Essence of language:
Language is a social phenomenon
- Not inherited
For the development of language, communication in society is necessary from childhood (Mowgli children)
There are no special speech organs.
Communication can be linguistic or non-linguistic. Communication, in all cases, is the transfer of some information. 2 plans: expression, method, or form of expression (movement of the tip of a cat’s tail) and the content of transmitted information behind this expression (excitability of the animal). Human communication is carried out mainly using sound language (writing and other forms). At the same time, non-verbal forms play a significant role in human communication. Linguistic communication is not just the communication of some facts or the transfer of emotions associated with it, but also the exchange of thoughts about these facts. Non-linguistic forms of communication are much older than auditory language. Facial expressions and gestures can sometimes express the feelings we experience brighter and more authentically.
- Language is not a natural, not a biological phenomenon.
The existence and development of language is not subject to the laws of nature.
The physical characteristics of a person have nothing to do with language.
Only humans have language.
What language has in common with other social phenomena is that language is a necessary condition for the existence and development of human society and that, being an element of spiritual culture, language is unthinkable in isolation from materiality. Language is a social phenomenon with specific properties.
Because Being a tool of communication, language is also a means of exchanging thoughts; the question arises about the relationship between language and thinking. Thinking develops and is updated much faster than language, but without language thinking cannot exist. Thoughts are born on the basis of language and are fixed in it
- Language as a sign system.
A sign is an object that points to an object. An object is everything that has a definition in language. a word is a sign, a pointer. Signs are substitutes for something. They carry some information. Sign = semiotic – systems of signs and rules for their use. Sema is a sign.
All signs have a material, sensory form, which is sometimes called the “signifier” (exponent of the sign). The semantic side.
Sound, gesture, tactile sign - the material side.
The sign is:
-it must be material, i.e. must be accessible to sensory perception, like any thing
-it has no meaning, but is aimed at meaning, that’s why they exist, the sign is a member of the second signaling system
-its content does not coincide with its material characteristics, the content of things is exhausted by its material characteristics
- the content of a sign is determined by its distinctive features, analytically identified and separated from non-distinctive ones.
-a sign and its content are determined by the place and role of a given sign in a given system of a similar order of signs.
- Definitions and functions of the language.
Language is a means of forming thoughts.
Language is a means of communication, communication.
Language is the most important means of human communication, a tool for the formation and expression of thought.
Language functions:
Communicative. Serves as a tool for communication and exchange of thoughts.
Ascertaining. Serves for neutral messages of fact
Interrogative. Used to request a fact
Appellative. A means of calling, inducing action.
Expressive. Expression of the speaker's mood and emotions.
Contact making. Creating and maintaining contact between interlocutors.
Metalinguistic. Interpretation of linguistic facts to the interlocutor.
Aesthetic. Function of aesthetic impact.
Thought-forming. Language is the formative organ of thought. (Humboldt)
- Problems of linguistics
Linguistics draws conclusions based on the analysis of many languages.
Linguistics:
Partial - language learning based on the material of one language.
General - based on many languages.
Comparative – comparing different languages.
- Concept of national language and forms of its existence
There is no single national language, but there are varieties (forms) of the national language. Dialects and group differences are studied by dialectology, and a set of issues related to the impact of society on language and to linguistic situations developing in society is sociolinguistics.
The national language is divided into: territorial dialect (division of the language into territories (Middle Great Russian, South Great Russian)), literary language (1. normalized, codified language. 2. supra-dialectal in nature, widespread throughout the country. The literary language preserves the unity of the nation, unites the people and time and space. 3. Polyfunctionality (multifunctional) 4. Stylistic differentiation), social dialect - a type of language used in a social group (professional, jargon, argot, slang), vernacular (reduced elements in the literary language (herring, zubik, po -anyone, no idea, no difference).
- The concept of literary language. Linguistic and sociolinguistic definition of literary language
- Genealogical classification of languages. Basic concepts, basic families
A language family is the largest grouping of related languages. (branch, group, subgroup)
A proto-language is a language from which languages belonging to the same family originate.
Related languages are languages that originated from the same parent language and belong to the same family.
Living language - which is currently a means of communication.
Macrofamily - a hypothetical association different families who once belonged to the same family.
GKJ arose in the early 19th century.
Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language.
World languages are a means of communication in different countries (UN) (English, Russian, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic)
Creole is the primary language for native speakers.
Language appears when it happens active communication between peoples.
Linguo franca and pidgin languages originated from traders.
Main families:
Indo-European family. (12 groups)
Altai family. (Turkic (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Tatar, Uzbek, Chuvash), Mongolian (Buryat, Kamchatka, Kalmyk), Tungus - Manchu (Manchu, Tungus)
Uralic family (Finno-Ugric languages! Ugric branch: Hungarian, Baltic-Finnish branch: Finnish, Estonian, Permian branch: Komi, Udmurt, Volga branch: Mordovian, Samoyedic language! Nenets)
Caucasian family. Western group: Abkhaz subgroup - Abkhazian, Circassian subgroup - Adyghe. Eastern group: Nakh subgroup - Chechen, Dagestan subgroup - Avar, Lak, southern group - Georgian.
Chinese-Tibetan family. Chinese branch - Chinese. Tibeto-Burman branch - Tibetan, Burmese.
Afrosian family. Semitic branch - Arabic, Egyptian branch - Ancient Egyptian, Berber-Libyan branch - Kabyle, Cushitic branch - Somalia, Chadian branch - Hausa.
- Indo-European family of languages
Indian group (more than 100 languages, Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu)
Iranian (Pashto, Dari, Assetian)
Greek (ancient Greek, Middle Greek (Byzantine), Modern Greek)
Germanic (German, Swedish, English, Danish, Norman)
Romanesque (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Latin)
Armenian
Albanian
Slavic (Balto-Slavic was divided into Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian) Proto-Slavic (East Slavic (Russian and Ukrainian and Belarusian), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian), Western Slavic (Polish, Czech) , Slovak)
Celtic (Irish, Scottish)
Baltic
Takharskaya (deceased)
Anatolian(Hittite)
- Linguistic map of Russia
- The concept of language and speech.
Language:
System of signs
Reflects the experience of the people
Doesn't depend on the people
A language unit has an abstract, generalized character (go: train, person, time, life)
The number of language units is limited or countable
Speech:
System implementation
Reflects the experience of an individual
Created by man (strives for clarity)
The unit of speech is specific (walk)
The number of units of speech is endless, limitless.
- The concept of language level. Units of language and units of speech
Language Unit Level
From lowest to highest
- The concept of paradigm and syntagm
In the 19th century the term was used in morphology. In the 20th century, it began to be used in relation to all levels. There is a reason, it has a general meaning. Kinship terms.
Syntagma is a combination of units of the same level.
- The concept of synchrony and diachrony
Diachrony is the path of language through time. Sequence axis (approximate sign).
- Types of generalizations in language
Phonetics and phonology
- Phonetics, Aspects in the study of sounds
Phonetics is the sound side of a language.
Phonology is the study of the phoneme. (A phoneme is the smallest unit of measurement.
Phonology emerged in the 19th century. Founder I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay. Development in the 20th century.
Acoustic aspect in the study of language sounds.
