On Poetic Function: Jakobson's Revised 'Prague' Thesis

This paper is principally concerned with the seminal notion of poetic function as propounded by Roman Jakobson in his much cited article, 'Linguistics and Poetics' ,I the continuing potency of which is revealed by its foundational status for the burgeoning disciplines of communications, cullural and media studies. The concept of poetic function was first formulated by the 'formalist' programmes of the Moscow groupofthe 'twenties, resurfacing in the 'slructuralist' debates of the Prague Circle during the 'thirties, and more recently amidst the Paris group oflitcrary theorists in their 'semiotic' and 'post-structuralist' guises.2 In what follows, I shall review Jakobson's line of argument before questioning his fourfold characterisation of poetic function more closely. Whilst his many critics have been content to highlight a number of methodological inadequacies. usually upon empirical grounds,3 I shall contend that Jakobson's weaknesses are more fundamentally conceptual in nature.4