Roman Osipovich Jakobson (Russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н) (October 11, 1896, Moscow – July 18, 1982, Boston) was a Russian linguist and literary theorist.
As one of the first of the structural analysis of language, which became the dominant trend of twentieth-century linguistics, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century. Influenced by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, Jakobson developed, with Nikolai Trubetzkoy, techn...
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Roman Osipovich Jakobson (Russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н) (October 11, 1896, Moscow – July 18, 1982, Boston) was a Russian linguist and literary theorist.
As one of the first of the structural analysis of language, which became the dominant trend of twentieth-century linguistics, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century. Influenced by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, Jakobson developed, with Nikolai Trubetzkoy, techniques for the analysis of sound systems in languages, inaugurating the discipline of phonology. He went on to apply the same techniques of analysis to syntax and morphology, and controversially proposed that they be extended to semantics (the study of meaning in language). He made numerous contributions to Slavic linguistics, most notably two studies of Russian case and an analysis of the categories of the Russian verb. Drawing on insights from Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics, as well as from communication theory and cybernetics, he...
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