is to selection.

• It is therefore the process by which metaphors are • Metonymy is a figure of speech in which the
generated, because metaphor is substitution based in name of an attribute is substituted for that of
some kind of similarity. However, awareness of difference the thing meant. Metonymy is
is key to metaphors. The term used to create the closely related to synecdoche, which is a
metaphor, and the one that has been substituted, need to figure of speech in which a part is used to
be distant as regards vehicle and tenor. refer to the whole. In J's theory,
Metaphor then, belongs to the metonymy includes synecdoche.
selection axis of language. Metonymy and synecdoche belong to the
combination axis of language.

• Contiguity disorder: aphasic patients with this type of • Similarity disorder: aphasic patients with
speech disorder cannot combine linguistic units into this type of speech disorder are heavily
higher degrees of complexity. Word order is chaotic, dependent on context to sustain discourse
function words disappear, but subjects remain. This type This type of patients make metonymic
of patients make metaphorical mistakes. mistakes.

Page 94 (examples)