Prague School of Linguistics was established in Prague in the 1920s by Vilém Mathesius. In 1928 the Circle publicized its theses presented to the First International Congress of Linguists in The Hague, which was drafted by Roman Jacobson, in co-operation with Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Sergey Karchevskiy, and others. The Circle covered various areas of the sciences of language; Trubetzkoy dealt with phonetics and phonology, Vilém Mathesius dealt with syntax, Roman Jacobson was interested in poetics and Jan Mukarovky tackled poetic language. The Copenhagen School, officially the "Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen”, was a group of scholars dedicated to the study of structural linguistics founded by Louis Hjelmslev and Viggo Brøndal. The Copenhagen Circle evolved with the developing theory of language, glossematics based on the model of Prague Circle.

1. COMPARISON BETWEEN PRAGUE CIRCLE AND
COPENHAGEN CIRCLE OF LINGUISTICS
INTRODUCTION:
Ferdinand de Saussure is one of the most influence figure in Modern Linguistics. His view of
linguistics is considered from the perspective of the study of structural and historical linguistics.
The term “Structuralism” has been received in 20th
Century which has its roots in the thinking of
Ferdinand de Saussure. He is the first person who formulates the way to analyze the language
systematically which also can be used to analyze sign system. He focused on the patterns and
functions of language practiced today, with the emphasis of meaning are maintained and
established and on the function of grammatical structures. Saussure claims that language have their
own inner structures outside or over and above actual usage. However, European structuralists
were deeply influenced by the theory of language in Saussure’s Course de Linguistique, partly
having different structuralist movements in which the most prominent are The Prague Circle, the
Copenhagen Circle, and the Geneva School etc. In general terms, European linguists share the
same core beliefs like; language should be studied from synchronic point of view, it should be
studied as a system of signs for which the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations between the
units constitutes the basis, and meaning is to be considered as the inherent as aspect of a language.
THE PRAGUE CIRCLE:
Prague School of Linguistics was established in Prague in the 1920s by Vilém Mathesius. In 1928
the Circle publicized its theses presented to the First International Congress of Linguists in The
Hague, which was drafted by Roman Jacobson, in co-operation with Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Sergey
Karchevskiy, and others. The Circle covered various areas of the sciences of language; Trubetzkoy
dealt with phonetics and phonology, Vilém Mathesius dealt with syntax, Roman Jacobson was
interested in poetics and Jan Mukarovky tackled poetic language.
THE COPENHAGEN CIRCLE:

2. The Copenhagen School, officially the "Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen”, was a group of scholars
dedicated to the study of structural linguistics founded by Louis Hjelmslev and Viggo Brøndal.
The Copenhagen Circle evolved with the developing theory of language, glossematics based on
the model of Prague Circle.
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE PRAGUE CIRCLE AND CONPENHAGEN
CIRCLE:
The Prague School linguists define first of all the difference between phonology and phonetics. As
phonetics describes the ‘physical’ qualities of actual speech, phonology is only interested in those
features of sounds which are distinctive in the sense that they differentiate meaning. As a
consequence, their main concern is the distinctive feature of phoneme, the smallest meaningful
units of a language. For example, in English /p/ and /f/ are two different phonemes, since they
distinguish at least two meanings: e.g. pet vs fat. Consider, velar nasal consonants, like the final
sound in English ‘sing’ which distinguishes it from ‘sin’, with a final alveolar nasal. The basic
notion behind this approach is that word meanings are established by the sets of semantic features
very much in the same way that phonemes are organized by sets of phonetic features. The
Copenhagen School linguists’ initial interest lay mainly in developing alternative concept of
phoneme which later developed into a complete theory coined as glossematics, (spoke of two
semiotic, those of expression and content. Glossematics is an expansion of Saussure’s concept of
language as a dual system of meaning and form. Hjelmslev called ‘phonetics’ and ‘semantics’ as
unorganized sound and meaning and claimed that a linguist must study ‘expression’ and content
which is the systematized organization of form and meaning of a language. According to
Hjelmslev, the ultimate goal of the linguist is to gain a more perfect understanding of the whole
through a thorough study of the structure of the constituent parts.
The Prague Circle of Structuralism is the combination of structuralism and functionalism. The
emphasis on function makes Prague School different from other structuralist schools. Linguists of
the Prague Circle stressed the function of elements within language, the contrast of language
elements to one another and the total pattern or system formed by these contrasts. According to
Prague Linguists, the function of language is the act of communication and its role in society and
literature. Whereas, according to Hjelmslev, the analysis of the internal system of dependences
form the structure of a language. Such dependences are called ‘function’.

3. The most valuable contribution made by the postwar Prague school was probably the distinction
between ‘theme’ and ‘rheme’ which he compared with the subject and predicate. The ‘theme’ of
sentence is the part that refers to what is already known or given in the text. It is the point of
departure of message. Whereas the ‘rheme’ of a sentence is the part coveys new information. The
theme tends to precede the rheme, regardless whether the theme or rheme is the grammatical
subject. Hjelmslev in his general grammar which was not a universal grammar tries to clear the
basic principles for a description of language as form. The grammar itself is a system of forms
from which the specific forms of any natural language can be generated. These forms are obtained
inductively from an analysis of the syntactical chain.
Prague Circle established the synthesis of the synchronic approach of studying a language as it
exists at one point in time, and the diachronic approach studying the history and development of a
language over time. They argued that it should be replaced by “dynamic synchronism” and should
not be limited to Ferdinand de Saussure's static structural model of language because language
system is bound to change.
Hjelmslev argued that the major distinction defining the linguistic sign is that between content and
expression because the ultimate elements of linguistics i.e. phoneme and syllable are not signs.
Both content and expression can be further analyzed into form, substance and purport. From is an
external point of view is a system of meaning bearing signs connected to the world, substance
comprises not only sounds but also psychological concepts while purport refers to unformed and
unanalyzed thought. For Hjelmslev, form is independent from substance, the relation between a
substance and a particular linguistic form is arbitrary and conventional whereas for Saussure the
relation between signified and signifier is arbitrary. Hjelmslev describes content-purport as that
factor of the content of a sign which is common to different languages: content-purport can
provisionally be seen as a type of ‘meaning’ which can be taken as a basis for comparing different
signs in different languages.
Hjelmslev is also to be credited with an important clarification of the Saussurean concept of langue.
By making distinction between schema, norm and usage he explained langue as a schema,
language as a pure form, norm, language as a material form, and usage, language as the sum of
habits. Hjelmslev has separated the purely relational structure of language from the positive
content of structure e.g meaning and sounds.

4. CONCLUSION:
The general approach in the study of language for the Prague Circle can be described as the
combination of both functionalism and structuralism while Copenhagen Circle describes
themselves as structuralism. In addition, synchronic and diachronic approaches are seen as
interconnected and influencing each other. They regard language as a system of system. As such,
language is never in state of equilibrium but rather in state of deviation. Hence, the only thing that
can change linguistic into objective science is the use of scientific method. However, linguistic
methodology can be scientific only if it succeeds in making a clear distinction between linguistic
and non-linguistic facts.