Every sound is a vibrational movement. These oscillatory movements are characterized by certain acoustic properties, the consideration of which constitutes the acoustic aspect in the study of the sounds of language and speech.
Uniform vibrations - tone. Uneven - noise. In linguistic sounds, both tone and noise are used in varying proportions. Tones arise as a result of vibration vocal cords in the larynx, as well as response vibrations of air in the supraglottic cavities, and noise - mainly as a result of overcoming various kinds of obstacles in the speech canal by an air stream. Vowels are mainly tones, voiceless consonants are noises, and in sonants tone prevails over noise, and in voiced noisy ones (d, d) it is the other way around.
Sounds are characterized by height, which depends on the vibration frequency (the more vibrations, the higher the sound) and strength (intensity), which depends on the amplitude of the vibration.
Timbre is a specific color. It is timbre that distinguishes sounds.
In the formation of speech sounds, the role of a resonator is played by the oral cavity, nose and pharynx, thanks to the various movements of the speech organs (tongue, lips, velum).
Biological aspect in the study of language sounds.
Every sound we pronounce in speech is not only a physical phenomenon, but also the result of a certain work of the human body and an object of auditory perception, which is also associated with certain processes occurring in the body.
The biological aspect is divided into pronunciation and perceptual.
Pronunciation aspect.
For pronunciation it is necessary: A certain impulse sent from the brain; transmitting impulses to the nerves that perform this work; complex work of the respiratory apparatus (lungs, bronchi, trachea); complex work of the pronunciation organs (voices, tongue, lips, velum, lower jaw.
The totality of the work of the respiratory apparatus and the movements of the pronunciation organs necessary to pronounce the corresponding sound is called the articulation of this sound.
The vocal cords, when stretched, begin to vibrate, and when air passes through the glottis, a musical tone (voice) is created.
The supraglottic cavities - the cavity of the pharynx, mouth, nose - create resonator tones. There is an obstacle in the path of the air stream. When the pronunciation organs come into close contact, a bow is formed, and when they are sufficiently close, a gap is formed.
The tongue is a mobile organ that can take different positions. Forms a gap or closure.
Palatalization - the middle part of the back of the tongue rises to the hard palate, giving the consonant a specific coloring one iota.
Velarization is the raising of the back of the tongue towards the soft palate, imparting hardness.
Lips are an active organ. Forms a gap and a bow.
The velum palatine can take a raised position, closing the passage into the nasal cavity, or, on the contrary, lower, opening the passage into the nasal cavity and thus connecting the nasal resonator.
Also, the active organ is the tongue, which trembles when pronounced.
Functional (phonological) aspect in learning the sounds of a language.
Sound performs certain functions in language and speech, and it is a background in the flow of speech and a phoneme in the language system. In combination with other sounds, it acts as a material, sensory-perceptible means of consolidating and expressing thoughts, as an exponent of a linguistic sign.
- The sound of speech and the sound of language. Classification of sounds, Vowels with consonants
The sound of a language is a set of speech sounds that are close to each other in articulatory-acoustic terms, defined by speakers as identity.
The sound of a language is a sound that exists in the linguistic consciousness of speakers.
Vowels can be characterized as "mouth opener" sounds. Consonants are “mouth-closers.” When pronounced, one or another obstacle appears in the path of the air stream. With vowels, no obstacle is created when the air stream passes, but with consonants, the opposite is true.
Sounds can be instantaneous (p, b, g, k) and long-lasting (m, n, r, s).
- Classification of vowels.
When pronouncing vowels, the tip of the tongue does not play any role; it is lowered, and the back of the tongue articulates with its front, back and middle parts. In this case, each part of the tongue rises to one level or another, just so that a bow or gap does not form with the palate. The position of the lips is very important. Stretching the lips shortens the front part of the resonator, which increases the resonator tone; rounding the lips into a ring and stretching them into a tube increases the front part of the resonator, which lowers the resonator tone; this articulation is called rounding or labialization. Articulatory vowels are distributed horizontally, along a row, i.e. along the part of the tongue that is raised when pronouncing a given vowel sound (front, middle, back).
Vertically - along the rise, i.e. according to the degree of elevation of one or another part of the tongue..(upper, middle, lower)
- Classification of consonants.
They are divided according to the method of formation - defined as the nature of the passage for a stream of air during the formation of a speech sound. Fricatives (gap) and stops (stop). And stops are divided into: plosives (the bow breaks from a stream of air), affricates (the bow itself opens to allow air to pass into the gap and the air passes through this gap with friction, but unlike fricatives, not for a long time, but instantly, nasal (nasal, air passes bypassing through the nose, the soft palate descends and the soft tongue advances. The bow prevents air from escaping through the mouth), lateral (lateral, the side of the tongue is lowered down, a lateral bypass is formed between it and the cheek, through which the air escapes), tremulous (vibrants, bow periodically opens until there is a free passage and closes again. The organs of speech tremble.) All fricatives are noisy and come in two varieties - voiceless and voiced
According to the place of formation, this is the point at which two organs come together into a gap or close in the path of a stream of air and where, when directly overcoming an obstacle (plosives, affricates, fricatives), noise arises. In each pair, one organ plays an active role - an active organ (tongue) and a passive organ (teeth, palate).
Classification by active organs (labial, anterior, middle, posterior lingual)
By passive organs: labial, dental, anterior, middle, posterior palatal.
- Basic and non-basic sounds. Criteria for their differentiation, The concept of positional alternation of sounds
- Phonetic division - beat (phonetic word), syllable, sound
Measures are divided into syllables. A syllable is a part of a beat consisting of one or more sounds, while not all syllables can be syllabic (form a syllable). A syllable is the minimum pronunciation unit.!
Syllables are divided into sounds. Thus, the sound of speech is a part of a syllable pronounced in one articulation, i.e. there will be a sound combination. (ts – ts)
- The concept of clitics. Types of clitics (proclitics and enclitics)
An enclitic is an unstressed word attached to the back. (has anyone seen it, on the house) (enkliza)
- Phonology. Basic schools.
Phonology arose in Russia in the 70s of the nineteenth century. Its founder Baudouin de Courtenay introduced the concept of phoneme, contrasting it with the concept of sound. Based on his ideas, several phonological schools arose. 2 phonological schools.
MFS – A.A Reformatsky, R.I Avanesov (main), P.I. Kuznetsov(main), M.V. Panov, L.L. Kasatkin, L. Kalinchuk.
LFS – L.V. Shcherba (founder), Verbitskaya, N.S. Trubetskoy
MFS has 5 vowel sounds (the letter Y was not included)
The main difference between MFS and P(L)FS is in the assessment of sounds appearing in significatively weak positions. The IFS establishes the principle of invariability of the phonemic composition of a morpheme during phonetic alternations of sounds determined by given positions; the phonemic composition of morphemes can change only with historical alternations. P(L)FS believes that the phonemic composition of morphemes varies depending on similar phonetic positions.
- Basic problems of phonology
- Determining the number of phonemes
- Modern Russian 37 consonant phonemes k’, g’, x’. Previously, kgx were considered as minor varieties of phonemes. Kgh in Russian words are used before the vowels I and E (cinema, ketchup, sprat, weight, genius, hut). IFS: if you determine the composition of the Russian language, then you need to look in Russian words.
