Each language has its own linguistic picture of the world, according to which the native speaker organizes the content of the utterance. This is how the specifically human perception of the world, recorded in language, manifests itself.

Language is the most important way of forming human knowledge about the world. By reflecting the objective world in the process of activity, a person records the results of cognition in words. The totality of this knowledge, captured in linguistic form, represents what is commonly called the “linguistic picture of the world.” “If the world is a person and the environment in their interaction, then the picture of the world is the result of processing information about the environment and the person.”

Within the framework of the anthropocentric scientific approach, the linguistic picture is presented in the form of a system of images that contain the surrounding reality.

The picture of the world can be presented using spatial, temporal, quantitative, ethnic and other parameters. Its formation is greatly influenced by traditions, language, nature, upbringing, education and many social factors.

The uniqueness of national experience determines the peculiarities of the worldview of different peoples. Due to the specifics of language, in turn, a certain linguistic picture of the world is formed, through the prism of which a person perceives the world. Concepts are components of the linguistic picture of the world, through the analysis of which it is possible to identify some features of the national worldview.

A linguistic picture of the world, historically formed in the everyday consciousness of a given linguistic community and reflected in the language as a set of ideas about the world, a certain way of conceptualizing reality. The concept of a linguistic picture of the world goes back to the ideas of W. von Humboldt and the neo-Humboldtians (Weisgerber and others) about the internal form of language, on the one hand, and to the ideas of American ethnolinguistics, in particular the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, on the other.

Modern ideas about the linguistic picture of the world as presented by academician. Yu.D. Apresyan look as follows.

Reconstruction of the linguistic picture of the world is the most important task of modern linguistic semantics. The study of the linguistic picture of the world is carried out in two directions, in accordance with the two named components of this concept. On the one hand, based on a systematic semantic analysis of the vocabulary of a certain language, a reconstruction of an integral system of ideas reflected in a given language is carried out, regardless of whether it is specific to a given language or universal, reflecting a “naive” view of the world as opposed to a “scientific” one. On the other hand, individual concepts characteristic of a given language (language-specific) are studied, which have two properties: they are “key” for a given culture (in the sense that they provide a “key” to its understanding) and at the same time the corresponding words are poorly translated into other languages : a translation equivalent is either absent altogether (as, for example, for the Russian words melancholy, anguish, perhaps, daring, will, restless, sincerity, ashamed, offensive, inconvenient), or such an equivalent exists in principle, but it does not contain exactly those components of meaning , which are specific to a given word (such as, for example, the Russian words soul, fate, happiness, justice, vulgarity, separation, resentment, pity, morning, gather, get, as it were). In recent years, a direction has been developing in domestic semantics that integrates both approaches; its goal is to reconstruct the Russian linguistic picture of the world on the basis of a comprehensive (linguistic, cultural, semiotic) analysis of linguistic-specific concepts of the Russian language in an intercultural perspective (works by Yu.D. Apresyan, N.D. Arutyunova, A. Vezhbitskaya, Anna A. Zaliznyak, I B. Levontina, E. V. Rakhilina, E. V. Uryson, A. D. Shmeleva, E. S. Yakovleva, etc.).

Vorotnik Yu. L. “Linguistic picture of the world” has the following interpretation of the concept.

The concept of a linguistic picture of the world is one of those “broad” concepts, the justification for the use of which is not mandatory, or, more precisely, it is taken for granted. After all, there are few researchers who would begin their work in the field of, for example, morphology by defining their understanding of the essence of language, although it is quite clear that they will have to use the word “language” more than once during the course of their presentation. Moreover, if you ask them what a language is, many will not immediately be able to answer this question. Moreover, the quality of this particular work will not necessarily be directly related to the ability of its author to interpret the meaning of the concepts used.

However, when classifying the concept of “linguistic picture of the world” among such initial concepts of linguistics as “language”, “speech”, “word” and the like, one essential circumstance should be kept in mind. All of the listed concepts can be used as, to a certain extent, “self-evident”, in a sense “a priori”, because a huge literature is devoted to them, they are, as it were, polished by the use of great authorities who have broken many copies in disputes about their essence. That is why it is often enough not to give your own definition of such a concept, but simply refer to one of its authoritative definitions.

Some indifference or, if you like, composure of linguists to this side of the issue should and, of course, has its own rational explanation. One of them boils down to the following. The expression “linguistic picture of the world” is essentially not terminological to this day; it is used as, albeit a successful, but still a metaphor, and giving definitions to a metaphorical expression is, generally speaking, a thankless task. In the same area where the word “picture” is used terminologically (namely in art history), the attitude towards it, of course, is completely different and the battles around its conceptual content can be no less heated than around the content of the term “word” in linguistics.

And yet, the very fact of the keen interest of linguists in problems one way or another associated with the picture of the world indicates that this expression denotes something related to the basics, defining the essence of language, or rather, perceived as defining its essence “now”, i.e. that is, at the present stage of development of the science of language (it is possible, however, that “here”, that is, in the science of the “Western” area in the broad sense of the word).

The fact that a certain new archetype is gradually (and to a certain extent unconsciously) entering the consciousness of linguists, predetermining the direction of the entire set of linguistic studies, seems quite obvious. One can, paraphrasing the title of one of Martin Heidegger’s articles, say that for the science of language the “time of a linguistic picture of the world” has come. And if we further specify the characteristics of the moment, then the time for in-depth reflection on the content of the very concept of “linguistic picture of the world”, in our opinion, has already come.

M. Heidegger’s position regarding the concept of a linguistic picture of the world is as follows. The expression “linguistic picture of the world” suggests that there may be other ways of picturing it, and all these methods are based on the very possibility of representing the world as a picture. “Imagine the world as a picture” - what does this actually mean? What is the world in this expression, what is the picture, and who represents the world in the form of a picture? Martin Heidegger tried to give answers to all these questions in his article “The Time of the World Picture,” published for the first time in 1950. This article was based on the report “Substantiation of the New European Picture of the World by Metaphysics,” read by the philosopher back in 1938. Heidegger’s thoughts expressed in this report, were significantly ahead of subsequent discussions in scientific studies about the essence of the general scientific picture world and have not lost any of their significance in our time.

