Language as the most important means of communication and as the immediate reality of thought. Language as a social phenomenon

Thinking and language

A person's thought is always expressed in language, which in a broad sense is called any sign system that performs the functions of forming, storing and transmitting information and serving as a means of communication between people. Outside the language can only be conveyed by means of facial expressions or gestures vague motives, volitional impulses, which, although important, are incomparable with speech, revealing the intentions, feelings and experiences of a person. However, the connection between language and thinking is quite complex.

Language and thinking form a unity: without thinking there can be no language, and thinking without language is impossible. There are two main aspects of this unity:

· Genetic, which is expressed in the fact that the emergence of language was closely associated with the emergence of thinking, and vice versa;

· Functional - languages ​​of thinking in today's, developed state, represent such a unity, the sides of which mutually presuppose each other.

However, this does not mean at all that language and thinking are identical to each other. There are also certain differences between them.

At first, the relationship between thinking and language in the process of human reflection of the world cannot be represented in the form of a simple correspondence of mental and linguistic structures. Possessing relative independence, language in a specific way fixes the content of mental images in its forms. The specificity of linguistic reflection lies in the fact that the abstractive work of thinking is not directly and directly reproduced in the forms of language, but is fixed in them in a special way. Therefore, language is often called a secondary, indirect form of reflection, since thinking reflects, cognizes objects and phenomena of objective reality, and language designates and expresses them in thought, i.e. they differ in their function.

Secondly, the difference also exists in the structure of language and thinking. The basic units of thinking are concepts, judgments and inferences. The constituent parts of the language are: phoneme, morpheme, lexeme, sentence (in speech), allophone (sound) and others.

Thirdly, in the forms of thinking and language, the actual processes receive a simplified reflection in a certain sense, but in each case this happens in a different way. Thinking captures the contradictory moments of any movement. Developing itself, it reproduces in ideal images with varying degrees of depth and detail, gradually approaching the full coverage of objects and their definiteness, to comprehending the essence. And where the consolidation begins, the language comes into its own. Language as a form of reflection of the world, like mental images, can represent reality more or less fully, approximately correctly. By fixing the content of mental images in its forms, language highlights and emphasizes in them what was previously done by thinking. However, he does this with the help of his own, specially developed for this purpose, as a result of which an adequate reproduction of the characteristics of objective reality is achieved in the forms of language.

Fourth, language develops under the influence of objective activity and the traditions of the culture of society, and thinking is associated with the mastery of the laws of logic by the subject, with his cognitive abilities.

Therefore, mastering the language, grammatical forms, vocabulary is a prerequisite for the formation of thinking. It is no coincidence that the well-known Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky emphasized that thought is never equal to the direct meaning of a word, but it is impossible without words. Language and thinking, being in such a contradictory unity, have a mutual influence on each other. On the one hand: thinking represents a substantive basis for language, for speech expressions; thinking controls the use of linguistic means in speech activity, speech activity itself, controls the use of language in communication; in its forms, thinking ensures the development and growth of knowledge of the language and the experience of its use; thinking determines the level of language culture; enrichment of thinking leads to enrichment of language.

On the other hand: language is a means of forming and formulating thoughts in inner speech; language acts in relation to thinking as the main means of calling the partner's thought, its expression in external speech, thereby making the thought available to other people; language is a means of thinking for modeling thought; language presents thinking with the ability to control thought, as it forms thought, gives it a form in which thought is easier to process, rebuild, develop; language in relation to thinking acts as a means of influencing reality, a means of direct and most often indirect transformation of reality through the practical activity of people, controlled by thinking with the help of language; language acts as a means of training, honing, improving thinking.

Thus, the relationship between language and thinking is diverse and essential. The main thing in this relationship: just as language is necessary for thinking, thinking is necessary for language.

The term "language" has at least two interrelated meanings: 1) language in general, language as a certain class of sign systems; 2) a specific, so-called ethnic, or "idioethnic" language - some really existing sign system used in a certain society, at some time and in a certain space. Language in the first sense is an abstract representation of a single human language, the focus of the universal properties of all concrete languages. Concrete languages ​​are numerous implementations of properties of a language in general.

Language in general is a natural (at a certain stage in the development of human society) a semiotic (sign) system that has arisen and naturally develops (see Semiotics, Linguistic Sign), which has the property of social purpose - it is a system that exists primarily not for a separate individual, but for a certain society (see. Language and Society). In addition, restrictions are imposed on this sign system related to its functions and the substantial (sound) material used.

It is essential that language, possessing internal integrity and unity, is a polyfunctional system. Among its functions (see. Language functions), the most important ones can be considered those that are associated with the main operations on information (human knowledge about reality) - the creation, storage and transmission of information.

Language is the main socially significant (mediated by thinking) form of reflection of the reality around a person and himself, that is, a form of storing knowledge about reality (epistemic function), as well as a means of obtaining new knowledge about reality (cognitive, or cognitive, function). The epistemic function connects language with reality (in units of language in the form of epistemological images, elements of reality are fixed, isolated, displayed and processed by human consciousness), and the cognitive function - with the mental activity of a person (in units of language and their properties, the structure and dynamics of thought materialize, see Language and thinking), that is, linguistic units are adapted both for the nomination of elements of reality (and, further, for storing knowledge), and for meeting the needs of the thought process. At the same time, language is the main means of human communication (communicative function), a means of transferring information from the speaker to the listener (addressee). Due to this, the properties of the language are naturally coordinated with the needs and conditions of a person's communicative activity, which is the most important aspect of his social behavior, since social, including human labor, is impossible without the exchange of information.