- Definition of a phoneme. Functions of a phoneme, Phoneme and its varieties (allophone, protophone, variant and variation of a phoneme)
A phoneme is a minimal linear, semantically distinctive unit of language, represented by a series of positionally alternating sounds and within one morpheme.
The phoneme performs 3 functions:
- Constitutive
Significative (meaning-distinguishing)
Perceptual (function of perception)
Varieties of phoneme: allophone – any variety of phoneme.
Protophone is the main type of phoneme.
Minor phoneme varieties are divided into phoneme variant and phoneme variation.
Regarding the perceptual function strong position one in which the phoneme appears in its basic form, regardless of position; a weak position is one in which the phoneme changes its sound depending on the position and appears as a variation of the phoneme. Father - otedz was
And significatively, strong and weak positions do not belong to any one phoneme, but to the opposition of two or more phonemes, which is carried out in a strong position and is neutralized in the general version in a weak position. Bow - Meadow.
- Phoneme structure. Signs of a phoneme, Pairing as a property of a phoneme
A phoneme is a minimal but complex unit; it consists of a number of features. Features are determined by their main type: 1. Differential feature (DP) - a feature by which one phoneme differs from another phoneme. 2. An integral feature (IP) is a feature that is included in a phoneme, but does not contrast it with another phoneme.
The nature of the feature is determined only in the opposition of the phoneme. How many oppositions a phoneme is included in, so many differential features does it have. Pairing is a property of phonemes, but not sounds.
P – B. (steam room for deaf/ringing)
Ts-DZ-Ts’ – unpaired in deaf/sound and soft/tv.
Paired phonemes are phonemes that differ in one differential feature and have the ability to be neutralized.
(P)
1.yy
2.cm-adult
3.noisy, deaf.
4.tv.
T,k – DP
F – DP
B – DP
P”-DP
Those phonemes that are not neutralized by place and method of formation.
- The distinctiveness of phonemes. The composition of phonemes in Russian and the foreign language being studied
perceptual - to promote the identification of significant units of language - words and morphemes;
significative - to help distinguish significant units.
- Phoneme boundaries. Criterion for combining sounds into a phoneme (morphological or functional)
The IMF has developed a functional or morphological criterion. If sounds form one morpheme, then they belong to the same phoneme.
Desk (a) (a)
Board, winter, mountain. To check - a word of the same part of speech, the same grammatical constructions.
Phonemic basically coincides with spelling.
- IMF teaching on the position of the phoneme. With gnificative strong and weak positions
(above the letter) Significative-strong position - a position in which phonemes are distinguished, contrasted and thereby distinguish words:
Vowel – stress (u-and unstressed position is strong.
For paired phonemes in deafness/voice: position before the vowel (code-year), - before sonorants, - before B (your-two)
For couples on TV/software. – end of a word, - before a vowel
Significative-weak position - a position in which phonemes do not differ, are not opposed, do not distinguish words (non-distinction) (Neutralization - rock-horn) OPTION.
For vowels - unstressed position (sama-soma, mela-mila)
For paired voice/voice phonemes - the end of the word!
For couples on TV/software. Phoneme. For dental before soft phonemes
In the middle of a word before deaf/sound. Consonant.
Pro[b]ka – pro(p)ka
- Perceptually strong and weak phoneme positions
Par(+), five(-)
Perceptually, a weak position is a position in which the phoneme appears not in its basic form, but in the form of a variation. (father was father)
- Letter. The relationship between oral and written language. Types of Writing that Convey Content Plan
Language is the most important means of human communication. Language is a necessary condition for the existence and development of human society. The main function of language is to be a means of communication.
Language serves society in absolutely all spheres of human activity. Therefore, it cannot be identified with any other social phenomenon. Language is neither a form of culture, nor the ideology of a particular class, nor a superstructure in the broadest sense of the word. This feature of language follows entirely from the features of its main function - to be a means of communication.
An essential feature of language as a social phenomenon is its ability to reflect and express social consciousness.
When characterizing language as a social phenomenon, one should also take into account its dependence on changes in the state of human society. Language is capable of reflecting changes in the life of society in all its spheres, which significantly distinguishes it from all other social phenomena.
Language depends on character economic formations and forms of the state. For example, the era of feudalism was characterized by the disintegration of countries into many small cells. Each feud and monastery with its surrounding villages represented the state in miniature. This structure of society contributed to the emergence of small territorial dialects. Local territorial dialects were the main form of language existence in feudal society.
Differences in the social organization of society in the past may be reflected in the state of dialects existing at the present time. P. S. Kuznetsov notes that in the territory of our old southern provinces (Central Black Earth Strip), where landownership was especially developed, a large number of small local dialects have been preserved.
Each socio-economic formation creates a certain lifestyle society, which manifests itself not in one particular phenomenon, but in a whole complex of mutually conditioned and interconnected phenomena. Of course, this unique way of life is reflected in the language.
Human society does not represent an absolutely homogeneous group. It exhibits differentiation caused by for various reasons. This may be differentiation along class, estate, property and professional grounds, which is naturally reflected in language.
Along with specific professional vocabulary associated with the needs of a particular industry, special vocabulary appears, typical of various argots, jargons, etc., cf., for example, student, thief, soldier, and other jargons.
Social differentiation of language usually affects only the area of vocabulary. There are, however, isolated cases when it also covers the area of the grammatical structure of the language.
Class differentiation of society can be the reason for the creation of significant differences between languages, or rather, styles of languages. Characterizing the state of Indian languages in the early 30s, A.P. Barannikov, a Soviet philologist and Indologist, noted that modern literary languages of India are adapted to serve the interests of the ruling classes and most of them are little understood by wide circles of the proletariat and peasantry. The reason for this is that lexical elements used by wide circles of the population have been expelled from many literary languages and replaced with words from the literary languages of the ruling classes of feudal India, i.e. from Sanskrit (for Hindus) and from Persian and Arabic (for Muslims).
Demographic changes can also be reflected in language in certain ways. For example, the influx of rural population into cities due to the development of industry has had an impact known influence into literary language. Researchers of the history of the Russian literary language note that in the 50-60s there was some looseness in the verbal use of non-literary words and phrases and, in particular, elements of vernacular.
A demographic factor such as high or low population density can facilitate or hinder the spread of phonetic changes, grammatical innovations, new words, etc.
Population movement, expressed in relocation to new places, can contribute to the mixing of dialects or increased dialect fragmentation. The well-known researcher of Russian dialects P. S. Kuznetsov notes that the border of the Russian and Belarusian languages cannot be determined precisely enough. In the territory occupied by the Russian language, adjacent to the territory Belarusian language, there are a large number of dialects containing well-known Belarusian features and forming, as it were, a gradual transition from the Russian language to the Belarusian language. This is explained by the fact that the territory west of Moscow (for example, Smolensk land) was constantly the subject of struggle between the Russian and Lithuanian principalities. These lands repeatedly passed from hand to hand; they were part of the Principality of Lithuania, then the Russian state. It can be assumed that each conquest of this territory entailed an influx of Russian or Belarusian population. As a result linguistic confusion and a region of transitional dialects arose.
The invasion of large masses of conquerors and the seizure of territories with a foreign-speaking population can also be the cause of language changes. Intensive colonization of various countries around the world greatly contributed to the spread of languages such as English and Spanish.