According to Heidegger, in the expression “picture of the world,” the world appears “as a designation of existence as a whole.” Moreover, this name “is not limited to space, nature. History also belongs to the world. And yet, even nature, history, and both of them together in their latent and aggressive interpenetration do not exhaust the world. This word also means the basis of the world, regardless of how its relationship to the world is thought.”

The picture of the world is not just an image of the world, not something copied: “The picture of the world, essentially understood, thus means not a picture depicting the world, but the world understood in the sense of such a picture.” According to Heidegger, “Where the world becomes a picture, there beings as a whole are approached as something that a person aims at and that he therefore accordingly wants to present to himself, to have in front of himself and thereby in a decisive sense to present to himself,” and to present it in everything that is inherent in it and constitutes it as a system.

Asking the question whether each era of history has its own picture of the world and is each time concerned with constructing its own picture of the world, Heidegger answers it in the negative. The picture of the world is possible only where and when the existence of beings is “searched for and found in the representation of beings.” Since such an interpretation of existence is impossible, neither for the Middle Ages, nor for antiquity, it is also impossible to talk about the medieval and ancient picture of the world. Transforming the world into a picture is distinguishing feature New time, new European view of the world. Moreover, and this is very important, “the transformation of the world into a picture is the same process as the transformation of a person within a being into a subiectum.” The consequence of the crossing of these two processes, i.e., the transformation of the world into a picture, and man into a subject, is characteristic of the New Age, the transformation of the science of the world into the science of man, that is, into anthropology, understood as such a philosophical interpretation of man, “when existing things as a whole is interpreted and assessed from the individual and by the individual."

The mechanism for the formation of a linguistic picture of the world is as follows: in acts of thinking, information about the surrounding world is processed. A more or less holistic picture of the world is formed in the mind, which largely determines human behavior. But the creation of a picture of the world is influenced not only by knowledge, but also by beliefs, opinions, and assessments. The picture of the world formed as a result of such activity is constantly supplemented and modified in the further process of life.

An analysis of the current state of development of the problem of the relationship between the linguistic picture of the world and linguistic conceptualization suggests that the cultural and linguistic pictures of the world are closely interconnected, are in a state of continuous interaction and go back to the real picture of the world, or rather, simply to the real world surrounding a person, to reality .

Linguistic picture of the world.

So, being an instrument of culture, language, like mythology, religion or art, is capable of drawing its own holistic image of the world, which has a historically determined character. Accordingly, we can talk about the existence of such a type of picture of the world as a linguistic picture of the world.

Linguistic picture of the world call the body of knowledge about the world that is reflected in language, as well as ways of obtaining and interpreting new knowledge that influence the linguistic reflection of the latter.

The main features of the linguistic picture of the world, in principle, are correlated with the three features of the conceptual picture of the world, but they have a certain specificity due to the characteristics of language as a form of consciousness. In particular, in contrast to the actual picture of the world, which for convenience we will further call immediate, the linguistic picture of the world belongs to the so-called "mediated" pictures of the world, since it is formed as a result of the materialization of the immediate picture of the world by means of another, secondary sign system - language.

This explains the fact why in most scientific works the essence of the linguistic picture of the world is derived through its comparison with the immediate picture of the world. Taking as a basis the argument that human thinking is “externalized” by language, modern researchers of the linguistic picture of the world draw the conclusion: the study of ideas about reality recorded in language allows us to judge the immediate picture of the world. However, it is emphasized that the direct picture of the world is broader than the linguistic one, since not all ideas have linguistic expression; Only that which has communicative significance is recorded in language. For example, the language does not have a designation for the color of x-rays, which humans simply do not perceive visually. That is why in the immediate picture of the world it is possible to distinguish peripheral areas that are not indicated by the linguistic picture of the world, and the core, the content of which is fixed in the language.

As is known, the direct picture of the world consists of concepts as quanta of knowledge structured in a special way. When forming a linguistic picture of the world, these concepts are subject to the so-called “ verbalization" or "linguistic representation".

In this case, the concept is not necessarily denoted by one linguistic sign (in particular, a word). Often a concept is expressed by several linguistic signs, but may not be verbalized at all, that is, not represented in the language system, and exist on the basis of other sign systems - gestures, music, dance. For example, the concept “stupid” can be expressed using the characteristic tapping of a finger on the forehead. At the same time, it is quite obvious that the content of a concept is best expressed by the entire set of language means. These include:

Nominative means of language - lexemes, phraseological units, as well as a significant absence of nominative units (the so-called “lacunarity”);

Functional means of language - selection of vocabulary for communication, composition of the most frequent linguistic means against the background of the entire corpus of linguistic units of the language system;

Figurative means language - metaphors, internal forms of linguistic units;

Discursive means of language - special means constructing texts of different genres;

Strategies for assessing language utterances.

The second feature of the linguistic picture of the world, also correlated with the features of the immediate picture of the world, is its integrity. The very metaphor “picture of the world” implies the similarity of the linguistic picture of the world with another system – the visual one. Like the visual image, language is not composed of individual parameters (for example, shape and size); in the linguistic image of the world, these parameters are merged into a single whole.

This approach initially excludes the comparison of different linguistic pictures of the world based on several specific words or statements and encourages researchers to compare holistic images of the world captured in language, however, the picture of the world cannot be fully represented and is not recognized by a person as such in its entirety, even with targeted reflection . It is known, and therefore studied, only in fragments.

Finally, the third feature of the linguistic picture of the world is its subjectivity. Just as in the case of the direct picture of the world, the point here is that a person’s knowledge about the world around him is not simply “objectively reflected” in language; the process of their display is necessarily accompanied by interpretation, which manifests itself, among other things, at the linguistic level. That is why today a number of linguists are studying the value aspect of the linguistic picture of the world, or the linguaxiological picture of the world. Units this aspect are evaluative linguistic units that fix the value of a particular segment of reality for a person. The greater the value, the more versatile designation it receives in the language.

