In modern Culture Study the problem of functioning of cultural environment in linguistic thinking is set most sharply. This problem is justified by the processes of pidginization and creolization, directly affecting the formation and acting of the mobile cultural environment in the language space. In Linguistics the notion “pidginization” means the excessive devastation of the vocabulary, in which the language loses its fundamental bases, having transformed into the linguistic surrogate. National scientific intelligentsia express the fear of the fact that Russian, being under English-American borrowing influence, may provoke the appearance of the creolic pidgin, which will occur as the result of the total medium transformation.
In case of preserving the linguistic purity the proved intention of the certain regulation observance occurs, it includes speaking the understandable language, avoidance of the enormous amount of new, professional terms, alien to the majority, meaning explanation of unfamiliar words and expressions. The linguistic discrepancy problem is most clearly projected on the actual global transformation, which also reveals the local linguistic contradiction. The historical vision of this contradiction is based on the double-sided process “of closing and global opening enlargement”1, which approves the fact that the world has got closed in the limit of the Earth, but the occurrence of some universal application of the life style and the behaviour form, etc. is also found.
Being the consequence of the revealed problems of the functioning of cultural environment in linguistic correlation, Russian linguistic environment is influenced by the particular transformation, during which revision, reassessment, rethinking of the standard Russian lexemes and their conferring to the English rules occur. U. Beck marked the following concession of the given breaking stage: the abrupt development of the business sphere, the mass media, the science, the creation of “the industry” of recreation and the transformation of the air transport sphere, the advertizing of the American mode of living, the computer spreading and the Internet technology. On the one side, the determined concession breeds the reverse reaction of intensification of the human attraction to the national, cultural value, tradition and the intention for underlining individual uniqueness, difference and so on, on the other side, the adaptation of Russian to the reality of Western Culture is found.
Russian Linguistic Culture Study is rich in its profound knowledge, reflecting the transformation of cultural environment in linguistic thinking (V.N. Teliya, V.N. Khairullin, V.V. Vorobiev, V.A. Maslova, M.A. Kulinitch and the others), which aim is the creating of the certain linguistic culture units. The range of modern scholars, including O.A. Leontovitch, were inclined to suppose, that the linguistic culture was studied on the cross-section of the fundamental disciplines: Language Study and Culture Study. Judging from this, it is reasonable to determine cultural environment and linguistic thinking, as separate linguistic culture units, where cultural environment becomes the component of the vast category of linguistic thinking. Linguistic vision of cultural environment is put in the historical correlation of the interconnection of cultural environment and linguistic thinking.
The problem of historical correlation was investigated by L.G. Sayakhova, having determined that the bases of cultural-linguistic policy had been invested in the principles (of communication, of cognition, of linguistic culture) of correlation between cultural environment and linguistic thinking. The communication principle directs the linguistic-cultural unity for gaining the code (language) knowledge, but also the external code knowledge, connected to the lexical background, that is, to the knowledge “which is driven beyond the linguistic limits and is determined by the certain culture”2. The particular role in the essence of communication and cognition is distinguished by the cultural information. The communicative activity turns out to be that link, in which the language, being the element system of varied levels and the culture, in which the language exists and to which the language belongs, are crossed and are opposed.
The cognitive principle consists of creating the new viewpoint in the human outlook in the process of cognition of the other language, as the language, being the sign system, transmits information about the world and is connected to the exploration of this information, which proves A.A. Leontiev’s position of the language becoming the building material of the world scene. The language is known to be the orientation basis for the cognitive activity, as well as the communicative activity. The principle of cognition is concerned with such notions as “memory”, “inner (internal) lexis”, “world knowledge”, “the concept”, “conceptual world scene”, “linguistic world scene”, “mechanisms of bearing, perceiving and understanding of speech”, and so on, and so forth. The linguistic cultural principle means the interconnection between language and culture and has got broader linguistic vision, language being the properties of the national spiritual wealth, making the language approach to be the entity of cultural-historical environment, forming the linguistic personality.
Having generalized L.G. Sayakhova’s ideas, we determine the historical type of the correlation between cultural environment and linguistic thinking to be investigated due to the observance of a number of principles. The communicative principle contributes to the circulation of the cultural information; the cognitive one affects the personal outlook and the world scene composition, the linguistic-cultural one accounts for the language as the cultural-historical sphere. The mental readjustment is characteristic of the given type of correlation in the newest Cultural History.
Having enriched L.G. Sayakhova’s concept, V.M. Alpatov stated the cultural stability and its fragments to depend on the social capacity for creating such cultural order, which would support the links of its components best of all, by means of this it would also provide the living capacity of the whole team due to the accepted social idea of the world and of the man in it. In this case, culture obtains the systemic property, revealed in its limiting of the invasion with the alien elements, if their quantity threatens distortion of the historically settled connection. This deviation occurs permanently, but it also follows the certain regulations, which essence is concealed in the fact that foreign elements gain the systemic features of the given culture. Systemic features of linguistic thinking are such that the grammatical interconnection of linguistic elements in the sentence is realized in the settled (“strict”) order, as in English, for instance, but, by means of such notional correspondence, which is revealed by applying suffixes and endings. Hence, the transfer of foreign words into the system of the Russian language is concerned with apprehension of the signs of the grammatical gender and the conjunction type.