Mass penetration of a foreign-speaking population into territory occupied by another people can lead to the loss of the Aboriginal language. The history of various peoples provides numerous examples of such cases, cf., for example, the disappearance of the Gauls on the territory of France, the Celtiberians on the territory of Spain, the Thracians on the territory of Bulgaria, the Ob Ugrians on the territory of the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Scythians on the territory of Ukraine, etc.
The formation of literary language norms is not created without active participation various groups population.
Various factors have a noticeable influence on the character of language. social trends and views. During the years of the revolution, a conscious appeal to jargon and argot was cultivated as the “language of the proletariat,” as opposed to the old “bourgeois intelligentsia language.” A wide stream of various jargons, argotisms and provincialisms poured into the literary speech of the first post-revolutionary years. These layers of vocabulary also penetrated into fiction.
Many outstanding writers, playwrights, and artists played an important role in the development of one or another literary language. This is, for example, the role of Pushkin and a whole galaxy of classics of Russian literature in Russia, the role of Dante in Italy, Cervantes in Spain, Chaucer and Shakespeare in England, etc.
The presence of different class and nationalist interests in society can also affect the development of language. Indian language experts say that the two Indian languages Urdu and Hindi could be easily merged. The elements of the grammatical system of these languages are the same, the vast majority of the vocabulary is common. It is enough to limit the use of Sanskrit elements in Hindi, and Persian and Arabic elements in Urdu, and the conditions for the formation of a language would be created. However, it was beneficial for the imperialist bourgeoisie of England and representatives of the religious cult to maintain linguistic differences that have persisted to this day.
Development of the productive forces of society, technology, science and general culture usually associated with the emergence of a large number of new concepts requiring linguistic expression. New terms are created, some old terms receive new meanings, and the area of special vocabulary is expanded. Inflow new terminology at the same time, it is accompanied by the disappearance or relegation to the periphery of some terms that no longer reflect modern level development of sciences.
The growth of culture contributes to an increase in the functions of the literary language. The expansion of the functions of the literary language and its dissemination among the broad masses of the population necessitates the establishment of uniform spelling and grammatical norms.
The emergence of a branched system language styles and the establishment of linguistic norms contributes to the development of so-called linguistic aesthetics, which is expressed in protecting the language or style from the penetration of everything that violates stylistic or linguistic norms.
The development of culture is naturally associated with increased contacts with various countries of the world, with the goal of exchanging experience in various fields of science and technology. On this basis, international terminology arises. Translation of technical and scientific literature inevitably leads to the emergence of common stylistic features and characteristics in the social spheres of the language.
Among the most characteristic features of language as a social phenomenon is also the fact that society creates a language, controls what is created and consolidates it in the system of communicative means.
Every word and every form is created first by some individual. This happens because the creation of a certain word or form requires the manifestation of initiative, which, due to a number of reasons, psychological reasons cannot be manifested by all members of this company. However, the initiative of an individual is not alien to other members of society. Therefore, what is created by an individual can either be accepted and approved, or rejected by society.
Sometimes the factors that support a word or push it out of the language appear in a rather contradictory plexus. A slang word of low style can become the property of the literary language if one group of factors turns out to be more effective in this struggle.
There are areas of word creation where social affirmation plays almost no role. This refers to the creation of very narrow technical terms.
Despite the huge variety of intralinguistic and external linguistic factors that determine the fate of a newly emerged word or form, which cannot even be described in detail within the framework of this section, the decisive role always belongs to society. Society creates and shapes language in in the truest sense this word. Language is a product of society. For this reason, more than any other phenomenon serving society, it deserves the name of a social phenomenon.
The idea that language Not biological organism, but a social phenomenon, was expressed earlier by representatives of “sociological schools” both under the flag of idealism (F. de Saussure, J. Vandries, A. Meillet) and under the flag of materialism (L. Noiret, N. Ya. Marr), but the stumbling block was lack of understanding of the structure of society and the specifics of social phenomena.
In social phenomena, Marxist science distinguishes basis(economic system of society on at this stage its development) and superstructure(political, legal, religious, artistic views of society and the institutions corresponding to them). Each basis has its own superstructure.
Language is not an individual or biological phenomenon. The most popular opinion was to classify language as an “ideology”, i.e. to the area of superstructures and the identification of language with culture.
However, the language is not a superstructure. Language is not a product of a given basis, it is a means of communication of the human collective, which is formed and preserved over the course of centuries, despite the fact that during this time there is a change in bases and corresponding superstructures.
*A person cannot be isolated from society. Language is all the more connected with society and its history.
An essential feature of language as a social phenomenon is its ability to reflect and express social consciousness.
2) Language and race are not related to each other.
3) the social nature of language is manifested primarily in its connections with the people– a native speaker of the given language. The sociality of language is also manifested in the social differentiation of language, in the presence of dialects - territorial and social.
* Local dialect- a set of phonetic, lexical and grammatical features common in a particular territory.
* jargons – a set of some specific words and expressions that have a narrow scope of application - social and territorial.
The sociality of language is manifested in the presence of professional vocabulary and terminology, which characterizes not only the speech of social groups, but also becomes an integral component of the common language.
Language is universal in its essence. The independence of language as a social phenomenon is manifested in the discrepancy between the state and linguistic unification of people, division along religious and linguistic grounds. (Canada has two official languages - English and French, India - Hindi and English.
- Reflection of demographic changes in the language;
- Reflection in the language of the peculiarities of the social organization of society (the dependence of the linguistic state on the nature of economic formations and the form of the state. For example, the era of feudalism was characterized by the disintegration of countries into many small cells. Each feud and monastery with the villages adjacent to it represented the state in miniature, such the structure of society contributed to the emergence of small territorial dialects. Local territorial dialects were the main form of language existence in feudal society.)
- society creates language, controls what is created and consolidates it in the system of communication means.
Language is not culture. It is connected with culture and is unthinkable without culture, just as culture is unthinkable without language. But language is not an ideology, which is the basis of culture.
Language is not a tool of production either. It does not produce material goods and is only a means of communication between people.
The relationship between language and thinking
Being a tool for exchanging thoughts and consolidating them for posterity, language as a form of national culture is associated with consciousness and thinking.
Consciousness– a set of mental activities, including intellect and feelings. And also the result of theoretical and practical activities, the awareness of man and society of his existence. Thinking- ability to think and reason.
Language is a means and instrument of all types of thinking. Words are addressed to the world of things and the world of concepts.
- The role of language as a tool of thinking is manifested in the formation and expression of thoughts - the results of thinking and cognitive activity. “A thought only becomes a thought when it is expressed in speech, when it comes out through language” (Kalinin)
- Language expresses feelings, emotions and expressions of will.
Differences:
By the meaning and structure of their units.
1) the purpose of thinking is to obtain new knowledge and systematize it. Language serves cognitive activity. (we think in order to know, we speak in order to convey thoughts)
2) the basis of thinking is the logical structure of thought, the rules for operating concepts to achieve the truth. The basis of the language is its grammatical structure, rules of inflection, word formation and sentence construction.
Unity is manifested in the fact that thought is directly related to language.
Just like communication, thinking can be verbal and non-verbal.
Nonverbal thinking is carried out with the help of visual and sensory images that arise as a result of the perception of impressions of reality and then stored by memory and recreated by the imagination.