The value-evaluative aspect of the picture of the world can be expressed in language, first of all, in two ways: through the evaluative connotations of a unit, which is the name of the characterized concept, or through a combination of this unit with evaluative epithets.

It should be noted that the linguistic picture of the world, like the direct picture of the world, not only interpretive, but also regulatory function. Certainly, this function is performed, first of all, by a direct picture of the world, which serves as a guide for its bearer in carrying out life activities. The linguistic picture of the world, due to its secondary nature, cannot have a direct influence on a person’s behavior and thinking, however, it is thanks to it that a symbolic reflection and consolidation of the results of the activity of a linguistic personality occurs, without which a person’s further life activity, in particular, his acquisition of new knowledge about the world around him, It's simply impossible to imagine.

The linguistic picture of the world is of great importance in the process of communication as an exchange of information, the participants of which are its carriers. It is obvious that in the course of communication, certain problems of understanding inevitably arise due to partial discrepancies in the worldviews of the interlocutors. However, the linguistic picture of the world, which sets the methods for encoding and decoding the meaning of a message, in general always serves as a kind of mediator in the communication of people, ensuring their mutual understanding, and minor differences in individual linguistic pictures of the world can be easily overcome, for example, by including in one of them new language elements.

3. Correlation between linguistic and scientific pictures of the world.

As mentioned above, the linguistic picture of the world is not the only holistic image of the world that can be formed in the human mind, and different shapes consciousnesses “paint” different pictures of the same reality, existing not in isolation, but in close connection with each other. In most studies devoted to the linguistic picture of the world, the latter is compared with the scientific picture of the world, which is understood as a holistic image of an object scientific research at this stage of its historical development. To emphasize their differences, a number of works use the designation synonymous with the linguistic picture of the world - "naive picture of the world". In this way, the pre-scientific nature of the linguistic picture of the world, accumulating only everyday knowledge, its approximateness and inaccuracy is emphasized. However, as E.V. proves. Uryson, language as a system does not always reflect exclusively everyday ideas about the world, since, for example, in the Russian language, situations can be designated using nouns, although from the point of view of everyday views only verbs are used for this purpose. In addition, so-called “naive” linguistic concepts are often no less complex than scientific ones. In particular, ideas about inner world human experience reflect the experience of dozens of generations over many millennia. Therefore, the statement about the “naivety” of the linguistic picture of the world should not be absolutized.

The linguistic and scientific picture of the world differ in other ways. One of them is the degree of awareness of the corresponding knowledge system by its bearer. If the linguistic picture of the world exists in our minds in a rather vague, unformed form, then the scientific picture of the world, on the contrary, is based on conscious cognitive attitudes, mandatory definitions and is the subject of constant reflection by its bearers.

The next basis for distinguishing between the linguistic picture of the world and the scientific picture of the world is the degree of variability of each of them. It is well known that the linguistic picture of the world changes much more slowly than the scientific one, and for a long time retains traces of mistakes made by man in the process of cognition. For example, not a single language has eliminated the phrase “black” from its vocabulary after physicists determined that it is not a color, but the absence of any color.

As follows from the above points of view, many domestic researchers advocate that there are a number of differences between the linguistic and scientific pictures of the world. O.A. Kornilov believes that due to the exceptional diversity of such differences, the implied pictures of the world generally have only one common feature - the object of reflection, that is real world. At the same time, the researcher emphasizes that in the linguistic picture of the world, objective reality constitutes only part of the content plan, since linguistic consciousness generates a huge number of mythical objects and characteristics that are not present in the real world.

However, despite the existence of a number of differences between the linguistic and scientific pictures of the world, the fact that there is an inextricable connection between them is irrefutable, since science necessarily relies on the material of human language and any scientific thought is necessarily mediated by the linguistic picture of the world of its bearer.

As already noted, the concept of a picture of the world is associated with a double reflection: by mastering the surrounding reality, a person forms an idea of ​​objects, which constitutes the CM, key concepts which are indicated using language.

Thus, one of the ways of transmitting CM is through language; in its depths a linguistic picture of the world (LPW), one of the deepest layers of a person’s picture of the world, is formed. This statement is based on the discoveries of I.P. Pavlova about the levels of perception of surrounding reality. He established that the real world exists for a person in the form of reality itself, in the form of its sensory perception (the first signaling system) and in the form of a verbal reflection of reality (the second signaling system) [Pavlov 1960]. The idea of ​​the surrounding reality exists in consciousness in the form of: 1) an existential or scientific general model of the world; 2) subjective idea of ​​the world; 3) a picture of the world objectified with the help of language.

In domestic science, the problem of YCM began to be actively developed by philosophers (G.A. Brutyan, R.I. Pavilenis) within the framework of the program “Man - Language - Picture of the World”, by linguists in connection with the compilation of ideographic dictionaries (Yu.N. Karaulov) in 70 - 20th century

YCM is based on the fact that language in general and vocabulary in particular represent the main form of objectification linguistic consciousness many generations of people - native speakers of one or another (specific) language. Language is the main and main element capable of expressing the characteristics of the people's mentality [Kolesov 2004: 15].

The existence of a linguistic picture of the world is determined by the ideas of the general picture of the world, therefore philosophers and linguists distinguish between two models of the world: the conceptual picture of the world - KKM - and YKM, and the boundaries between the conceptual model of the world and the linguistic model of the world, according to Yu.N. Karaulova, seem unsteady and uncertain. KKM is created on the basis of concepts, YKM - on the basis of values. When the NCM is superimposed on the CCM, their content coincides, and this part of the information is considered invariant and corresponds to linguistic universals. The same part of the information that is outside the CCM varies in different languages ​​[Brutyan 1973]. This property of YCM has also been noticed by linguists: “The way of conceptualizing reality (view of the world) inherent in a language is partly universal, partly nationally specific, so that speakers of different languages ​​can see the world a little differently, through the prism of their languages” [Apresyan 1995: 39]. However, language, which carries the conscious (the meaning of a word), also stores the unconscious, which over time has become part of the subconscious. Understanding the sign nature of a word helps to imagine the formation of the meaning of a word and its difference from the concept, which is necessary to specify the content of CCM and JCM.