The ways of linguistic thinking are subdivided by V.M. Alpatov into: the analysis of the linguistic material, the structural-content rules and the peculiarities of the linguistic elements according to their structure. The analysis of the linguistic material is spread to the lexical, grammatical, phonetic, stylistic components, as well as to the notional, spelling and intonation bases. The enriching of the lexical components occurs in case of the introduction of the new lexical range into Russian, that is why, Grammar is being transformed due to the new borrowings, changing the linguistic surrounding with quality, Phonetics assimilates the foreign words due to the linguistic laws of Russian, Stylistics performs the function of the emotional-expressive linguistic means, which is being replenished due to the mentality and spirit alteration. The way of linguistic thinking formation, based on the explanation of the peculiarities of the linguistic elements, seems to be excessively actual in case of the interpretation of the quality issues of the separate language, its notional specificities and mental expression, as this approach represents the effective means for the intellectual growth in the frame of the certain social unit.
Due to generalization of studied L.G. Sayakhova and V.M. Alpatov’s works, we shall underline the historical species of the cultural-linguistic connection (in other words, the interaction between cultural environment and linguistic thinking), which is realized in the observance of the communicative, cognitive and linguistic-cultural principles, contributing to the mental readjustment in the newest cultural history, as well as to the systematic feature in the process of the cultural exchange. Hence, the process of the cultural exchange is not applicable without the linguistic participation, being the integral part of national culture of the people and the spiritual heritage of the previous generation, as well as the most important factor of the cultural development. Being the treasure house of knowledge, the language keeps in its items and in the words of Phraseology, in particular, the historical experience, it reflecting the inner world and the mental authenticity, providing the borrowing and the unity of the cultural tradition. Due to this reflection, we consider the interaction between cultural environment and linguistic thinking to be worked out by means of its disciplinary exploration through the prism of Psychological Linguistics, Social Linguistics, Ethnical Linguistics, Linguistic-Social Psychology, Culture Study, Philosophy, Pedagogy, Methodology, Linguistics, Psychology, Psychological culture Study, Psychological-Linguistic Culture Study.
Psychological linguists A.A. Leontiev, A.A. Zalevskaya, I.N. Gorelov, K.F. Sedov, R.M. Phrumkina, Yu.D. Apresiyan, N.D. Arutyunova, A.A. Zaliznyack, I.B. Levontina, E.V. Rakhilina, E.V. Urison, A.D. Shmelyov, E.S. Yakovleva described the following interconnection of cultural environment and linguistic thinking in case of the usage of the conceptual analysis of the linguistic world scene. The linguistic world scene in itself included the connected but varied ideas. One of such ideas is based upon the reflection that the world scene, suggested by the language, is different from “the scientific one” (the term “the naïve world scene” is used in this meaning), the other one is based on the concept of each language to depict its own scene, portraying the reality in the different way than it is done by the other languages.
The reconstruction of the linguistic world scene is one of the most remarkable tasks of modern Linguistic Semantics. On the one side, the reconstruction of the complex hierarchy of ideas, reflected in the given language, disregarding whether it (this hierarchy) is specific for the given language, or it is universal, reflecting the “naive” world vision, opposed to the “scientific” structure, is being performed on the basis of the systemic semantic analysis. On the other side separate characteristic linguistic concepts, possessing the certain features are being explored: they are “the keys” of the given culture (in the essence of their providing the key for culture understanding), and the corresponding world are translated into other languages with much difficulty simultaneously: the translation equivalent is either absent or it is present, but it doesn’t contain particularly these notional components, which are specific for the following word. In the recent years, modern Semantics has developed the innovatory direction, which aim is the reproduction of the Russian linguistic world scene on the basis of the complex (linguistic, cultural, semiotic) analysis of the linguistic-specific concepts of Russian in the intercultural prospect. One of the common approaches of the linguistic world scene reconstruction is the analysis of the metaphorical word combination of abstract Semantics, revealing the “sensitively apprehensive”, “concrete” image, opposed to the present “abstract” notion in the naïve world scene and providing the presence of the certain combination class in this language.
Due to the investigated ideas, we shall permit ourselves to distinguish the psychological-linguistic type of the linguistic-cultural connection to be defined with the help of Analytical Methodology, revealing the conceptual analysis, developing the scientific-layman interaction, remarking cultural environment as the sample of the linguistic world scene directly or indirectly affecting the mentality, the systematic-semantic, complex and metaphorical combination analysis, revealing the language property of the linguistic models, capable of transforming the linguistic personality.
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1See: Wallerstein I. Globalization or the Age of Transition? [Text] / I. Wallerstein − London, 2000 – 234 p.
2See: Wallerstein I., Hopkins T. The Age of Transition: Trajectory of the World-System: 1945 – 2025 [Text] / I. Wallerstein, T. Hopkins − London, 1996 – 260 р.
Библиографическая ссылка
Kostritsa E.I. Linguistic Thinking and Cultural Environment:
Contemporary Task of Culture Study
// Научный электронный архив.
URL: http://econf.rae.ru/article/6015 (дата обращения: 20.04.2024).
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