Lev Scherba
RussiaBiography of Lev Shcherba
Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba (1880-1944) was a Russian linguist and expert in general linguistics, Russian, Slavic, and French languages. Born on February 20th, 1880 in St. Petersburg, he graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1903, where he studied under I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay. From 1916 to 1941, he served as a professor at Petrograd (Leningrad) University. Shcherba became an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1943. In his later years, he worked in Moscow, where he passed away on December 26th, 1944.
Contributions to Linguistics
Shcherba made significant contributions to linguistics, particularly in the fields of phonetics and phonology. He developed a phonetic laboratory at St. Petersburg University, which is now the oldest existing laboratory in Russia named after him. Shcherba's notable work includes his concept of the phoneme, which he developed based on Baudouin de Courtenay's teachings. He also formulated the original "Leningrad" phonological concept, which formed the basis of the Leningrad Phonological School. This school, along with Shcherba, included prominent linguists such as M.I. Matushevich and L.R. Zinder. The debate between the Leningrad Phonological School and the Moscow Phonological School became a significant episode in the history of Russian phonology.
Shcherba's contributions extend beyond phonetics and phonology. He made significant contributions to general linguistics, lexicology, lexicography, and the theory of writing. His works, such as "On Parts of Speech in the Russian Language" (1928), "On the Three Aspects of Linguistic Phenomena and Experiment in Linguistics" (1931), "An Essay on the General Theory of Lexicography" (1940), and "Current Problems of Linguistics" (1946, posthumously), contain important ideas in these fields.
Language and Speech
Shcherba proposed an original concept of language and speech, which differed from F. de Saussure's concept. He distinguished three aspects of linguistic objects: speech activity, language system, and language material. While rejecting the psychological approach to language prevalent in Baudouin de Courtenay and others, Shcherba recognized the importance of the speaker's speech activity, which enables them to produce previously unheard utterances. In this aspect, he anticipated some ideas in linguistics in the second half of the 20th century.
Shcherba also explored the role of experimentation in linguistics. According to Shcherba, linguistic experimentation involves testing the correctness/acceptability of a language expression constructed by a researcher based on a theoretical concept. The researcher or language native speaker (informant) can serve as the arbiter in this process. Judgments of incorrectness/unacceptability obtained through experimentation transform these expressions into negative linguistic material, which becomes an essential source of information about the language. This understanding of linguistic experimentation became the methodological basis for contemporary linguistic semantics and pragmatics, as well as an important research method in field linguistics and sociolinguistics.
Lexicology and Lexicography
In the field of lexicology and lexicography, Shcherba emphasized the importance of differentiating scientific and "naive" meanings of words. He proposed the first scientific typology of dictionaries in Russian linguistics. As a lexicographer-practitioner, he co-authored the extensive Russian-French dictionary with M.I. Matushevich.
Lev Shcherba's works and ideas have greatly influenced the field of linguistics, particularly in phonetics, phonology, lexicology, and lexicography. His contributions continue to be studied and discussed in the linguistic community.