Reconstruction of the JCM is one of the important tasks of modern linguistic semantics. The concept of YCM, based on the ideas of W. von Humboldt, L. Weisgerber and supporters of American ethnolinguistics E. Sapir and B. Whorf, is being developed in modern Russian studies in several directions. So, Yu.D. Apresyan, N.D. Arutyunova, E.V. Rakhilina, A.D. Shmelev, E.S. Yakovleva et al. are engaged in the reconstruction of Russian YKM based on a comprehensive analysis of linguistic concepts of the Russian language in an intercultural perspective. An example of research of the universalist direction in cognitively oriented ethnolinguistics is the work of A. Vezhbitskaya, devoted to the search for “semantic primitives” - universal elementary concepts for which each language has its own word, reflecting the specifics of a particular culture.

V.V. Kolesov and his followers operate with the concept of mentality, defined as “a worldview in categories and forms native language, in the process of cognition, connecting the intellectual, spiritual and volitional qualities of the national character in its typical manifestations” [Kolesov 2004: 15]. According to V.V. Kolesov, reason, feeling and will, taken together, create the “national temperament”. Peoples Western Europe understand mentality as reason and thought in line with ratio and in their languages ​​have consolidated the original meaning of the ancient concept, which has not yet been enriched with Christian connotations. The peoples of Eastern Europe have more important values are not sober reason, but conscience and spirituality. V.V. Kolesov identifies three main approaches to understanding Russian spirituality (mentality): structural-informational, which is implemented in its interpretations and assessments; information-energetic, based on the recognition of the “energy” of the life of the spirit, which in the terminology of different researchers is called differently: noosphere (V.I. Vernadsky), passionarity (L.N. Gumilyov), pneumosphere (P.A. Florensky), conceptosphere (D.S. Likhachev), etc.; objective-idealistic, which presupposes the energy of divine grace illuminating all things (the idea of ​​the Tabor light in N. Lossky and S. Frank). “The duality of the spiritual essence of mentality and the rational essence of spirituality can be called mentality”... Thus, in the volume of the three-dimensional world in which we live, we are looking for traces of the fourth dimension, a measure hidden from our feelings and concepts: the concepts of national mentality” [Kolesov 2004: 13].

The semantic content of the term “concept”, due to its diversity, is different in the works of different authors, and the understanding of its relationship with the terms word, sign, meaning, concept is also ambiguous. According to B.A. Serebrennikov, in order to connect language with reality, a person creates signs and connects language with reality through the attribution of signs to it [Serebrennikov 1988: 76]. The word is also a sign. V.V. Kolesov proposes to distinguish between two “generic terms”: the word of language and the sign of semiotics. “A word can have meaning, forming part of a sign, but a word is a sign with meaning” [Kolesov 2002: 18; highlighted by V.K.]. L.G. Voronin suggests distinguishing between the semantic meaning of a word and a concept: “The semantic meaning of a word is its expression in which the word expresses the totality of any characteristics of an object or phenomenon. A concept is a reflection of a certain set of general and material characteristics of an object” [Voronin 1958: 14].

There are two points of view regarding the interpretation of the meaning of a word: 1) meaning is a relationship; 2) meaning is a reflection (ideal image of an object). The first point of view belongs to F. de Saussure, in whose view the meaning of a word is the concept that it expresses [Saussure 1977: 148], and significance is the relationship of the word with other words of the language, its difference from them [Saussure 1977: 149]. F. de Saussure’s statement that “in language, as in any semiological system, what distinguishes one sign from others is everything that makes it up” [Saussure 1977: 154] and that “... in language there is nothing , except for differences” [Saussure 1977: 152; emphasized by F. de S.], is also supported in other linguistic works: “At present, none of the linguists doubts that each unit of language receives its own linguistic meaning due to the correlation with some other units” [Shmelev 1965: 290]; “Each linguistic sign, and therefore the signifier and the signified, does not exist on its own, but solely by virtue of its opposition to other units of the same order. There is nothing in language but oppositions” [Apresyan 1966: 30–31]. The latter judgments are objected to by Yu.V. Fomenko: “Not a single sound complex has received meaning due to its introduction into one or another lexical macro- or microsystem. This did not happen and this cannot happen. A sound complex acquires meaning due to its correlation with a particular object known by a person. After all, a word is a sign of an object. The subject is primary, the word (name) is secondary. If we accept the criticized point of view, then we will have to admit that the subject is secondary and arises as a consequence of the appearance of the name. It is clear that this conclusion is unacceptable. Therefore, the premise is also unacceptable. “Pure” knowledge about the place of a word in the system of words cannot give any idea of ​​the meaning of the word” [Fomenko 2004: 8].

Probably, this contradiction was born out of desire, as V.V. noted. Kolesov, “reduce meaning to one hypostasis,” and this “deadens the meaning of “meaning.” “Meaning as 1) a set of meaningful features, 2) as a relationship to an object, concept or other meaning, 3) as a function in linguistic use – together there is a dialectical unity of all designated features of a word” [Kolesov 2002: 21].

Answer regarding criticism of D.N.’s position Shmeleva and Yu.D. Apresyan can be found in their own works, for example: “The lexical meaning of a word is understood as the semantics of a language (a naive concept) and that part of its pragmatics that is included in the modal frame of interpretation. The lexical meaning of a word is revealed in its interpretation, which is a translation of the word into a special semantic language” [Apresyan 1962: 69]. That is, oppositions in language, about which we're talking about, as we see it, relate to the way of interpreting the lexical meaning and location of a word in the language system, as well as in semantic classifications.

