Edmund Leach on Roman Jakobson's Contributions to Linguistics
New Books in Literary Studies
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The Magnetic Focus of a Galaxy of Talent Was Certainly Roman Jakobson
Roman Jakobson was the magnetic focus of a galaxy of talent at Stanford in 1960. His personality drew into orbit many non-linguistic fellows including most of the anthropologists who were also well represented. He never tried to establish a rigid frontier between linguistic proper and softer forms of semiotics. Although linguistics was certainly at the core of Jakobson's interest, although he held some of the most crucial characteristics of spoken language are absent in other frames of communication.
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