Verbal thinking operates with concepts enshrined in words, judgments, conclusions, analyzes and generalizes, builds hypotheses and theories.
Being a tool for consolidating, transmitting and storing information, language is closely related to
thinking. Ferdinand de Saussure, Wilhelm Humboldt counts. language formative
organ of thought. But some scientists believe that thinking, especially creative thinking, is completely
perhaps without verbal expression (Albert Einstein): Spanish. in thinking there are no words
or mat. signs, but vague images, a play of associations and then embody
result in words.
Language and speech:
Tongue They call a certain code, a system of signs and rules for their use. This system includes units different levels: phonetic (sounds, intonation), morphological (parts of a word: root, suffix, etc.), lexical (words and their meanings) and syntactic (sentences).
Speech is understood as the activity of people in using the language code, using the sign system, speech is language in action. In speech, language units enter into different relationships, forming countless combinations. Speech always unfolds in time, it reflects the characteristics of the speaker, and depends on the context and situation of communication.
*The product of speech activity is specific texts created by speakers orally or in writing. If a language exists regardless of who speaks it, then speech is always tied to the speaker.
*Speech is a type of activity that always has two subjects. The first of them is the speaker or writer, and the second is the listener or reader. There is no speech without an addressee, and the variant of speech activity of speaking in the absence of another person is defined as a person’s communication with himself.
- Speech and language can be compared to pen and text. Language is a pen, and speech is text written with this pen.
- Each individual uses language to express his own unique identity”; language “is a means of transforming the subjective into the objective,” therefore language “should be considered not as a dead product, but as a creative process”
- Language comes alive in speech. But speech without language does not exist.
If we compare language and speech:
|
Object of ideal and material nature |
Material |
|
Socio-cultural heritage. Is a system of signs, regulated by norms |
Functional system (implementation of the language system); allows in speech acts elements of accidental and sometimes deliberate violation of norms |
|
System signs are a means of cognition |
Signs are a means of communication |
|
Static |
Dynamic |
|
universal |
individual |
|
abstract |
specific |
|
systematic |
consistent |
Language and speech are a complex dialectical unity. Well, imagine an hourglass, how one thing flows into another. Language becomes a means of communication, verbal communication and at the same time a means, an instrument of thinking only in the process of carrying out speech activity; “language is created in speech and is constantly reproduced in it.” Language is not the only, but the most perfect means of communication. One of the most important functions of language is communication. But only through speech does language realize its communicative purpose. On the other hand, it is language that allows a person to establish contact with another person, influence him, convey emotions, describe and perform other complex functions. Here is the hourglass, everything is interconnected. No language - no speech. No speech - no language. The basic unit of language is the word. The basic unit of speech is the utterance
So, at the risk of being subjected to harsh criticism for excessive typology, let us say that the indicated characteristics are distributed among modern races in the following way.
3. question language
Language as a social phenomenon
Language arises, develops and exists as a collective property. Its main purpose is to serve the needs of human society and, above all, to ensure communication between members of a large or small social group, as well as the functioning of the collective memory of this community.
The concept of society is one of the most difficult to define. Society is not just a set of human individuals, but a system of diverse relationships between people belonging to certain social, professional, gender and age, ethnic, ethnographic, religious groups, to the ethno-sociocultural environment where each individual occupies his specific place and in Because of this, he acts as a bearer of a certain social status, social functions and roles as an individual. An individual as a member of society can be identified on the basis of a large number of relationships that connect him with other individuals. The peculiarities of an individual's linguistic behavior and his behavior in general turn out to be largely determined by transpersonal factors.
The problem of the relationship between language and society includes many aspects, including those that are included in the groups of problems:
Social essence language: Functions of language in society. The main directions of the social evolution of languages. The history of the language and the history of the people speaking it.
Variation of language in society: Functional variants (forms of existence) of language (literary language and its book-written and oral-spoken forms, vernacular). Language and territorial differentiation of society (territorial dialects). Language and social differentiation of society (social dialects). Language and social roles of speakers.
Interaction of languages in a multi-ethnic society: Languages and ethnic groups. Language situations. National language policy. Language contacts. Multilingualism in a sociological aspect. Language and ethnic identity.
Language and culture: Language as a product of culture and as an instrument of culture. Cultural stratification of society and language. Interaction of ethnocultures and intercultural communication.
These problems are studied by sociolinguistics (social linguistics), which arose at the intersection of linguistics and sociology, as well as cultural and linguistic anthropology, ethnolinguistics, ethnography of speech, stylistics, rhetoric, pragmatics, theory of linguistic communication, theory of mass communication, theory of intercultural communication, etc. . Let us dwell for now on the subject of sociolinguistics.
Language performs the following social functions in society:
Communicative / informative (transmission and receipt of messages in the form of linguistic / verbal statements carried out in acts of interpersonal and mass communication, exchange of information between people as participants in acts of linguistic communication),
cognitive / cognitive (processing and storage of knowledge in the memory of the individual and society, the formation of a conceptual and linguistic picture of the world),
interpretative / interpretive (revealing the deep meaning of perceived linguistic statements / texts),
regulatory / sociative / interactive (linguistic interaction of communicants with the goal of exchanging communicative roles, asserting their communicative leadership, influencing each other, organizing a successful exchange of information due to compliance with communicative postulates and principles),
contact-establishing / phatic (establishing and maintaining communicative interaction),
emotionally expressive (expression of one’s emotions, feelings, moods, psychological attitudes, relationships to communication partners and the subject of communication), aesthetic (creation of works of art),
magical / “spellcasting” (use in religious ritual, in the practice of spellcasters, psychics, etc.),
ethnocultural (unification into a single whole of representatives of a given ethnic group as speakers of the same language as their native language),
metalinguistic / metaspeech (transmission of messages about the facts of the language itself and speech acts in it).
The history of each language is closely connected with the history of the people who are its speakers. There are significant functional differences between the language of a tribe, the language of a people, and the language of a nation. Language plays an extremely important role in the consolidation of related (and not only related) tribes into a nationality and in the formation of a nation.
The same ethnic group can use two or more languages at the same time. Yes, many nations Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages they used both their spoken languages and Latin. In Babylonia, along with Akkadian (Babylonian-Assyrian) for a long time Sumerian language was used.
On the contrary, the same language can simultaneously serve several ethnic groups. So, Spanish used in Spain, and also (often simultaneously with other languages) in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, the Republic of Cuba, Philippines, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, etc.
An ethnic group may lose its language and switch to another language. This happened, for example, in Gaul due to the Romanization of the Celts. The same thing happened with the ethnic groups living in the territory of what is now Spain and Portugal, Romania and Moldova.
Describing the relationship between different language variants or different languages used in one social group, we speak of a linguistic situation. Having uttered the expression “language situation,” we turned to the field of sociolinguistics. To begin with, briefly, about what sociolinguistics is as a science and what it studies.
4.language structure
As an instrument of communication, language must be organized as a whole, have a certain structure and form the unity of its elements as a certain system. Since our concepts and ideas about an object are not at all correlated with the world of real things, but are only a reflection of them, then what are words? It is absolutely clear that words as certain sound complexes do not “reflect” reality, as concepts do. Why do we still learn that “house” is “house” and “cat” is “cat”? We find the answer to this in the theory of sign.