Substantial material - the sound (acoustic) nature of the language also imposes significant restrictions on the general properties of the language, in particular, it predetermines the presence of non-sign units (phonemes - sounds) and the linear organization of sign units (morphemes, words, phrases, sentences).

There are the following main social forms of existence of specific languages: idiolect - an individual language of one specific native speaker; dialect - a set of structurally very close idiolects serving one small territorially closed group of people, within which no noticeable (territorially characterized) linguistic differences are found; dialect - a set of dialects (in a particular case - a single one), in which significant intrastructural unity is preserved (unlike a dialect, the territorial continuity of the dialect's spread is not an obligatory feature); a language is, as a rule, a set of dialects, the permissible differences between which can vary significantly and depend not only on purely linguistic factors, but also on social parameters (linguistic self-awareness of native speakers, the presence or absence of a single written language, the social prestige of dialects, the number of speakers of certain dialects, traditions, etc.).

At a certain stage of national and / or social development, some spontaneously existing and developing languages ​​enter the highest form of their existence - the form of a literary language, characterized by socially regulated normalization and the presence of a more or less wide range of functional styles.

If at a fixed moment in time the number of individual implementations of the language - idiolects is not less (and, taking into account bilingualism, more) the number of people speaking on the globe (estimated at billions), then living languages ​​in the socially recognized sense number from three to seven thousand (fluctuations are related not only with an incomplete inventory of specific languages, but also with differences in the principles of their differentiation).

The plurality of human languages ​​cannot be considered accidental. Regardless of the solution to the problem of the origin of language, the immutable tendency of language to change requires explanation. In the absence of special normalizing activities aimed at preserving the linguistic state (cf. classical Arabic), languages ​​are constantly undergoing changes in all links of their structure, their continuous historical development takes place. The specific reasons for this process have not been fully identified, but there is no doubt that they are laid down, firstly, in the principles of the language itself and, secondly, in the functional mechanism of its use (see Laws of language development). In the era of the scientific and technological revolution, the plurality of languages ​​continues to quite successfully resist the growing social need for a single language. Moreover, in the modern era, there is a strengthening and revival of many languages, when this is supported by certain national and state processes (for example, in Africa), along with the long-known process of the disappearance of some small languages ​​that do not have a written language and a sufficient level of social prestige.

All existing and pre-existing human languages ​​can be divided into groups according to the principle of kinship, that is, origin from a certain linguistic tradition, the so-called proto-languages ​​(see also Genealogical classification of languages). Close kinship is often obvious to the native speakers themselves (for example, kinship of Russian, Bulgarian and Polish), distant kinship requires special scientific proof (see Comparative-historical method). It is customary to talk about related languages ​​(the relationship of which has been proven) and unrelated languages ​​(the relationship of which cannot be proved). The relativity of this opposition is demonstrated by the Nostratic hypothesis, according to which a number of separate language families are united at a deeper stage of reconstruction into one Nostratic "superfamily" (see Nostratic languages).

The internal structure of language (i.e., the language itself) is not given in direct observation, and it can be judged only by its manifestations and indirect evidence, namely by observing the products of linguistic (or, in other words, speech) activity - texts, i.e. exploring the use of specific languages ​​in specific speech situations (see Speech). The path of learning a language through speech often led either to a lack of distinction between language and speech, or, on the contrary, to ignoring speech itself (speech activity) and its fundamental influence on the language itself. Meanwhile, understanding the fundamental contradiction between the finiteness of language (as a device, mechanism, system) and its endless use in infinitely diverse speech situations has far-reaching consequences for the correct understanding of the nature of language, since this contradiction is overcome primarily in the language itself, in the principles of its structure: all elements of the linguistic structure are adapted to their use in speech.

The semiotic essence of language consists in establishing a correspondence between the universe of meanings (all the conceivable mental content of all possible statements) and the universe of sounds (the totality of potentially possible speech sounds).

Sound matter is the primary substance of the human language, in relation to which all other existing substantial systems, in particular writing systems, are secondary. The repertoire of sounds and their constituent features, with all their richness, is limited by the capabilities of the human speech apparatus. In each language, a fairly representative part of sound signs is used to one degree or another, but only a limited number of them are included in the systemic sound oppositions (the so-called distinctive signs are the building material of the inventory of phonemes). Combinations of sound features that are stable for a given language define a set of sounds (and phonemes) permissible in a given language, from which a set of permissible sound sequences (shells of sign units) is built.

The universe of meanings, in turn, is divided in a certain way by each language into standard, typical semantic blocks for this language. Each such semantic block is internally complexly organized, that is, a decomposable semantic object, however, entering into a sign-forming connection with the signifier, it can be used by the speaker as a single elementary essence, the source material for building more complex semantic structures. The semantic blocks, which correspond to relatively integral and independent signifiers (verbal shells), are called lexical meanings, the semantic blocks, the meanings of which are devoid of integrity and / or independence, are called grammatical meanings (in the broad sense of the word). Typical carriers of lexical meanings are words (lexemes) and semantically non-free combinations of words (phraseological units), typical carriers of grammatical meanings are service morphemes, syntactic constructions (phrase, sentence), as well as all kinds of operations on these units (grammatical rules).

The semantic blocks of one language are not equivalent to the semantic blocks of another (in particular, the volumes of meanings of the same grammatical categories and, moreover, practically any pairs of words correlated in bilingual dictionaries do not coincide), languages ​​differ even more in the ways of dividing the universe of meanings into lexical and grammatical meanings.

