JAKOBSON'S BIOGRAPHY & BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY
JAKOBSON

Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) was one of the greatest linguists of the 20th century. He was born in Russia and was a
member of the Russian Formalist school as early as 1915. Jakobson taught in Czechoslovakia between the two world
wars, where, along with N. Trubetzkoy, he was one of the leaders of the influential Prague Linguistic Circle. When
Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Nazis, he was forced to flee to Scandinavia, and went from there to the United
States in 1941. From 1942 to 1946 Jakobson taught at the École Libre des Hautes Études in New York City, where
he collaborated with Claude Lévi-Strauss.

In 1943 he became one of the founding members of the Linguistic Circle of New York and acted as its vice president
until 1949. He taught at numerous institutions from 1943 on, including Harvard University and MIT. Through his
teaching in the United States, Jakobson helped to bridge the gap between European and American linguistics. He
had a profound influence on general linguistics (especially on Noam Chomsky's and Morris Halle's work) and on
Slavic studies, but also on semiotics, anthropology, psychoanalysis, ethnology, mythology, communication theory and
literary studies. His famous model of the functions of language is part of the intellectual heritage of semiotics.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
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JAKOBSON, R., On Language, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
JAKOBSON, R., Child Language. Aphasia and Phonological Universals, The Hague: Mouton, 1968.
JAKOBSON, R., "Linguistics and Poetics", in T. Sebeok, ed., Style in Language, Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1960,
pp. 350-377.
JAKOBSON, R., Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978.