Roman Jakobson

Russian-American linguist (1896-1982). One of the cardinal linguists of the twentieth century — co-founder of the Moscow and Prague Linguistic Circles; later at Harvard and MIT. For Merleau-Ponty, Jakobson's Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze (1941) is the cardinal scientific source on child language acquisition; secondarily, Jakobson's structuralist phonology is part of the linguistic-scientific apparatus MP engages in the Sorbonne lectures (1949-52) and *Le problème de la parole* (1953-54).

Biography

Born in Moscow in 1896 to a Jewish family. Co-founded the Moscow Linguistic Circle in 1915. Fled to Prague after the Bolshevik Revolution; co-founded the Prague Linguistic Circle in 1926 with Nikolai Troubetskoï, Sergei Karcevski, and Vilem Mathesius. The Prague Circle developed the structural-phonological approach that influenced MP, Lévi-Strauss (whom Jakobson personally introduced to phonology in New York during the war), and a generation of French structuralists. Fled Prague for Scandinavia after the Nazi occupation in 1939, then to the United States in 1941, where he taught at the École Libre des Hautes Études in New York (with Lévi-Strauss), Columbia, Harvard, and MIT. Died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1982.

His Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze (1941, translated as Child Language, Aphasia, and Phonological Universals) draws together child language acquisition and aphasia under a structural-phonological framework. The work is published in Språkvetenskapliga Sällskapets i Uppsala Förhandlingar 1940-1942 and as a separate volume at Uppsala in 1941.

Role in argument

In MP's work, Jakobson is operative but contested. MP relies on Jakobson's empirical observations about child language acquisition (the deflation of phonemic richness in the babbling phase; the apparently universal order of phoneme acquisition) but rejects the intellectualist framework Jakobson proposes for explaining these observations.

The deflation thesis (PbP [58(10 suppl.)] cites Jakobson directly): the child's babbling phase is phonemically rich; the acquisition of language reduces this richness. The reduction is not loss; it is the organization of sounds into a system that signifies. Sons become sons signifiants. MP takes this empirical claim as a primary anchor for the parole parlante doctrine.

The intellectualist reading rejected: PbP [81]–[82v(6)] (echoing the 1949-50 Sorbonne lecture) targets Jakobson's intellectualism — the claim that the child's reduction is driven by intellectual recognition of phonemic structure. MP, with Goldstein, argues instead that the reduction is affective-existential: the child reorganizes its whole prelinguistic field, and the phonemic structure emerges as a global form-of-articulation, not as the addition of concepts to sounds.

The Saussure-Jakobson axis: Jakobson is the Saussurean structuralist whom MP reads as part of the post-Saussure linguistic landscape. Jakobson's phonological structuralism is more systematic than Saussure's; MP follows Saussure when these diverge (as on the role of speaking-subject creativity in the system's evolution).

Connections

  • cited in merleau-ponty-2020-probleme-de-la-parole Part I §I "L'acquisition de la parole," especially PbP [56]–[67]; the deflation thesis at [58(10 suppl.)].
  • cited in merleau-ponty-2010-child-psychology-pedagogy La conscience et l'acquisition du langage; the first MP commentary on Jakobson.
  • contested by Kurt Goldstein — Goldstein's holistic/affective reading rejects Jakobson's intellectualism; MP follows Goldstein.
  • post-Saussurean linguist of Saussure — Jakobson develops Saussure's structuralism more systematically; MP reads them in tandem.
  • associate of Claude Lévi-Strauss — Lévi-Strauss's structuralism is mediated through his New York friendship with Jakobson.
  • part of the Prague Linguistic Circle (with Troubetskoï) referenced in PbP.

Sources

  • merleau-ponty-2010-child-psychology-pedagogy — La conscience et l'acquisition du langage (1949-50) commentates Jakobson's Kindersprache alongside Bühler, Piaget, and Wallon.
  • merleau-ponty-2020-probleme-de-la-parole — Jakobson is the operative source for the child language acquisition sections; the deflation thesis at PbP [58(10 suppl.)] is the cardinal anchor; Jakobson's intellectualism is rejected at PbP [81]–[82v(6)].

External:

  • Jakobson, R. (1941) Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze. Uppsala. — the Kindersprache monograph, MP's cardinal source.
  • Jakobson, R. (1969) Langage enfantin et aphasie. Trans. J.-P. Boons and R. Zygouris. Paris: Minuit. — the French translation, used by post-1969 MP readers (MP himself read German).