The second point of view is the thesis about the reflective nature of the meaning of a word, from which we can conclude that lexical meaning is determined by the objective world, and not by the language system: “... both meanings and concepts have a reflective nature. If we now agree that meaning is not equal to concept, then we will have to conclude that in human consciousness two series of relations between objects of the external world coexist - meaning and concept. But is it possible for an object to be reflected twice in one mirror?” [Fomenko 2004: 12]. In this statement, the denotation and the object are identified, that is, the presence of the concept of an object in the human mind is either excluded from the system of cognition, or an equal sign is placed between the lexical meaning and the concept. At B.A. Serebrennikova has a different opinion on this matter: “The reflection of objects and phenomena in a person’s head is not mirror-like. The brain turns information coming from outside into an “image”, and this is already an abstraction. In fact, this is a representation” [Serebrennikov 1988: 71]. Clarification of terms can be found in V.V. Kolesova: “In Latin, the corresponding terms are vague in meaning, but differ from each other in meaning, which is what we will use. De-notatus, de-notatio ‘designation (of something)’ – de-signatio ‘definition (of something)’ (from signum ‘sign’) – the term referent, new in origin, correlates with Lat. re-fero ‘connection, relation: naming, returning and reproducing (thing)’. Thus, designatum, denotation, referent turn out to be (not reducible to a common object) relations existing between the different sides of the semantic triangle, namely: denotation D is the relation of the concept to the subject, the designation of the subject meaning, or the scope of the concept - its extension; designat S is the relation of a sign to a concept, the definition of the meaning of a word or the content of a concept - its intension; referent R – the relation of the sign to the object, i.e. that connection that shapes the reflective abilities of a sign is called, constantly returning thought to the reproduction of the thing itself in consciousness and in speech” [Kolesov 2002: 39]. And further: “Reflecting on the word..., we saw that in relation to the speaker, a verbal sign appears as an image, and in relation to the listener it turns into a concept (or vice versa)” [Ibid]. It is no coincidence that the semantic triangle itself was called the “nominalistic model of the sign” [Petrenko 1988: 15], which is understandable only if one comes from the “thing” (it is “from the thing” that the components of the semantic triangle were historically consistently realized)” [Kolesov 2002: 42] .

Quite often, discrepancies arise due to the incorrect use of terms taken from various systems and constructs. “The term “denotation”, borrowed from logicians, is simplified in linguistic works; in a logical interpretation, this term meant both ‘thing (object)’ and ‘thought (concept) about a thing’. In linguistics, the term “denotation” received in most works the meaning of an object, “a phenomenon of objective reality,” which seems to us erroneous, because linguistic names are correlated in the human mind with a certain cognitive image, reflecting the object in its integrity” [Ufimtseva 1988: 112]. It is also impossible not to admit that the conceivable image and concept of an object are only part of the meaning. Recognizing in reality three entities: being, consciousness and language, philosophers and linguists distinguish between two models of the world, conceptual and linguistic.

Regarding vocabulary, the difference between the picture of the world and the picture of language can be considered as the well-known opposition “concept - meaning”.

The discrepancy between points of view in modern linguistic terminology is associated, firstly, with an orientation towards the meaning of the term in the source language (Latin), and secondly, with the fact that in order to establish a connection between the concept and meaning in logical semantics by different authors were used various terms: meaning and sense (G. Frege), extension and intension (R. Carnap), reference and meaning (W. Quine), denotation and significat (A. Church).

In lexicon, they usually operate with the term ‘lexical meaning’. There are many definitions of lexical meaning: “Concept, bound by sign"[Nikitin 1974: 6]; “Having previously defined meaning as the content of consciousness materialized in a sign, we can say that the sign with its meaning is the word” [Kolesov 2002: 20; highlighted by V.K.]; “This duality of the word - its ability to denote both a specific reality and a generalized concept - is the basis of its entire semantic structure and its entire historical development as a linguistic unit” [Osipov 2003: 147], etc.

The terminological content of these concepts, for example, in Yu.S. Stepanova: a word in its understanding is a unity of three elements: “The external element of a verbal sign (a sequence of sounds or graphic signs) - a signifier, is associated, firstly, with the designated object of reality - a denotation (as well as a referent), and secondly, with the reflection of this object in the human mind – the signified. The signified is the result of social cognition of reality and is usually identical to the concept, sometimes to the representation. The triple connection “signifier – denotation – signified” constitutes the category of meaning, the basic cell of semantics” [Stepanov 1977: 295]. In the structure of the signified, integral features, differential features (designatum) that make up the lexical meaning of the word, or significatum, are distinguished. When words are grouped according to any criterion, the integral features of the word form the individual in the signified of the given word and are not directly opposed to the corresponding features of other words. List differential features always limited general structure of a given group, it may be more or less long depending on the breadth and structure of the group. In terms of cognition of the objective world, it is important to note that the list of integral features is in principle not limited; it can be limited by the level of knowledge of the object or practical considerations of description. In the understanding of Yu.S. Stepanova: “a significat, in general, is the same as a concept. The first belongs to linguistics, the second to logic. In the same meaning as concept, the terms meaning and concept are sometimes used (my italics - S.V.). A concept is the same as a concept, as it is understood in systems such as A. Church’s system; meaning is the same as the concept, as it is understood in systems such as G. Frege’s system, etc. Designatum in de Saussure's system is abstract significance. In field theories, the designatum will correspond to that in the meaning of a word that is determined by the opposition of this word to all other words of the field. The concept of designatum is also very important for the theory of nomination in the narrow sense of the word - as a theory of linguistic designation, naming. Apparently, it is the designatum that is the minimum of distinctive features that is necessary for correct, i.e. in accordance with the norms of a given language, the name of an objective object of reality with a given word (so that by the word rooster we call a rooster, and not a cat)” [Stepanov 1977: 295].

What is the relationship between concept and concept?

A concept is “a phenomenon of the same order as a concept” [Stepanov 2001: 43], but further Yu.S. Stepanov clarifies the content of the concept in modern logic and linguistics: “The term concept becomes synonymous with the term meaning, while the term meaning becomes synonymous with the term scope of the concept. Simply put, the meaning of a word is the object or objects to which this word is correctly, in accordance with the norms of a given language, applicable, and the concept is the meaning of the word.” The concept in culture has a special meaning - it is “the main cell of culture in the mental world of a person” [Stepanov 2001: 43–44]. E.S. Kubryakova defines cultural concepts as “non-verbal representations that have a linguistic designation” [Kubryakova 1988: 146]. Claiming the concept to be the basic unit of mentality, V.V. Kolesov defines the word based on its multidimensionality and from different positions. From an ontological point of view: in a communicative act, a word is a sign that serves to convey thoughts and reflects reality; “verbal sign” is heterogeneous; it has an external (sound), internal (original figurative meaning) and meaningful form. In semiotic terms, a word as a sign is a semiotic relationship between a thing, the idea of ​​a thing and a sign in their dynamic connections, which are constantly changing due to changes in the quality of their components.