However, with all the amazing variety of lexical and grammatical meanings, in specific languages, at the same time, their amazing repetition is found. Languages, as it were, rediscover the same elements of meaning, giving them a different design, which makes it possible to speak, as applied to different languages, about certain fixed semantic blocks of the universe of meanings (ultimately predetermined by the properties of the person reflected in thinking and independently of him the existing world of objects, events, relations, etc.): about the categories of parts of speech, noun classes, number values, referential correlation, about the causative relationship between pairs of events, about the typical roles of participants in a situation (cf. cases), about ways of implementing a typical events (cf. type, mode of action), about the meanings of time, causes, conditions, consequences (cf. the corresponding types of complex sentences), etc. Therefore, the incomparability of the semantic divisions of natural languages ​​should not be exaggerated. Firstly, when referring to the data of many languages, it is found that the degree of coverage of the universe of meanings and the principles of its division are not arbitrary and not infinitely varied, and, secondly, more importantly, in real speech activity this inequality of divisions is in most cases situational is removed, which creates, in particular, the fundamental possibility of translation from language into language (if we reduce the requirements for the identity of the aesthetic functions of speech works that are most clearly represented in poetic speech).

The world of lexical meanings is fixed in the significant vocabulary of the language (see also Word). The word is the simplest linguistic means of nominating a fragment of reality (object, property, phenomenon, event), since in it itself there is a connection between the signified (lexical meaning) and the signifier (sound shell). However, the language would hardly fulfill its purpose if it had only the lexical means of nomination, since it would take as many words as there are different fragments of reality that can be thought of. The mechanism for re-applying the nomination procedure is provided by grammar. A grammar, in contrast to a static vocabulary, is a dynamic mechanism consisting of grammatical meanings and a system of rules that build complex semantic structures from elementary semantic blocks and at the same time assign certain sound sequences to these structures.

Vocabulary and grammar are two closely related and consistent components of the structure of a language. Their consistency is determined by the generality of their main functions, and their differences, in addition to the differences in structure noted above, are primarily associated with the difference in the storage of semantic units in linguistic memory: vocabulary units are stored as ready-to-use, automatically reproducible two-sided entities, while units, in the formation of which grammatical rules are involved, they are absent in the finished form in memory and are specially constructed in accordance with some communicative task. The consistency of the vocabulary and grammar contributes to the constant appearance in speech of units of an intermediate nature, for example, those in which the transition is made from a free, grammatically organized combination of words to a stable phrase, equivalent to a word (reproduced from memory, and not according to the rules, see Phraseologism). In a similar way, word-formation processes that create new words by means of grammar in one or another fragment of the vocabulary gradually fade away as the usual (see Usus) fixation of a new word in the dictionary and its final transformation into a unit of vocabulary.

The grammatical rules that establish the relationship between meaning and sound differ in the final result of their application. The prescriptive rules are best known and studied. They are applied necessarily and effectively if certain conditions (conditions of applicability) are met. For example, in the Russian language, the prescription-rule is the rule of agreement in the attribute syntagma (“new house”, but “new building”) or the rule for marking a noun by number, regardless of the countability / uncountability of its semantics (“milk” - singular, “ cream "- pl.," opinion "- singular," opinions "- pl.). The application of these rules necessarily leads to some positive result (to the formation of a certain linguistic form).

In addition, in the language there are a significant number of permissive rules, rules-advice that establish not real, but potential correspondence between meaning and sound. The specificity of these rules is that the formation of a connection between meaning and sound is ensured not by one such rule, but by a system of rules. Permissive rules operate in those parts of the grammar where one and the same linguistic form serves as a signifier for a set of heterogeneous signifieds that are not in the complementary distribution. A typical example of such a situation is the choice of one of the actants of the predicate for the role of the subject. This system includes permissive rules such as "An agent can be a subject", "A subject can be a subject", "A specific-referential noun phrase can be more likely a subject than a non-referential noun phrase", etc. These rules form a set of candidate actants for the role of the subject, but by themselves does not predetermine the final form of the statement (cf. "The director issued an order" - "The order was issued by the director").

The system of permitting rules presupposes the existence of a procedure for choosing from a set of permitted alternatives that create a situation of uncertainty, conflict, that is, a situation where several permitting rules can be applied simultaneously. The conflict resolution rules are based on the pragmatic principle of priority, in which the choice in a conflict situation is made in favor of the highest priority alternative. The principle of priority, along with the principle of economy, is borrowed by language from the practice of speech and, more broadly, mental activity and demonstrates the ontological connection of language with thinking.

Most of the grammatical rules are directly used in the formation of the meaning of the utterance being constructed, that is, it carries certain information. In particular, the rule of reconciling adjectives with a noun in an attributive syntagma manifests the presence of an attributive connection and is not purely formal. There are, however, formal grammatical rules aimed at bringing the sound sequence to a standard form. These are mainly morphological and phonetic rules such as all kinds of sandhi, reduction of pre-stressed vowels, etc.

Not all significant linguistic entities correspond to some segmental sound envelope. A significant proportion of the meaning of a statement is expressed by suprasegmental means (see Prosody, Intonation, Speech Rate, Rhythm, etc.). There are also zero signs in the language that do not have a meaning, for example, the zero link in Russian. In some cases, the signifier is not a sound, but some grammatical rule, for example, a conversion operation that translates a word from one part of speech to another. The phenomenon of compression is especially widespread, when in one signifier several signifieds are merged. The inflectional morphology of inflectional languages ​​is organized according to this principle (for example, the service morpheme "y" in Russian corresponds to the meanings "1st person", "singular", "present tense"). Syntactic division of a sentence (in those languages ​​where there are members of the sentence) also serves to compress several signifiers in one signifier (sentence member).

