Roman jakobson’s schema of communication between languages and continents: An histoire croisée of the theoretical model

Abstract

The article analyzes the evolution of Roman Jakobson’s definition of the poetic function and its place in the multifunctional schema of the act of communication that he developed from the 1920s to the 1950s. This evolution is an example of the productive reinterpretation of a concept in the process of multiple cross-cultural transfers, including translations from one language to another (Russian, Czech, French, English), the shift from one conceptual system to another (Formalism, Structuralism, semiotics and cybernetics), and adaptive transformation of the communication models developed by Jakobson’s predecessors (Husserl, Bühler, Shannon). Understanding Jakobson’s schema requires that we elucidate the roles that essential formalist and structuralist concepts played in its formation and identify their translated equivalents in his own texts. This discussion is prompted by the adjustments to Jakobson’s model proposed by Mikhail Bakhtin and Yuri Lotman.