Historically, there has been an alienation of the verbal sign from reality towards the abstract: representation > image > concept; name > banner > sign; thing > subject > object. “In his language, a person moves away from reality towards a conditional reality created by him, which is called culture” [Kolesov 2004: 17].

From an epistemological point of view, a word is a means of cognition, i.e. this is a sign plus its meaning and meaning. From the “idea” side, speaking epistemologically, a word can be represented as the movement of its meanings in its meaningful forms of image – concept – symbol. “Movement of the meanings of words” by V.V. Kolesov finds in the ideas of Russian philosophers: “The word is a means of forming concepts (Potebnya), but the absolute is not given in concepts (Vysheslavtsev). Consequently, the Absolute reveals itself in sequence: where an exact concept is lacking, an image appears (Potebnya), because only images have transformative power (Vysheslavtsev), and beauty is associated with images, and not with the concept (Berdyaev). But in order to extract meaning, it is necessary to translate images into concepts, but construction in concepts alone is useless in its widow-like sterility - it is a ballet of bloodless categories and nothing more (Gustav Shpet). Where the competence of the concept ends, the symbol comes into its own (Berdyaev)” [Kolesov 2002: 18]. This “movement of meanings” ends with a concept; on this path everything is missing—the referent, the designatum, and the denotation. All the complexity and simplicity of the relationship between word and concept, concept and concept was comprehended by Russian philosophers of the 19th–20th centuries. In our time, a linguist must become a philosopher in order to learn to understand himself through language.

Theory of the concept in the 21st century. – this is not only a search for an unambiguous definition, but a dilution of the concepts “cognitive concept”, “psycholinguistic concept”, “linguocultural concept” [Karasik, Slyshkin 2003: 50]. Traditional linguistics considers “linguistic structures” as an object, and the interpretive model in this system is meaning. The object of study of psycholinguistics is “the structure and functions of speech activity”; the interpretive model here is the “image of consciousness and concept”. The object of cognitive linguistics becomes “linguistic thinking (linguistic ability),” where the concept is used as an interpretive model [Pishchalnikova 2003: 7]. In practice, the fields of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics often overlap, domestic linguists more and more often they include the functioning of the human mentality in the object domain. In modern domestic linguistics, the practice of studying the concept as an integrative model for the study of speech activity is emerging. This approach is due to “the traditions of domestic linguistics, psychology, physiology and other sciences, which have formulated a number of theories of high explanatory power” [Pishchalnikova 2003: 8]. These include the theory of the internal form of the word A.A. Potebnya, theory of physiological dominance by A.A. Ukhtomsky, the theory of functional systems by P.K. Anokhin, theory of mental and speech activity by L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontyeva, A.A. Leontyeva et al. The idea of ​​a concept as the totality of all knowledge and opinions associated with a particular reality allows us to consider it as an object of research language ability, which includes the concept of speech activity as a system of intellectual, mental and speech-creative efforts.

The concept as an integrative model presented by V.A. Pishchalnikova, contains the following interrelated and interdependent branches of knowledge integrated in it: system-centric linguistics, cogitology, psychology, psycholinguistics [Pishchalnikova 2003: 10].

Yu.A. Sorokin proposed the term cogiocept as a component of the concept. Cogiocept (from cogitatio, onis - thinking, thinking, reasoning) is an interpretive model that “reflects naturally related stable components of knowledge and stable forms of their representation” (cognitive linguistics). But modern scientific reality is such that cognitive linguistics strives to “study all the different processes, mechanisms, ways of human cognition of reality, including mechanisms occurring in language and fixed by language” [Pishchalnikova 2003: 8; italics V.P.] And this is the sphere represented by the concept (from the Latin cognitio, onis - cognition, recognition, familiarization).

To summarize, it should be noted that followers of conceptualist theories of knowledge in the form of a picture of the world and in the form of mentality operate with the term concept as a unit of description. The concept is interpreted as a concept [Arutyunova 1999: 239; Gak 1990: 384]; as a synonym for the term meaning [Stepanov 2001:44]; as “a unit of thinking that represents a holistic, undivided reflection of a fact of reality” [Chesnokov 1967: 37]; as a “key word” [Verzhbitskaya 2001]; conceptum – ‘embryo, grain of original meaning’ [Kolesov 2002: 51], etc.

One cannot but agree that supporters of the ontological theory of meaning (A.F. Losev, P.A. Florensky, S.N. Bulgakov; H.G. Gadamer, W. Dilthey, F. Schleiermacher) criticize the conceptualist theory for epistemology, they themselves can be criticized for “deifying” the essence, substance, Name, i.e. for ontologism [Pimenova 2003: 44–45]. The most adequate and objective of the presented versions seems to us to be the voluminous hermeneutical model of V.V. Kolesov, based on a change in the meaningful forms of the concept, expressed in the conceptual square “image” – “concept” – “symbol” – “image + symbol = concept”. Then the concept as a unit of mentality is recognized as “an entity, the phenomenon of which is the concept,” formed on the basis of the image and symbol in its trinitarian essence under the sign of Logos and Sophia in the harmony of beingness and knowledge. And if, as was described, the sequence image - concept - symbol is cyclic, then, according to V.V. Kolesov, “a concept inevitably strives to renew the conceptual energy of its meaningful forms” [Kolesov 2002: 430].