The so-called presuppositions, which constitute an essential part of the meaning of any utterance, do not have a special external formal expression.

All such "deviations" from a simple correspondence between meaning and sound provide the language with the greatest efficiency in fulfilling its main functions, although at the same time they significantly complicate the process of the linguist's research activity. But these research difficulties should not be equated with the complexity of the object itself. On the contrary, the simpler an object is arranged (that is, the more directly its structure reflects its functions), the more difficult it is to cognize it (especially when the functional aspect is underestimated).

In linguistics, a fairly large number of integral concepts (models) of the language coexist, describing its structure with varying degrees of concreteness, detail and, ultimately, reliability (see Model in linguistics). These models are in many respects opposed to each other and exist on the basis of alternative hypotheses, but often the idea of ​​a language is equated with one model or another, although the number of common properties attributed to the language by all kinds of its models is relatively small. In general, almost all existing language models, both static (classical traditional grammar of the language, the concept of F. de Saussure, L. Elmslev and others) and dynamic (generative grammar, the Sense-text model and others), suffer from an underestimation of functional predetermination language, its derivation from speech activity and the pragmatic conditions of its use.

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Specific representatives of the same unit (phonemes, morphemes, etc.) are among themselves in paradigmatic (see. Paradigmatics) and syntagmatic (see. Syntagmatics) relations. Paradigmatic relations are relations in the inventory, in the system, which distinguish one unit of a given type from all other similar ones. Syntagmatic relations are combinable (grammatical) relations that are established between units of the same type in the speech chain. Units of different types are in hierarchical relationships (morpheme is an ordered sequence of phonemes, a word is an ordered sequence of morphemes, etc.). In the process of speech production, paradigmatic relations are used mainly at the stage of nomination - the choice of alternative ways of meaning fragments of reality, syntagmatic and hierarchical relations are involved in the process of verbalization and linearization - in the construction of a semantic structure and the correct linear sound sequence corresponding to it.

In view of the presence of a single universal base that predetermines the boundaries of possible diversity in the structure of specific languages, it is natural that the internal structures of specific languages ​​have more or fewer similarities or identical features. Languages, the device of which reveals structural commonality in relation to certain characteristics, form one structural group (typological class). The classification of languages ​​by types (see Typology) can be carried out on different grounds, depending on what characteristics of the linguistic structure underlie the comparison. Accordingly, the same language can be included in different classifications in different types (and, accordingly, groupings of languages). So, from the point of view of formal morphological classification, the Russian language falls into the inflectional type, in contrast to the analytical type of the English language, while syntactically they are included in one type of nominative languages, opposed to the languages ​​of the ergative, active, neutral type.

Although the typological classification, unlike the genetic one, does not always reflect the real connections between specific languages, it is one of the creatures. tools of inductive-deductive study and presentation of the essential properties of language in general.

/ Kasevich V.B. "Elements of General Linguistics"

§ 1. Language is the most important means of transmitting and storing information: the bulk of information circulating in society exists precisely in linguistic form.

The transmission of information is one of the most essential types and aspects of communication between people, therefore, according to VI Lenin, “language is the most important means of human communication” (Complete Works. Vol. 25, p. 258). It follows, in turn, that the central function of language is the function of communication, or communicative.

§ 2. It is known that there is another characteristic of language as the immediate reality of thought, which was pointed out by K. Marx. Another function of the language is emphasized here, namely reflective: thinking, that is, a person's reflection of the world around him, is carried out mainly in linguistic form. Otherwise, we can say that the function of language is to generate (form) information. How do these two functions of the language relate?

It can be argued that the communicative function, or the function of communication, is primary, and the function of reflection is secondary, while both functions are closely related. Indeed, the reflection of the external world in itself does not require a linguistic form: animals already have relatively developed forms of reflection of the external world; the need for a linguistic form for the "products" of reflection arises precisely because these results of reflection of mental activity need to be communicated, passed on to other members of the human collective. The exchange of individual experience, the coordination of actions become possible thanks to the language, which is precisely the tool that allows the results of individual mental activity to be “cast” into universally significant forms.

The foregoing at the same time means that the very reflective function of the language is called to life by its communication / 5 // 6 / tive function: if there was no need for communication, generally speaking, there would be no need for a linguistic form of a person's reflection of the external world.

§ 3. Since the reflection of the external world at some high levels always acts as a generalization in relation to objects of reality and their properties, it can be said, following LSVygotsky, that in language "the unity of communication and generalization" is realized. This means that, on the one hand, language provides communication; on the other hand, the results of mental activity, activity on the generalization of the properties of reality, are developed and fixed precisely in the linguistic form. "Every word generalizes" (V. I. Lenin, Complete Works. Vol. 29, p. 246), in other words, every word is the result of the abstractive work of thought (word wood means "tree in general"), and, conversely, an abstract concept common to all members of a given collective requires the presence of a word for its existence.

We can say that language, together with labor, created man: "First, labor, and then articulate speech with it, were the two most important stimuli, under the influence of which the monkey's brain turned into a human brain" (F. Engels. Dialectics of Nature. - K. Marx, F. Engels. Works. Publishing 2. Vol. 20, p. 490).

Communication is impossible without language, - therefore, the existence of society is impossible, and hence the formation of a human personality, the formation of which is conceivable only in a social collective. Outside the language there are no generally valid concepts and, of course, the existence of developed forms of generalization, abstraction is difficult, i.e., again, the formation of a human personality is virtually impossible.