A sign is a member of a specific sign system. First of all, it must be said that not every unit can be a sign. Because to implement it you need to have:
1. Denoting(what we see, hear, feel, etc.)
2. Designated(content that is hidden behind the external form)
3. Conditional connection between them(not natural, not natural).
Based on this, it is clear that speech sounds are not signs, but certain combinations make it possible for the appearance of morphemes, words, and significant units of language. Letters are typically included in two sign systems: alphabetic and graphic. The ability of signs to perform different functions is based on the fact that the signs within a given sign system (alphabet, sound structure of a language) themselves differ either in general or through some particular, separate diacritics. This can be illustrated in letters. Let's say, O and X differ in general, having nothing in common, and the letters Ш and Ш have everything in common, except for one diacritic.
Among scientists there is no common understanding of the sign in language, and many explain this concept in different ways. F.F. Fortunatov often used this term and noted that language represents a set of signs mainly for thought and for expressing thought in speech. There are also signs in language to express feelings. The Danish scientist L. Hjelmslev wrote that language, in its purpose, is primarily a sign system. Given an unlimited number of signs, this is achieved by the fact that all signs are built from non-signs, the number of which is limited.
Words as names of things and phenomena have nothing to do with these things and phenomena. If such a connection existed, then the language could not have the following groups of words:
1. synonyms (words that sound different, but call the same thing) strike - strike, plant - factory;
2. homonyms (words that sound the same, but have different meanings) onion– weapons and plants, key– a spring and a tool for unlocking the lock;
3. It would also be impossible to transfer values: tail– part of the animal’s body and line;
4. finally, it would be impossible to have different-sounding words to denote the same phenomenon in different languages, for example, Russian word"eagle" - goal. Adelaar( A delar), German Adler ( A dler), English Eagle (eagle), fr. Aigle.
Why anyway table, house and so on. not just sound combinations, but words that have meaning and are understandable to everyone who speaks Russian? To clarify this issue, you should also familiarize yourself with the structure of the language.
Under structure one should understand the unity of heterogeneous elements within the whole. The language is characterized by complexity and inconsistency of structure. So, verbal communication process can be presented in two plans: speaking plan And hearing plan. They are completely different from each other, or rather, mirror opposites: where the process of speaking ends is the beginning of the process of listening. What it produces speaking, forms articulatory complex, that which catches and perceives listening, forms acoustic complex. Physically, these processes are not equivalent. However, in the act of speech, these two complexes form a unity; they are two sides of the same object. Saying a word and hearing a word are the same thing from the point of view of language. The identification of what is spoken and what is heard ensures correct perception, without which it is impossible to achieve mutual understanding between speakers. For correct perception, it is necessary that both interlocutors possess the same articulatory-acoustic skills, i.e. skills of the same language. But the act of speech is not limited to perception. The next stage is understanding. It can only be achieved if speakers relate words and meanings in the same way, i.e. speak the same language. Thus, the Russian word “tobacco” in Turkish correlates with the meaning “dish”, “sheet of paper”.
So, language – complex structure interconnected heterogeneous elements. The difference in the elements of language structure is qualitative, which is determined by the different functions of these elements.
Nothing else exists or can exist in language.
The elements that make up the language perform the following functions:
1. Sounds perform two functions - perceptual- to be an object of perception and significative- have the ability to distinguish significant elements of language - morphemes, words, sentences: mot, that, lot, cat, bot etc.
2. Morphemes perform semasiological function, i.e. express concepts. They can’t name morphemes, but they have meaning: ( red-) expresses only the concept of a certain color, and can name something only by turning into a word - redness, red, blush.
3. words characteristic nominative function, i.e. words name things and phenomena of reality (nominative). Proper names perform this function in its pure form, while common nouns, for example, combine it with a semasiological function.
4. Offers perform communicative function, i.e. serve for message. Since sentences are made up of words, they components have both nominative and semasiological functions.
The elements of this structure form a unity in the language. Each element of a lower level can be used to create a larger unit: sound - morpheme - word - sentence.
Within each tier of the linguistic structure there is its own system, and the members of a given tier are members of this system.
System- a set of language units interconnected by stable relationships and characterized by interconnectedness and interdependence. Systems of individual tiers of linguistic structure, interacting with each other, form common system of this language.
There are several ways to classify languages:
· areal, according to cultural and historical areas (place of distribution);
· typological; for example, by the way of expression grammatical meaning languages are divided into analytical, isolating, synthetic and polysynthetic;
· genetic, by origin and degree of relationship. Languages are grouped into groups; those, in turn, become families. For some families, it has been proposed to unite them into taxa of a higher level - macrofamilies. Language taxonomy deals with the classification of languages based on genetic characteristics.
[edit]Language dynamics in the world
There are about 5 thousand languages on Earth.
There are about 5-6 thousand languages on Earth. With the development of communications, the number of living languages is decreasing from average speed 1 language per two weeks.
The 40 most common languages are spoken by approximately 2/3 of the world's population. The languages most spoken by people are Chinese, Hindi, English, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Portuguese. Considerably widespread and French, however, the number of those who consider him family (first) is relatively small.
In order for a language to be preserved, about 100 thousand of its speakers are required. There are currently just over 400 languages considered endangered.
Languages die along with the last speaker, and therefore danger threatens, first of all, nations that do not use writing.
At the same time, it should be noted that differences in development, as well as the influence of neighbors, lead to changes in the area of language use and its changes. So, for example, Cyril and Methodius, when they created the Slavic alphabet, did not need a translator during their travels, because in the 9th century from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and from the Vltava to the Dnieper, all Slavs spoke the same language (proto-Slavic).
One of the reasons for the death of languages is uneven distribution them according to the number of speakers. Thus, 80% of the world's population knows only 80 languages. At the same time, 3.5 thousand languages account for 0.2% of the Earth's inhabitants. The main reason for the process of extinction of languages is considered to be globalization and migration. People leave villages for cities and lose the language of their people.
About half of currently existing languages will fall out of use by the middle of the 21st century. Many languages are disappearing due to the fact that their speakers come into contact with a stronger linguistic environment, so the languages of small nationalities and the languages of peoples without statehood are primarily at risk of extinction. If less than 70% of children learn a language, it is considered endangered. According to UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, approximately 50 languages are currently at risk of extinction in Europe.
[edit]Characteristics of language
Languages are characterized by the degree of preservation and functional limitations.
[edit] Degree of preservation
Main article:Degree of preservation of languages
According to the degree of preservation Levels of endangerment) languages are characterized by a scale of six categories proposed in the UNESCO Red Book of Languages to more clearly define the danger, threatening that or another language:
· Extinct languages ( extinct)
Possibly extinct languages ( extinct)
· On the verge of extinction (almost extinct, nearly extinct)
· Endangered (dying) languages ( seriously endangered)
· Troubled languages ( endangered)
· Unstable languages ( potentially endangered)
· Prosperous languages (non-extinct) ( not endangered)
[edit] Functional limitation
Functionally limited is a language that does not have sufficient or no resources such as:
· stable spelling in a specific writing system;
· reference literature (grammar, dictionaries, works of classics);
· materials of mass distribution (press, audio recordings, films, songs and music);
· technical and educational literature(technical and scientific publications, didactic works, textbooks);
· various media of everyday information (posters, announcements, correspondence, certificates, manuals, etc.);
· other means of transmitting information in language.