Literature:

Arutyunova N.D. Dostoevsky's style within the Russian picture of the world. – In the book: Poetics. Stylistics. Language and culture. In memory of T.G.Vinokur. M., 1996
Iordanskaya L.N. An attempt at a lexicographic interpretation of a group of Russian words with the meaning of feeling. – Machine translation and applied linguistics, vol. 13. M., 1970
Arutyunova N.D. The sentence and its meaning. M., 1976
Arutyunova N.D. Anomalies and language: To the problem« linguistic picture of the world" – Questions of linguistics, 1987, No. 3
Lakoff D., Johnson M. Metaphors we live by. – In the book: Language and modeling of social interaction. M., 1987
Penkovsky A.B. " Joy» And « pleasure» in the presentation of the Russian language. – In the book: Logical analysis of language. Cultural concepts. M., 1991
Apresyan V.Yu., Apresyan Yu.D. Metaphor in the semantic representation of emotions. – Questions of linguistics, 1993, No. 3
Yakovleva E.S. Fragments of the Russian linguistic picture of the world. (Models of space, time and perception). M., 1994
Apresyan Yu.D. The image of a person according to language data. – In the book: Apresyan Yu.D. Selected works, vol. 2. M., 1995
Uryson E.V. Fundamental human abilities and naive « anatomy" – Questions of linguistics, 1995, No. 3
Vezhbitskaya A. Language, culture, cognition. M., 1996
Levontina I.B., Shmelev A.D. " Transverse bite" – Russian speech, 1996, No. 5
Levontina I.B., Shmelev A.D. Russian « at the same time» as an expression of life position. – Russian speech, 1996, No. 2
Zaliznyak Anna A., Shmelev A.D. Time of day and activities. – In the book: Logical analysis of language. Language and time. M., 1997
Stepanov Yu.S. Constants. Dictionary of Russian culture. M., 1997
Shmelev A.D. The lexical composition of the Russian language as a reflection« Russian soul" – In the book: T.V. Bulygina, A.D. Shmelev. Linguistic conceptualization of the world (based on Russian grammar). M., 1997
Bulygina T.V., Shmelev A.D. Surprises in the Russian linguistic picture of the world. – POLYTROPON. To the 70th anniversary of Vladimir Nikolaevich Toporov. M., 1998
Vezhbitskaya A. Semantic universals and description of languages. M., 1999
Bulygina T.V., Shmelev A.D. Moving in space as a metaphor for emotions
Zaliznyak Anna A. Notes on metaphor
Zaliznyak Anna A. On the semantics of scrupulousness (« it's a shame», « ashamed» And « uncomfortable» against the backdrop of the Russian language picture of the world). – In the book: Logical analysis of language. Languages ​​of ethics. M., 2000
Zaliznyak Anna A. Overcoming space in the Russian linguistic picture of the world: verb « get" – In the book: Logical analysis of language. Languages ​​of spaces. M., 2000
Krylova T.V. Status rules in naive ethics. – In the book: The word in the text and in the dictionary. Collection of articles for the seventieth birthday of Academician Yu.D. Apresyan. M., 2000
Levontina I.B., Shmelev A.D. Native spaces. – In the book: Logical analysis of language. Languages ​​of spaces. M., 2000
New explanatory dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. Under the general leadership of Yu.D. Apresyan, vol. 1. M., 1997; issue 2. M., 2000
Rakhilina E.V. Cognitive analysis of subject names. M., 2000

Http://koapiya.do.am/publ/1-1-0-6

The concept of YCM goes back to the ideas of W. von Humboldt and neo-Humboldians about the internal form of language, on the one hand, and to the ideas of American ethnolinguistics, in particular to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, on the other.

W. von Humboldt was one of the first linguists who paid attention to the national content of language and thinking, noting that “different languages ​​are for a nation the organs of their original thinking and perception.” Each person has a subjective image of a certain object, which does not completely coincide with the image of the same object in another person. This idea can only be objectified by making “its own way through the mouth into the outside world.” The word, thus, carries the burden of subjective ideas, the differences of which are within certain limits, since their speakers are members of the same linguistic community and have a certain national character and consciousness. According to W. von Humboldt, it is language that influences the formation of a system of concepts and a system of values. These functions, as well as the ways of forming concepts using language, are considered common to all languages. The differences are based on the originality of the spiritual appearance of the peoples who speak languages, but the main difference between languages ​​lies in the form of the language itself, “in the ways of expressing thoughts and feelings.”

W. von Humboldt views language as an “intermediate world” between thinking and reality, while language fixes a special national worldview. W. von Humboldt emphasizes the difference between the concepts of “intermediate world” and “picture of the world”. The first is a static product of linguistic activity that determines a person’s perception of reality. Its unit is the “spiritual object” - the concept. The picture of the world is a moving, dynamic entity, since it is formed from linguistic interventions in reality. Its unit is a speech act.

Thus, in the formation of both concepts, a huge role belongs to language: “Language is an organ that forms thought, therefore, in the formation human personality, in the formation of her system of concepts, in the appropriation of the experience accumulated by generations, language plays a leading role.”

The merit of L. Weisgerber lies in the fact that he introduced the concept of “linguistic picture of the world” into the scientific terminological system. This concept determined the originality of his linguo-philosophical concept, along with the “intermediate world” and the “energy” of language.

The main characteristics of the linguistic picture of the world, which L. Weisgerber endows it with, are the following:

1. the linguistic picture of the world is a system of all possible contents: spiritual, which determine the uniqueness of the culture and mentality of a given linguistic community, and linguistic, which determine the existence and functioning of the language itself,

2. the linguistic picture of the world, on the one hand, is a consequence of the historical development of ethnicity and language, and, on the other hand, is the reason for the unique path of their further development,

3. The linguistic picture of the world as a single “living organism” is clearly structured and in linguistic expression is multi-level. It determines a special set of sounds and sound combinations, structural features of the articulatory apparatus of native speakers, prosodic characteristics of speech, vocabulary, word-formation capabilities of the language and the syntax of phrases and sentences, as well as its own paremiological baggage. In other words, the linguistic picture of the world determines the overall communicative behavior, understanding of the external world of nature and the internal world of man and the language system,

4. the linguistic picture of the world is changeable over time and, like any “living organism,” is subject to development, that is, in a vertical (diachronic) sense, at each subsequent stage of development it is partly non-identical to itself,

