Session 1 Functionalism Origin and Definition

FUNCTIONALISM:
Origin and
Definition
• Functionalism in linguistics arises
from the concerns of Vilém
Mathesius (1882–1945), a teacher at
the Caroline University in Prague,
who in 1911 published an article, ‘On
the potentiality of the phenomena of
language’ (English translation in
Vachek 1964), in which he calls for a
non-historical approach to the study
of language.
• Some of the linguists who shared his
concerns, including the Russian, Roman
Osipovich Jakobson (1896–1982), and
who became known as the Prague School
Linguists, met in Prague for regular
discussions between 1926 and 1945, but
the Prague School also included linguists
not based in Czechoslovakia such as the
Russian, Nikolaj Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy
(1890–1938).
• More recently, functionalism has come to
be associated with the British linguist
Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (b.
1925) and his followers.
• It was the belief of the Prague School
linguists that ‘the phonological,
grammatical and semantic structures of a
language are determined by the functions
they have to perform in the societies in
which they operate’ (Lyons 1981: 224)
• The notions of theme,
rheme and functional
sentence perspective,
which are still much in
evidence in Halliday’s work,
originate in Mathesius’s
work.
• The Prague linguistic circle was
founded in 1926
• Even earlier the main founder
of the school, Mathesius
(1911) analyzed issues of
synchronic variation based on
language as an interactive
system
• The earlier prevailing Neogrammarian
views, with their basically diachronic
understanding of language, were
changed toward what was best specified
by F. de Saussure analysis of language as
a system of signs (in the sense of ‘sign’ as
a pair of ‘signified’ and ‘signifying’),
langue, distinguished from the use of
language in discourse, parole.
• As it was the case with de Saussure,
language was seen by the Prague
circle scholars as a structured whole
(the structural view), i.e., as system,
based on many kinds of relations or
oppositions, between its units.
• This structured whole, language, was
understood as a functioning means of
communication (the functional view).
• Language as a whole is seen as a tool
of communication which is opposed
to form as conceived by structuralists
such as Bloomfield.
• Differing from the Bloomfieldian
descriptive linguistics, the Praguian
functionalists have also used criteria
connected with oppositions intrinsic
to meaning.
The Basic Tenets of Functionalism
• The three most basic principles of functionalist
approaches are:
1. That they regard communication as the
primary function of language, which shapes
the forms languages take.
2. They attribute great importance to external
(cognitive and sociocultural) factors in
explaining linguistic phenomena.
3. They reject the claim that syntax is
autonomous from semantics and pragmatics.
• The most basic tenet of all, from which all
others derive to some degree, is that the
primary purpose of language is human
communication, and that this fact is crucial in
explaining why languages take the form they
do.
• This view contrasts somewhat with that of
Chomsky, for whom language is essentially a
vehicle for expressing thought, with inter-
human communication being just one of the
uses to which it can be put, and not to be
prioritized over other possible functions.
• If we are to study language as
communication, then we will need to take
into account the properties both of human
communicators and of the situations in
which linguistic communication occurs;
• Functionalism, like other terms for ‘schools’
of linguistics, is a convenient label for a
complex, varied set of approaches to
linguistic theory and description
• However, that these approaches are
united by rejection of the claim that
the linguistic system should be
studied independently of the
cognitive, sociocultural, and
temporal factors that at least
partially motivate it and also by
rejection of the claim that syntax is
autonomous from semantics and
pragmatics.
• Functional models regard language
as primarily a means for human
communication in context and
attempt to explain as much as
possible in terms of functional
motivations, which may compete
to give the appearance of
arbitrariness in the system.

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