6.genetics of languages
There are several thousand languages in the world. The most well-known reference books include only modern (i.e. living and recently extinct) languages. According to the Ethnologist there are 6909 of them, and according to the Register of Linguistics (English) - 4994. Most of them are grouped into families, some languages are considered isolated (that is, they are monolingual families) or remain unclassified.
Family languages is considered to be a genetic linguistic union of approximately the same level of depth as the Indo-European languages, that is, it disintegrated approximately 6-7 thousand years ago. Some families, traditionally so called, turn out to be deeper units (for example, Austronesian languages, Cushitic languages). Below they are called superfamilies.
There are approximately 240 language families, over 100 isolates, and over 100 unclassified languages. Families are often united into units of a higher level - macrofamilies (phyla, English phylum), but most of them are scientifically unproven and/or unrecognized by most linguists. Only hypotheses about the existence of the Nostratic and Afrasian macrofamily can be considered reliable.
The most convenient way of ordering such a large number of families is not genetically, but geographically - according to continents or continents, although the boundaries of linguistic families, of course, do not entirely correspond to physical boundaries.
Genetic diversity is not equal among different regions.
1. Eurasia: a total of 21 families, 4 isolates and 12 unclassified languages.
2. Africa and South-West Asia: a total of 28 families, 10 isolates and 10 unclassified languages.
3. Oceania: “Papuan” and Australian languages. A total of 100 families and 32 isolated languages.
4. North America(including Mesoamerica): a total of 42 families, 28 isolates and 6 unclassified languages.
5. South America: According to the latest information, there are 55 families, 43 isolated and 77 unclassified languages.
Extinct languages, families and groups of languages are marked with †. The number of languages is indicated in (curly) brackets.
7.Indo-European
Indo-European languages- the most widespread language family in the world. It is represented on all inhabited continents of the Earth, the number of speakers exceeds 2.5 billion. According to the views of some modern linguists, it is part of the macrofamily of Nostratic languages.
rmin Indo-European languages(English) Indo-European languages) was first introduced by the English explorer Thomas Young in 1813. In German-language literature the term is more often used Indo-Germanic languages(German) indogermanische Sprachen). Sometimes the Indo-European languages were previously called "Aryan", but this term now refers to the subfamily of Indo-European languages that includes the Nuristani branch and the Indo-Iranian languages.
[edit]Origin and history
The languages of the Indo-European family descend from a single Proto-Indo-European language, whose speakers probably lived about 5-6 thousand years ago. There are several hypotheses about the place of origin of the Proto-Indo-European language, in particular, regions such as Eastern Europe, Western Asia, steppe territories at the junction of Europe and Asia. With a high probability, the archaeological culture of the ancient Indo-Europeans (or one of their branches) can be considered the so-called “Yamnaya culture”, the bearers of which in the 3rd millennium BC. e. lived in the east of modern Ukraine and the south of Russia.
In turn, the Proto-Indo-European language, according to the hypothesis of H. Pedersen, developed by V. M. Illich-Svitych and S. A. Starostin, is part of the Nostratic macrofamily of languages, among which it is especially close to the Kartvelian languages, which, like it, have ablaut.
[edit]Composition and classification
The Indo-European family includes Albanian, Armenian, Greek languages and Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, Iranian, Indian, Anatolian (Hittite-Luvian), Tocharian and Italic language groups. At the same time, the Anatolian, Tocharian and Italic groups (if the Romance ones are not considered Italic) are represented only by dead languages.
8.state
What is the State?
State - this is special form of organization of society that has certain means and methods of using power within society, establishing a certain order of relationships between members of society, installed on certain territories, And involving the entire population in its activities in the established territory. The main means of maintaining the established order is the use of power. The order of relationships between members of society and the use of power is determined by: the constitution, laws and other legal documents states that are part of the formal structure of the state; as well as customs formed within society, regardless of the state, which are the basis for understanding the laws of the state and determine the informal procedure for the application and interpretation of laws.
State goals
In modern developed countries, the main goals of the state are:
· maintaining normal relationships between members of society, which consists in ensuring a certain level of security of people’s lives and property, that is, the security of their personal, scientific, creative and commercial activities;
· implementation and preservation of material and spiritual goals and values common to members of society, such as freedom, morality, justice, medicine, education, roads, ecology.
One of the foundations that can ensure the implementation of the stated goals is democracy, That there is a public choice of persons with power and managers of state authorities. In practice, democracy can only create the appearance that the authorities state power serve the community entirely. Driving skillfully public opinion By manipulating society through methods known in “crowd” psychology, one person, or a small group of people with the means to influence the masses, can ensure any convenient outcome of the elections. This type of democracy is especially characteristic of a state with an insufficiently educated and/or politically inactive population.
The term is commonly used in legal, political as well as social contexts.
Compared to a community, which is a simple (unorganized) society, the state contains in itself social class(or classes), whose professional occupation(or which) is management common affairs (in a communal structure, each community member is involved in managing them).
In the Russian language there is often a confusion between the concept of “state” and political power which manages the general affairs of an organized society (for example: “in this state ...” and “the state insists on more intensive intervention in the economy ...”)
Lecture No. 2
I. Social essence of language.
II. The difference between language and other social phenomena.
III. Functions of the language.
IV. Language and speech.
V. Language and thinking.
I. The question of the essence of language has several mutually exclusive solutions in the history of linguistics:
1. language is a biological, natural phenomenon that does not depend on humans. This point view was expressed, for example, by the German linguist A. Schleicher.
Recognizing language as a natural (biological) phenomenon, it should be considered on a par with such human abilities as eating, drinking, sleeping, etc. and consider it inherited, inherent in human nature itself. However, this contradicts the facts. Language is acquired by a child under the influence of speakers.
2. language is a mental phenomenon that arises as a result of the action of the individual spirit - human or divine.
A similar opinion was expressed by the German linguist W. Humboldt.
This statement is hardly true. In this case
humanity would have a huge variety of individual languages.
3. language is a social phenomenon that arises and develops only in a collective. This position was substantiated by the Swiss linguist F. de Saussure. Indeed, language arises only in a collective due to the need for people to communicate with each other.
Different understandings of the essence of language gave rise to different approaches to its definition: language is thinking expressed by sounds(A. Schleicher); language is a system of signs in which the only essential thing is the combination of meaning and acoustic image(F. de Saussure); language is the most important means of human communication(V.I. Lenin); language is something that spontaneously arises in human society And developing system articulate sound signs, serving for communication purposes and capable of expressing the entire body of knowledge and ideas about the world(N.D.Arutyunova).
Each of these definitions emphasizes different points: the relationship of language to thinking, structural organization language, the most important functions, etc., which once again demonstrates the complexity of language as a system that works in unity and interaction with consciousness and thinking.
II. From the point of view of the science of society, language has no analogues. It is not only unique, but in a number of significant ways it differs from all social phenomena:
1. language, consciousness and social character labor activity
form the foundation of human identity.
2. the presence of language is a necessary condition for the existence of society throughout the history of mankind. Any other social phenomenon in its existence is limited in chronological terms: it is not originally in human society and is not eternal. So, for example, the family did not always exist, there was not always private property, the state, money, etc. Language originally will exist as long as society exists.
