Abstract
It is necessary to take the linguistic source of "literariness" into account when we discuss the controversy concerning the term itself. Jakobson brought forth the concept of "literariness" for the first time in 1919. After that, the relation between literature and linguistics always played a leading role in his academic thoughts. He was also the first to use the notion of "structuralism" in 1929 and became a pivotal figure in the adaptation of Saussure's structural analysis to literary theory. Not only did he explore his precursor's functionalist ideology, but also expanded the social significance and humanistic values of linguistic studies. Therefore, his view of "dynamic synchronism" is essential to applying structural linguistic analysis to literary studies, and to comprehending what literariness is. To Jakobson, "literariness" is the dominance of poetic function in the multi-functional structure of language. Literariness is not the independent self-sufficiency of literature that rejects all external connections. On the contrary, the six functions of language act simultaneously and interactively influence each other with regard to the art of language. To determine whether the poetic function dominates, one should not only consider the poetic, artistic and aesthetic dimensions of language, but also its social, historical and cultural aspects. Thus, the origin of the concept may shed some light on the debates about "literariness".
First Page
88
Last Page
97
Recommended Citation
Feng, Wei. 2018. "Return to Roman Jakobson: On the Linguistic Source of "Literariness"." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 38, (3): pp.88-97. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol38/iss3/15