5. the linguistic picture of the world creates the homogeneity of the linguistic essence, helping to consolidate its linguistic, and therefore cultural, uniqueness in the vision of the world and its designation by means of language,

6. the linguistic picture of the world exists in a homogeneous, unique self-awareness of the linguistic community and is transmitted to subsequent generations through a special worldview, rules of behavior, way of life, imprinted by means of language,

7. the picture of the world of any language is the transformative power of language, which forms the idea of ​​the surrounding world through language as an “intermediate world” among speakers of this language,

8. The linguistic picture of the world of a particular linguistic community is its general cultural heritage.

The perception of the world is carried out by thinking, but with the participation of the native language. L. Weisgerber's method of reflecting reality is idioethnic in nature and corresponds to the static form of language. In essence, the scientist emphasizes the intersubjective part of the individual’s thinking: “There is no doubt that many of the views and modes of behavior and attitudes that are ingrained in us turn out to be “learned,” that is, socially conditioned, as soon as we trace the sphere of their manifestation throughout the world.”

Language as an activity is also considered in the works of L. Wittgenstein, devoted to research in the field of philosophy and logic. According to this scientist, thinking has a verbal character and is an activity with signs. L. Wittgenstein puts forward the following proposition: the life of a sign is given by its use. Moreover, “the meaning that is inherent in words is not a product of our thinking.” The meaning of a sign is its application in accordance with the rules of a given language and the characteristics of a particular activity, situation, context. Therefore one of critical issues for L. Wittgenstein is the relationship between the grammatical structure of language, the structure of thinking and the structure of the displayed situation. A sentence is a model of reality, copying its structure in its logical-syntactic form. Therefore, to the extent a person speaks a language, to the extent he knows the world. A linguistic unit is not a certain linguistic meaning, but a concept, therefore L. Wittgenstein does not distinguish between the linguistic picture of the world and the picture of the world as a whole.

A fundamental contribution to the distinction between the concepts of a picture of the world and a linguistic picture of the world was made by E. Sapir and B. Whorf, who argued that “the idea that a person navigates the external world, essentially, without the help of language and that language is just an accidental means of solving specific tasks of thinking and communication is just an illusion. In fact, the “real world” is largely unconsciously constructed on the basis of the linguistic habits of a particular social group.” By using the combination “real world,” E. Sapir means the “intermediate world,” which includes language with all its connections with thinking, psyche, culture, social and professional phenomena. That is why E. Sapir argues that “it becomes difficult for a modern linguist to limit himself only to his traditional subject ... he cannot but share the mutual interests that connect linguistics with anthropology and cultural history, with sociology, psychology, philosophy and - in the longer term - with physiology and physics."

Modern representations about YKM look as follows.

Language is a fact of culture, component culture that we inherit, and at the same time its instrument. The culture of a people is verbalized in language; it is the language that accumulates the key concepts of culture, transmitting them in a symbolic embodiment - words. The model of the world created by language is a subjective image of the objective world; it carries in itself the features human way worldview, i.e. anthropocentrism that permeates all language.

This point of view is shared by V.A. Maslova: “The linguistic picture of the world is the general cultural heritage of the nation; it is structured and multi-level. It is the linguistic picture of the world that determines communicative behavior, understanding of the external world and the inner world of a person. It reflects the way of speech and thinking activity characteristic of a particular era, with its spiritual, cultural and national values.”

E.S. Yakovleva understands YCM as fixed in language and specific to the world - this is a kind of worldview through the prism of language.”

“The linguistic picture of the world” is “taken in its entirety, all the conceptual content of a given language.”

The concept of a naive linguistic picture of the world, according to D.Yu. Apresyan, “represents the ways of perceiving and conceptualizing the world reflected in natural language, when the basic concepts of the language are formed into a single system of views, a kind of collective philosophy, which is imposed as mandatory on all native speakers.

The linguistic picture of the world is “naive” in the sense that in many significant respects it differs from the “scientific” picture. At the same time, the naive ideas reflected in the language are by no means primitive: in many cases they are no less complex and interesting than scientific ones. These are, for example, ideas about the inner world of man, which reflect the experience of introspection of dozens of generations over many millennia and can serve as a reliable guide to this world.

The linguistic picture of the world, as G.V. Kolshansky notes, is based on the characteristics of the social and labor experience of each people. Ultimately, these features find their expression in differences in the lexical and grammatical nomination of phenomena and processes, in the compatibility of certain meanings, in their etymology (the choice of the initial feature in the nomination and formation of the meaning of a word), etc. language “enshrines all the diversity of creative cognitive activity person (social and individual),” which consists precisely in the fact that “in accordance with the countless number of conditions that are the stimulus in his directed cognition, each time he selects and consolidates one of the countless properties of objects and phenomena and their connections. It is this human factor that is clearly visible in all linguistic formations, both in the norm and in its deviations and individual styles.”

So, the concept of YCM includes two related but different ideas: 1) the picture of the world offered by language differs from the “scientific” one and 2) each language paints its own picture, depicting reality somewhat differently than other languages ​​do. Reconstruction of the NCM is one of the most important tasks modern linguistic semantics. The study of NCM is carried out in two directions, in accordance with the two named components of this concept. On the one hand, based on a systematic semantic analysis of the vocabulary of a certain language, a reconstruction of an integral system of ideas reflected in a given language is carried out, regardless of whether it is specific to a given language or universal, reflecting a “naive” view of the world as opposed to a “scientific” one. On the other hand, individual concepts characteristic of a given language (language-specific) are studied, which have two properties: they are “key” for a given culture (in the sense that they provide a “key” to its understanding) and at the same time the corresponding words are poorly translated into other languages : a translation equivalent is either absent altogether (as, for example, for the Russian words melancholy, anguish, perhaps, daring, will, restless, sincerity, ashamed, offensive, inconvenient), or such an equivalent exists in principle, but it does not contain exactly those components of meaning , which are specific to a given word (such as, for example, the Russian words soul, fate, happiness, justice, vulgarity, separation, resentment, pity, morning, gather, get, as it were).

Literature

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