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Roman Jacobson's Model of the Linguistic Functions
From The John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism
Jakobson's model of the functions of language, which integrates Karl Bühler's tripartite system (emotive, conative, and referential) and Bronislaw Malinowski's concept of phatic communion, has had a decisive influence on literary theorists for the last 30 years. He writes in "Linguistics and Poetics: Closing Statement" that all acts of communication, be they written or oral, are contingent on six constituent elements:
CONTEXT
MESSAGE
ADDRESSER . . . . . ADDRESSEE
CONTACT
CODE
A message is sent by an addresser to an addressee. For this to occur, the addresser and addressee must use a common code, a physical channel, or contact, and the same frame of reference, or context. (Though Jakobson stipulates that by "context" he means "referent," the term is confusing, since it could be mistakenly construed as pointing to the circumstances of utterance rather than to what the message is about.) Each of the constituent elements of the communicative act has a corresponding function; thus:
REFERENTIAL
POETIC
EMOTIVE PHATIC CONATIVE
METALINGUAL
Focused on the addresser (or sender), that is, on the first person, the emotive function reflects the speaker's attitude to the topic of his or her discourse. As we shall see, the emotive function can be linked to Émile Benveniste's concept of discours (discourse). The conative function is centered on the second person, the addressee (or receiver). The most explicit instance is illustrated by two grammatical categories--the vocative and the imperative--neither of which is subject to the true/false criterion of declarative utterances.
The four other functions concern the message sent. The referential function can be equated with the cognitive use of language, which privileges the informational content of an utterance, virtually eliminating the focus on the speaker or on the addressee. The referential function can be linked to Benveniste's concept of récit (story) as opposed to discourse, which entails the presence of a self-conscious narrator. The poetic function (which should not be confused with poetic discourse) valorizes the signifier, foregrounding what might be called the decorative or aesthetic function of language, in Jakobson's words, the message for its own sake, thereby deemphasizing (though not necessarily eliminating) the referential function. The metalingual function is focused on the verbal code itself, that is, on language speaking of itself, its purpose being to clarify the manner in which the verbal code is used. Finally, the phatic function is centered on the channel used and thus on the contact between speaker and addressee.
Literary examples of Jakobson's functions of language are easy to locate. The emotive function is to be found especially in lyric poetry or in introspective (first-person) narrative. The conative function is well illustrated by Michel Butor's novel La Modification, which is written entirely in the second person, or by Carlos Fuentes's The Death of Artemio Cruz, sections of which are likewise written in the second person. Examples of the poetic function abound in dadaist and surrealist poetry. Instances of the phatic function are to be found in the opening scene of Eugène Ionesco's Bald Soprano and in many scenes of Harold Pinter's early plays. The metalingual function is often the principal focus of stage directions, whose express purpose is to clarify the dialogue and the delivery intended by the dramatist. Finally, the referential function is dominant in naturalist fiction by such authors as Émile Zola and Guy de Maupassant.
(Metaphor and Metonymy)
Despite the apparent simplicity of Jakobson's model of communication, his "Closing Statement" has had a marked influence on literary Structuralism and semiotics. Perhaps almost as influential have been his study of metaphor and metonymy (published a few years earlier), "Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances," and his concept of poetics itself. The essay, as its title indicates, makes a suggestive use of aphasia as methodological frame, and despite its brevity, it has had a very widespread impact, especially on research in the aesthetics and philosophy of metaphor. Jakobson's point, and it seems convincing, is that we can learn as much from linguistic communication when it breaks down or is impaired as when it functions normally. The focus of the essay is the manner in which aphasia affects oral expression, particularly figurative expression. For Jakobson, in this instance adopting Ferdinand de Saussure's distinction, there are two complementary yet radically opposed uses of language: selection and combination. Selection, or substitution, which is a metalingual operation, is equated with similarity or the metaphoric use of language, whereas combination is shown to be identical to contiguity, that is, to the metonymic function. He demonstrates how in aphasia one or, in extreme cases, both of these speech functions are impaired. Aphasic impairment thus affects either the similarity (or metaphoric) function or the contiguity (or metonymic) function. Aphasics who have a problem with selection have to rely on context, which enables them to react in continuing a conversation rather than beginning one. This type of aphasic usually has difficulty with synonyms or with similar circumlocutions. Jakobson observes that an aphasic who has an impaired similarity function falls back on the contiguity function. The latter can likewise be impaired. When this occurs, the syntactic frame of the patient's sentences collapses. Coordination and grammatical subordination are eliminated. Jakobson posits that while the variant types of aphasia are numerous, what is common to all of them is the impairment of the faculty of selection or the impairment of the faculty of combination and contextualization.
Jakobson suggests that his distinction between metaphoric and metonymic can help categorize not only various modes of literary discourse but also other art forms. Thus, for example, if the metaphoric mode predominates in Romanticism and symbolism, the metonymic mode prevails in realism. In painting and film, the metonymic is central, particularly in film, which makes liberal use of synecdochic closeups. (For the purposes of this discussion, Jakobson places synecdoche and metonymy in the same category, in contrast to metaphor.) For Jakobson, the distinction between metaphor and metonymy is crucial. Of course, both modes entail substitution of one term for another, but the fundamental difference lies in the fact that metaphor entails a transfer of meaning between normally unrelated domains, whereas metonymy utilizes a term that is a property of the key word or is related to it contiguously.
Michel Le Guern, in an important essay (1973) based on Jakobson's distinction between metaphor and metonymy, develops Jakobson's highly condensed presentation, showing how the central thesis is far more persuasive than it may appear. There are, for example, good reasons for placing metonymy and synecdoche in contrast to metaphor, especially when it is realized that whereas metaphor entails a transfer of sense, metonymy and synecdoche entail a transfer of reference. In other words, reference is the key to the distinction between metaphor and metonymy. The metonymic relationship obtains between extralinguistic entities, that is, between objects, and is in no way contingent on the language used to express such a relationship. Metonymy and synecdoche entail a transfer of reference and the use of ellipsis. Metaphor (i.e., live metaphor as opposed to clichés that have lost their figurative force) is necessarily perceived as incongruous or surprising, at first apparently not compatible semantically with its context. The metonymic pole is thus essentially a referential process, located beyond language, while the metaphoric pole is semantic and consequently intralinguistic.
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