§ 4. The communicative function of language presupposes a semiotic aspect of its consideration, which will be discussed further below. The study of the reflective function of language is closely related to the problem of "language and thinking". This problem is not specifically considered here (see the chapter "On Psycholinguistics"), however, some remarks in this regard must be made.

§ 4.1. The first remark refers to the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, according to which a person's thinking is determined by the language in which he speaks, and cannot go beyond this language, since all human ideas about the world are expressed through his native language. Opponents / 6 // 7 / ki of this hypothesis indicate that both the thinking of a person and, indirectly, his language are determined by reality, the external world, therefore, to assign to language the role of a determining factor in the formation of thinking is idealism.

The decisive role of external reality in the formation of human thinking, of course, is not subject to discussion, it is indisputable. In this case, however, one should take into account the activity of the processes of reflection of reality by a person: a person by no means passively captures the material that the external world "supplies" to him - this material is organized in a certain way, is structured by the perceiving subject; a person, as they say, "models" the external world, reflecting it by means of his psyche. One way or another of modeling is determined by human needs, primarily social, industrial. It is quite natural that these needs associated with the conditions of existence may be different for different historically formed communities of people. To some extent, the ways of modeling reality also differ accordingly. This is manifested primarily in the language. Consequently, the specificity of language here - contrary to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - is rather secondary, in any case it is not primary: it cannot be said that the specificity of language determines the specificity of thinking.

This is the case in phylogenesis, that is, in the history of the formation and development of man (and his language). However, in ontogeny, that is, in the individual development of a person, the situation is somewhat different. Each person acquires knowledge about the world, about external reality - reflects external reality to a very large extent not directly, but "through" the language. A textbook example: the spectrum of emission and absorption of light waves, which determines color, of course, is the same everywhere, and the physiological abilities of representatives of different ethnic groups to color perception do not differ; however, it is known that some peoples differ, for example, three colors, while others have seven, etc. It is natural to ask the question: why, say, every African Shona (southeastern group of Bantu languages) learns to distinguish exactly three primary colors, no more and no less? Obviously, because in his language there are names for these three colors. Here, therefore, language acts as a ready-made tool for one or another structuring of reality when it is displayed by a person.

Thus, when the question arises as to why, in general, in a given language there are so many names of flowers, types of snow, etc., the answer to it is that the Russians, French, Indians, Nenets, etc., for their of practical activity during the previous centuries (perhaps millennia), roughly speaking, it was “necessary” to distinguish precisely the different / 7 // 8 / visibility of the corresponding objects, which was reflected in the language. Another question is: why does each representative of the linguistic community distinguish so many colors, etc., etc.? The answer here is that this or that way of perceiving external reality is to a certain extent "imposed" on a specific individual by his language, which in this respect is nothing more than a crystallized social experience of a given collective, people. From this point of view, therefore, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is quite reasonable.

The above, of course, does not mean in any way that a person is generally incapable of knowing what is not indicated in his language. The entire experience of the development of various peoples and their languages ​​shows that when the production and cognitive evolution of society creates the need for the introduction of a new concept, then the language never interferes with this - to designate a new concept, either an already existing word is used with a certain change in semantics, or a new one is formed according to the laws of the given language. Without this, in particular, it would be impossible to imagine the development of science.

§ 4.2. The second remark that needs to be made in connection with the problem of "language and thinking", even with the most concise consideration of it, concerns the question of how close, how indissoluble the connection between language and thinking is.

First of all, it must be said that in ontogeny (in a child) the development of speech and intellectual development are initially carried out "in parallel", according to their own laws, while the development of speech turns out to be more connected with the emotional sphere, with the establishment of "pragmatic" and emotional contact with others. Only later, by the age of two, the lines of speech and intellectual development "intersect", enriching each other: a process begins, as a result of which thought receives a linguistic form and the ability to join through language to the experience accumulated by society; now language begins to serve not only the needs of elementary contact, but also, with the development of the individual, complex forms of self-expression, etc.

Consequently, there is a certain autonomy of language and thinking from the genetic point of view (that is, from the point of view of their origin and development), and at the same time their closest relationship. / 8 // 9 /

From our own experience, everyone knows that thinking does not always take place in an expanded speech form. Does this mean that we have before us evidence (albeit intuitive) of the independence of thinking from language? This is a difficult question, and so far only a preliminary answer can be given.

Much depends on how we interpret the concept of "thinking". If this term for us means not only abstract thinking, but also the so-called thinking in images, then it is quite natural that this last - figurative thinking - should not necessarily be verbal, verbal. In this sense, non-verbal thinking is obviously quite possible.

Another aspect of the same problem is associated with the existence of such types of thinking where the speech form is used, but appears as if reduced: only some of the most important elements remain from it, and everything that "goes without saying" does not receive speech design. This process of "compressing" linguistic means resembles common practice in dialogues, especially in a well-known situation where much that is taken as known is omitted. This is all the more natural in mental monologues, or "monologues for oneself," that is, when there is no need to worry about achieving understanding on the part of the interlocutor.

Such curtailed speech that shapes thinking is called internal speech. It is important to emphasize that inner speech is still a reduced "ordinary" speech, arises on its basis and is impossible without it (inner speech is absent in a child who has not yet mastered the language sufficiently).

LITERATURE

K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin on the problems of language. - V.A.Zvegintsev. History of linguistics of the XIX-XX centuries. in essays and extracts. Part 2, M., 1960.

Vygotsky L. S. Thinking and speech. M., 1934.

