He is well known for his association with early structuralism as well as with the Prague Linguistic Circle, and for his development of the ideas of Russian formalism.

Among other achievements, he applied ideas from Geneva linguist and semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure to the analysis of literary and artistic expression, systematically applying and extending the concept of linguistic function to literary works and their reception in different periods.

Estetická studie, a work examining the romantic Czech poet Karel Hynek Mácha in the field of literary aesthetics.

In 1951 Mukařovský was appointed the director of the Institute for Czech Literature of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and remained in that position until 1962.

However, reception of his theories in the West remains limited, due in part to linguistic barriers.