Roman Jakobson and the two-dollar bills

Abstract

[Extract] For several decades a story has been in circulation concerning the attitudes of some local linguists to Roman Jakobson soon after his arrival in New York, fleeing from Nazi-ridden Europe, in 1941. "The initial reception accorded Jakobson by the American linguistic world was not entirely hospitable. The differences in methodology, or perhaps the fear of competition for the available positions (cf. Hall 1969: 194, note 3), may have been responsible for this coolness" (Kučera 1983: 877). One manifestation of this was 'the affair of the $2 bills,' documented below.