General linguistics. Forms of existence, functions, history of language. Ed. B. A. Serebrennikov. M., 1970 (Ch. V)./9//10/

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linguistics

L.V. Balkova

Language as a special form of reflection and cognition of certainty

the article examines the spatial and temporal certainty in physical and grammatical understanding, as well as the ways of its reflection in the language in the process of creating types of grammatical models.

Key words: space, time, space-time certainty, language, physical and grammatical characteristics of space-time certainty.

The turn of the XX-XX1 centuries. - the time of a change in the paradigms of scientific thinking and a change in the natural-scientific picture of the world. Until the beginning of our century, science was dominated by the Newtonian-Cartesian mechanistic system of thinking that emerged in modern times, based on the theories of I. Newton and R. Descartes, to whom the idea of ​​the fundamental duality of reality belonged: matter and mind are different, parallel substances. From this it followed that the material world can be described objectively, without including in the description a human observer with his specific position, with his subjectivity. The modern picture of the world, as a refutation of the mechanistic approach, presupposes an inextricable connection between the subject and the object of cognition, based on the unity of consciousness and matter, which largely determines the transdisciplinary nature of the development of science. Language has a special place in the cognition of objective reality, because it allows us to consider how ideal objects, reflected in consciousness, acquire material form.

Ludwig von Wittgenstein (1889-1951) wrote back in the middle of the last century that only the totality of the study of objective reality, thinking and language will constitute the main analytical activity in science. Many concepts and methods of linguistics have long been used in mathematical logic, computer science, cognitology and others.

sciences. In linguistics, an approach based on understanding language as a substance interconnected with objective reality was used by such scientists as I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, I.G. Koshevaya, G.P. Melnikov, B. Lee Whorf, A.A. Pobednya, E. Sapir, I.I. Sreznevsky, F. de Sos-sur, W. Chafe, etc. In their works, when describing linguistic phenomena, they used terms and categories common in physics and computer science, such as a sign, a member of a certain sign system, code, coefficient, index, functional dependencies, functions, stability, consistency, etc.

I.G. Koshevaya concludes that "language, refracting the meaning of the finite and the infinite in its sign systems, acts as a specific means of reflecting objective space-time relations, which are unlimited as forms of being of matter." This approach is based on the interconnection of the language and the spatial-temporal certainty reflected in it. From this point of view, the defining grammatical meaning is possessed by the characteristics of certainty, space and time, which are realized in grammatical categories and structures (abstract or concrete), each of which is a "consequence of the universal process of reflection", and language, being a "system of specific reflection of the world, acts as a tool for revealing patterns in such distant disciplines as mathematics and physics. "

The above allows us to consider Certainty and the related categories of Space and Time as transdisciplinary concepts that open up the possibility of creating a "coordinate system" that can be used within several disciplines to solve a specific research or practical problem. The center of the "coordinate system" can be both a physical and a philosophical object, for example, a person at the time of speech or a quantum particle. In each individual case, the physical or philosophical characteristics of these categories will affect their implementation in objective reality or in specific grammatical rules and structures.

Here the question arises about the correspondence of the content of these concepts in the physical and linguistic understanding, the answer to which involves a comparison of physical and grammatical characteristics and a description of these phenomena of objective reality in order to search for correspondences at various levels of restrictive relationships: phonetic, semantic, lexical, grammatical, syntactic and textological ... In other words, it is necessary to consider how the properties of matter associated with space-time

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certainty, such as finiteness / infinity, absoluteness / relativity, constancy / variability, statics / dynamics, extremality / limitation, centrifugality / centripetality, thanks to the reflective function of the language, are realized in the characteristics of grammatical, speech and textological. At the same time, the determining factors of external influence are Certainty, Time and Space, which, being inextricably interconnected, are refracted in human thinking through the categories of quantity, quality and limitation. With the help of these categories, physical reality is reflected in linguistic reality.

Let us recall the theory of quantum uncertainty by W. Heisenberg and about entropy as the degree of information uncertainty, which, according to Shannon's formula, is characterized by elimination at quantum damage. The informational meaning of quantum entropy was explained in Ben Schumacher's work on the quantum state of data, published in Physical Reviews in 1995. It was he who introduced the concept of “entropic inequality” as the ratio of transmitted and received information, corresponding to the linguistic interpretation of the ratio of sign and meaning. Certainty, thus, is revealed as the amount of transmitted and received information that has certain qualitative characteristics that scientists have learned to describe mathematically.

Certainty at the level of philosophy is an objective law-governed interdependence of the phenomena of the material and spiritual world and is interconnected with such a concept as determinism. Its central core is the provision on the existence of causality, which is reflected in such a physical and grammatical phenomenon as functional dependence, presented in linguistics as a regulator of the content side of meaning, starting from the semantic-phonetic complex and ending with the speech complex and the text, including the speech situation.

Certainty at the level of grammar is revealed in various aspects, for example, as the delimitation of an action by the nature of its flow in time and space by means of qualitative and quantitative limitation, i.e. there is a certain quantitative limit to which a given action or phenomenon retains its qualitative properties. The meaning of space-time certainty is a means of differentiating grammatical characteristics.

Ways of grammatical expression of certainty, presented in the levels of restrictive connections, which we will talk about later, total

but they form a grammatical category of certainty / uncertainty, reflecting the dialectical contradiction of the unity of the opposite sides of the phenomenon: the opposition of certainty and uncertainty.

In contrast to certainty, Uncertainty has an unlimited and open nature, for example, the uncertainty of multiplicity (such as: movables), abstract multiplicity that does not correspond to singularity (tables). The boundless nature of uncertainty, its perspective direction and infinity, including the space-time, are opposed to the finiteness of certainty. If at the level of correlation Certainty is associated with the peculiarities of perception and the nature of the perceived information, then at the level of the language system it finds expression in the levels of restrictive relationships (semantic, lexical, lexico-grammatical, grammatical, textual). Let's look at some examples.