3. the presence of language is a necessary condition for material and spiritual existence in all spheres of social space. Any social phenomenon in its distribution is limited to a certain space, for example, science does not include art, and art does not include production, etc. Language is used in all spheres; it is inseparable from all manifestations of human existence.
4. language is dependent and independent of society. On the one hand, the social division of society is reflected in language, i.e. the national language is socially heterogeneous. But, on the other hand, social dialects of a language do not become special languages. Language preserves the unity of a people in its history.
5. originality of language as a form public consciousness is that through language a specifically human form of transmission of social experience is carried out.
6. language does not relate to ideological or ideological forms of social consciousness, in contrast to law, morality, politics, religion and other types of consciousness.
III. Being a social phenomenon, language has the properties of social purpose, i.e. certain functions.
The most important functions of the language are the functions communicative And cognitive.
Communicative ( lat. communicatio"communication" ) function– the purpose of language to serve as the main means of human communication. The derivatives of this function are the following:
contact-making (phatic) function– the function of attracting the attention of the interlocutor and ensuring successful, effective communication;
appellative(lat. appellatio"appeal, appeal" )function – function of calling, incitement to action;
conative(lat. conatus"tension, effort") function – function of assessing the communication situation and focusing on the interlocutor;
voluntary(lat . volens"willing") function – influence function associated with the will of the speaker;
epistemic(ancient Greek) episteme"knowledge") or cumulative (lat. cumulare"accumulate") function - the function of storing and transmitting knowledge about reality, cultural traditions, history of the people, national identity.
Cognitive(lat. cognoscere"to know") or epistemological(Greek gnoseos"cognition") function– the function of being a means of obtaining new knowledge about reality and consolidating the results of knowledge in language, the function of thinking. This function of language connects it with human mental activity; the structure and dynamics of thought are materialized in units of language.
Derivatives of this function:
axiological(Greek axios"valuable") function – the function of forming an assessment of objects in the surrounding world and expressing them in speech;
nominative(lat. nominatio"naming") function – function of naming objects of the surrounding world;
predicative(lat. praedicatio"utterance") function – function of correlating information with reality, etc.
In addition to the main functions of language, they sometimes distinguish emotional or expressive function - purpose of being a means of expressing human feelings and emotions; poetic function - creation function artistic image by means of language; metalinguistic function - function of being a means of exploring and describing language in terms of the language itself.
IV. Extremely important for the development of linguistics was the distinction between the concepts of “language - speech - speech activity”. As the history of linguistics shows, these concepts were often not distinguished. W. Humboldt also spoke about the need to differentiate them: Language as a set of its products differs from individual acts of speech activity.(Humboldt von W. On the differences in the structure of human languages and its influence on the spiritual development of mankind // W. von Humboldt. Selected works on linguistics. M., 1984, pp. 68-69).
Theoretical background This position was given by F. de Saussure and L.V. Shcherba.
A Swiss linguist wrote about it this way: In our opinion, the concept of language does not coincide with the concept of speech activity in general; language is only a certain part – indeed, the most important part – of speech activity. It is a social product, a set of necessary conventions adopted by the team to ensure the implementation and functioning of the ability for speech activity that exists in every native speaker...(F. de Saussure. Works on linguistics // Course of general linguistics. M., 1977, p. 47).
According to Saussure, in their existence these phenomena are interconnected, but not reducible to each other.
L.V. Shcherba proposed to distinguish three aspects of language: speech activity (i.e. the process of speaking and understanding), language system(i.e. the grammar of a language and its dictionary) and linguistic material (i.e. the totality of everything spoken and understood in the act of communication).
Language and speech, forming a single phenomenon of human language, are not identical to each other. Language is a system of signs used by humans to communicate, store and transmit information. Speech- specific speaking, occurring over time and expressed in audio or written form. Speech is the embodiment, the realization of language.
Language and speech each have their own characteristics:
1. language is a means of communication, speech is the type of communication produced by this means;
2. the language is abstract, formal; speech is material, it concretizes everything that is in language;
3. language is stable, passive and static, while speech is active and dynamic, characterized by high variability;
4. language is the property of society, it reflects the “picture of the world of the people speaking it,” while speech is individual;
5. language has a level organization, speech – linear;
6. language is independent of the situation and setting of communication, while speech is contextually and situationally determined.
7. speech develops in time and space, it is determined by the goals and objectives of speaking and the participants in communication; language is abstracted from these parameters.
Concepts language And speech are related as general and particular: the general (language) is expressed in the particular (speech), while the particular is the form of existence of the general.
Speech activity – a type of human activity that is the sum of the acts of speaking and understanding. It - in the form of speech actions - serves all types of activities, being part of work, play and cognitive activities.
V. The problem of language and thinking is one of the most complex and controversial in the theory of linguistics. In different periods of the history of the science of language, it was solved differently: representatives of some directions (for example, logical) identified these concepts; supporters of others (psychological) tried to resolve this issue on a hierarchical plane, justifying the primacy of either thinking in relation to language, or language in relation to thinking; representatives of structuralism believed that the structure of language determines the structure of thinking and the way of cognition outside world.
A scientific solution to the question of the relationship between language and thinking gives reflection theory, according to which thinking is highest form active reflection of objective reality, carried out in various forms and structures (concepts, categories, theories), in which the cognitive and socio-historical experience of mankind is fixed and generalized.
This theory considers language and thinking in a dialectical unity: the tool of thinking is language, as well as other sign systems.
Attitude "language - thinking" studies cognitive linguistics. Cognitive scientists consider a single mental-lingual complex as a self-organizing information system, operating on the basis of the human brain. This system provides perception, understanding, evaluation, storage, transformation, generation and transmission of information. Thinking within the framework of this system is a process of thought generation that constantly occurs in the brain, based on the processing and transformation of information received through various channels. In order for thinking to take place, it must have certain tools that would ensure the division of the flow of impulses coming to the brain from the senses. Language acts as such a tool. The main function of language in relation to thinking is to separate information, i.e. in the form of subject images and meanings.
When studying the thought processes of speech formation, relationships are established between logical and linguistic categories in speech: “concept (representation) – word, phraseological unit”; “judgment (inference) - proposal.”
Concepts like a form abstract thinking is realized in speech through words and phrases (phraseologisms), and such forms of thought as judgments and inferences have as their material shell various types of sentences of human speech.
Nominative units of language (words and phrases) are not just a way of materializing ideas and concepts, but reflect specific, standardized forms of knowledge about objects and phenomena of the objective world, accumulated as a result of social practice. These types of knowledge are called concepts. Concepts are the smallest units of information based on objective images of the surrounding world.
The centuries-old process of formalizing and expressing thoughts through language also determined the development in the grammatical structure of languages of a number of formal categories, partially correlated with logical categories (categories of thinking). For example, the formal categories of a noun, adjective, numeral correspond to the semantic categories of an object or phenomenon, process, quality, quantity.
Thus, language as a sign system is the material support of thinking; it materializes thoughts and ensures the exchange of information. Thinking reflects reality, and language expresses it. The connection between these phenomena allows language to carry out communicative and cognitive functions: language not only conveys messages about objects and phenomena of the external world, but also organizes knowledge about the world in a certain way, dividing and consolidating it in consciousness.
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