1. At the semantic level, Certainty finds expression, for example, in the extreme nature of the semantic meaning of verbs expressing perception, the presence of a restrictive potential in the semantic-phonetic complex, in the semantic fields of gravity (the center of the field is a high degree of certainty), the transitivity of the verb, which reflects the limit and depends on the semantic meaning of the root.

2. At the lexical level associated with the disclosure of the restrictive potential of sematic-phonetic complexes, it is expressed in the same-root vocabulary units of static, process, limiting and quantifiable vocabulary groups (to catch - catching, to see - seeing, to put - putting).

3. At the lexico-grammatical level, certainty can be expressed in the presence of certain restrictive elements (ing-endings and postpositions, for example, off: He asked for the latter to be sent off at once). In nominativeness, when we name something, we express certainty, which is inextricably linked with Space and Time, since these categories, first of all, allow to define something. The very division of lexical units according to the "name / verb" principle reflects the delimitation of objects and their actions. The name is more specific than the action.

4. At the grammatical level, certainty is represented by such categories as modality, limitation, distinctiveness, parcellation, constancy, reality, perfection, transitivity of the verb, a kind that, including the concept of unreal ultimateness in its attainment / non-attainment, is opposed in oppositions of perfection / imperfection, limit / non-limit, perfection / imperfection). In particular, the dichotomous opposition

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nominal and verbal limitation acts as an expression of the general idea of ​​limitation. Certainty as limitation or limitation is reflected in the aspectual nature of semantic-phonetic complexes that separate positive and negative charges.

5. At the syntactic level, it can be stated that the presence of an object in a verb, including a complex one, largely depends on the limit of the verb. The relationship between the non-limiting intransitive verb and the object, on the one hand, and the one-root ultimate verb, on the other, is also gaining considerable interest. When we say “walking in the desert”, “sailing by sea”, “driving around the city,” we emphasize spatial location. The object does not restrict its development by any limiting actions. The action indicated by an unbounded verb develops indefinitely: I believe John to be sailing over the world. I believe that John is sailing around the world.

6. At the level of the text, or at the speech level, certainty is present, for example, in the process of entropy during a communicative act, when a shift of universally constant values ​​occurs, in recurrent centers as independent lines of a certain text segment, semantic cores and the author's perspective as a specific unity of central links with the far periphery.

The characteristics of Determination in its physical understanding (relativity / absoluteness, fame / unknown, finiteness / infinity) can be supplemented by characteristics as a grammatical category (limit / non-limit, abstract / concreteness). In both cases, the nature of certainty is determined by the opposition or opposition of its qualities, the relationship with space and time, as well as the subjectivity of perception. The physical characteristics of certainty are interconnected with the ways of its grammatical expression, which influences the formation of such grammatical categories as limitativity.

So, Certainty, from the point of view of quantum physics, is understood as "entropic equality", which has a finite, limiting character, tending to one point, primarily in time and space. Grammatically, it is revealed in a slightly different way, for example, as the refraction of the finite and the infinite, the definition of the specific significance of each sign, the expression of the general idea of ​​limitation and "measure" and "limit", but "entropic equality" reflects the process of entropy in speech, also in linguistics it can be interpreted as the correspondence of sign and meaning, etc. Certainty has a direct

interconnection with such forms of being as Information and Language, which acts not only as a way of transmitting information, but also as information, and a way of various forms of existence of matter.

The current level of development of science allows us to conclude that the intersection of the physical and linguistic understanding of such substances as Space, Time and Certainty is a source of knowledge of their essence. The development of quantum informatics involves the study of the informative properties of language, inextricably interconnected by these concepts, presented in many grammatical and philosophical categories. Space-time coordinates are the starting point for analysis for a range of pre-existing and future disciplines, such as linguistic informatics or physical linguistics. Obviously, the role of language in the knowledge of the world will grow steadily, since it is a special phenomenon that refracts the surrounding world isomorphically through the prism of phonetically and grammatically organized vocabulary signs.

Various grammatical phenomena examined for interaction with the concept of Certainty made it possible to observe how physical reality is reflected in grammatical reality, how language fixes this category in its structures and categories. If Language is a “form”, then its “basic concepts” are “facets” of a given form, which have a transdisciplinary character. Space is a form of existence of matter, Time is a form of motion of matter, Certainty is a form of manifestation of the general state of matter, which is inextricably linked with such a concept as Information. Thus, language acts not only as a way of transmitting information or as a way of storing it, but also as information.

The task of modern linguistics is not only to identify sets of invariant units of the internal structure of the language (such as phonemes, tonemes, intones, morphemes, lexemes, schemes for constructing phrases and sentences), but also to determine the basic laws of their interaction and their systemic characteristics. The proposed approach largely determines the applied meaning of linguistics and its role in the formation of the so-called block of basic concepts.

Bibliographic list

1. Heisenberg V. Steps beyond the horizon. M., 1987.

2. Wittgenstein L. Several notes on the logical form / Per. and note.

Yu Artamonova // Logos. 1995. No. 6. S. 210-216.

3. Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary. SPb., 1990.

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4. Koshevaya I.G. On language as a special means of reflecting reality // Theoretical and applied aspects of linguistics / Ed. E.I. Dibro-howl. M., 2013.

5. Koshevaya I.G., Sviridova L.K. Grammatical structures and categories of the English language. M., 2010.

6. Koshevaya I.G. The stylistics of modern English. M., 2011.

CONSCIOUSNESS, COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE

Consciousness and communication are two interdependent, interconnected moments. Only with the help of consciousness is their joint activity, its organization and coordination carried out, knowledge, values, experience are transferred from one person to another, from the older generation to the younger. On the other hand, consciousness arises and functions due to the need for interaction between people.

Consciousness, communication and language are inseparable from each other. The joint activity of people (social production, labor or communication in the broad sense of the word) requires a certain sign system, with the help of which communication between people is carried out. The way that especially mediates the mechanism of interaction between people, allows you to transfer the content of consciousness from person to person, is speech.

Language is an instrument of consciousness, and the form in which the entire content of consciousness is fixed, expressed, transmitted. With the help of language as a system of signs, consciousness is objectified. The inner world of the subject is expressed in the outer world. The language also turns out to be a person's self-awareness (inner speech).

The inextricable connection between language and consciousness lies in the fact that consciousness is a reflection of reality, and with the help of language, thinking and consciousness itself receive their adequate expression. Language is an instrument of thought.

Language arises simultaneously with the development of human society in the process of joint labor activity and with the emergence of consciousness. "Speech is as ancient as consciousness, language is practical, existing for other people and only thereby existing for myself, real consciousness, and, like consciousness, speech arises only out of necessity, with the urgent need to communicate with others people. "

Language is a sign system. It is a means of communication and expression of thinking, as well as a specific way of storing and transmitting information, a means of organizing and managing human activities.

From the point of view of the relationship between communication and speech, one of the important functions of the latter is communicative. It reveals the social nature of consciousness and speech. Language as a sign system functions on the basis of the second signaling system, its distinctive feature is that the skills of processing signs (for example, the speed of speech, reading, writing, etc.) are not inherited, but acquired, developed in the process of human socialization.

As a rule, languages ​​are divided into artificial and natural. Artificial ones are created for special types of activity, for example, in art - the language of symbols and artistic images. Natural languages ​​were formed with the formation and development of human communities. For example, national languages ​​- English, French, Ukrainian, etc. Arose in the process of the formation of these nations.

The biological prerequisite for the emergence of language is the development of the sound form of signaling in higher animals. As a result of the evolutionary transition from animal ancestors to humans, the formation of labor activity, speech is formed. It becomes possible with its help not only to reveal one's emotional state, but also to embody in sound form the content of consciousness, accumulated material and spiritual experience.

CONSCIOUSNESS AS the highest form of reflection. The concept of the ideal

Display is a general property of matter. Movement is nothing more than the universal way of being of matter. The movement itself is interpreted as interaction, and reflection is the property of material systems to reproduce in their changes the properties of other systems interacting with them.

Consciousness as one of the forms of reflection arises at a certain level of development of matter. It is based on information display that appears in living nature. It is a type of display in which any system is able to use its results for its action in the external environment or as the ability to actively use the results of external influence.

The information display is of a signal nature. The living organism perceives environmental factors for the realization of its needs, laid down programs for life support. The factors and the state of the external environment are not directly related to the existence of the organism, that is, they do not satisfy its biological needs, but play the role of a signal, means the onset of a situation, makes them satisfied. Thus, the mechanism of information display is mediated by the internal program of the organism. For example, darkness does not satisfy the need for food of night hunters, but the onset of darkness signals the start of the hunt.

Information display is selective. Not all phenomena are perceived, the cumulative influence of the external environment, but only those factors that are important for the implementation of the internal program of the organism.

Information display arises at that level of development of a living thing, when the organism has a certain freedom of action, at least the ability to change its position in space, that is, movement in the environment.

A high level of information display can be considered a forward reflection. It is defined as the ability of the body to change its state, to be ready to respond to the impact of external factors in the future. For example, some plants secrete poison against insects even when the insects are feeding on a nearby plant. The higher the degree of development of a living organism, the better its ability to anticipate reflection is developed.

Information display levels.

1. Irritability - a reaction in response to environmental factors. It appears in the simplest unicellular organisms and regulates adaptive behavior.

2. Sensitivity - the ability to feel. It provides for the presence of sensory organs, a nervous system. As a level of reflection, sensuality is characterized by the fact that the body reacts to external, directly biologically neutral for it, environmental phenomena. He also receives perceptions of reality, which, on the one hand, differentiate its properties, and on the other, essential and significant. Sensuality is the initial form of the psyche.

3. Mental image. It is the basis and mechanism of orientation-research activity, which is inherent in already highly developed animals. With the help of the mental image, the external world, its properties and processes, especially new and changing ones, are reflected. Therefore, there is a modeling of objective reality and behavior in it in the inner plane, in the mental image of the subject. After - the projection of the image onto the objective world and control over the action of the subject in external reality.

By its nature, the mental image is a functional reality. It arises as a result of the interaction of the subject and the object of reflection. The content of a mental image is, first of all, a reflection of the properties of objective reality, and without an object, a complete image is impossible. On the other hand, the image is impossible without the subject of display, since this is a reflection not in the world of objects, but in the psyche of subjects.

This relationship between subject and object reveals the essence of the ideal. The ideal is nothing more than material, but transformed, reflected in the psyche. The ideal is a reflection of the material, that is, the world of objects, but it exists in the subject as a reflection, as the content of a mental image.

The ideal is the gnoseological opposite of the material. Material - the object itself and its properties, objective reality. The ideal is an image of objective reality, that is, subjective reality. The ideal is the epistemological essence of consciousness, it is defined in materialistic philosophy ontologically unique with matter, but in its properties, epistemologically opposite to it.