§ 2. LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

If language is not a natural phenomenon, then, consequently, its place is among social phenomena. This decision is correct, but in order for there to be complete clarity, it is necessary to clarify the place of language among other social phenomena. This place is special due to the special role of language in society.

What does language have in common with other social phenomena and how does language differ from them?

What language has in common with other social phenomena is that language is a necessary condition for the existence and development of human society and that, being an element of spiritual culture, language, like all other social phenomena, is unthinkable in isolation from materiality.

But the functions of language and the patterns of its functioning and historical development are fundamentally different from other social phenomena.

The idea that language is not a biological organism, but a social phenomenon, was expressed earlier by representatives of “sociological schools” both under the flag of idealism (F. de Saussure, J. Vandries, A. Meillet) and under the flag of materialism (L. Noiret, N.Ya. Marr), but the stumbling block was a lack of understanding of the structure of society and the specifics of social phenomena.

In social phenomena, Marxist science distinguishes between the basis and the superstructure, that is, the economic structure of society at a given stage of its development and the political, legal, religious, artistic views of society and the institutions corresponding to them. Each base has its own superstructure.

It never occurred to anyone to identify language with the base, but the inclusion of language in the superstructure was typical of both Soviet and foreign linguistics.

The most popular opinion among anti-biologists was to classify language as an “ideology” - in the realm of superstructures and to identify language with culture. And this entailed a number of incorrect conclusions.

Why is language not a superstructure?

Because language is not a product of a given basis, but a means of communication of the human collective, which develops and persists over the course of centuries, even though at this time there are changes in the bases and the corresponding superstructures.

Because the superstructure in a class society is a property of a given class, and the language does not belong to one class or another, but to the entire population and serves different classes, without which society could not exist.

N. Ya. Marr and the followers of his “new doctrine of language” considered the class character of language one of their main positions. This reflected not only a complete misunderstanding of language, but also of other social phenomena, since in a class society, not only language, but also economics is common to different classes, without which society would fall apart.

This feudal dialect was common to all levels of the feudal ladder “from prince to serf”¹, and during the periods of capitalist and socialist development of Russian society, the Russian language served Russian bourgeois culture just as well before the October Revolution as it later served the socialist culture of Russian society.

¹See . Ch. VII, § 89.

So, there are no class languages ​​and there never were. The situation is different with speech, as discussed below (§4).

The second mistake of linguists was to identify language and culture. This identification is incorrect, since culture is an ideology, and language does not belong to ideology.

The identification of language with culture entailed a whole series of incorrect conclusions, since these premises are incorrect, i.e., culture and language are not the same thing. Culture, unlike language, can be both bourgeois and socialist; language, being a means of communication, is always popular and serves both bourgeois and socialist culture.

What is the relationship between language and culture? The national language is a form of national culture. It is connected with culture and is unthinkable without culture, just as culture is unthinkable without language. But language is not an ideology, which is the basis of culture.

Finally, there were attempts, in particular by N. Ya. Marr, to liken language to tools of production.

Yes, language is a tool, but a “tool” in a special sense. What language has in common with the instruments of production (they are not only material facts, but also a necessary element of the social structure of society) is that they are indifferent to the superstructure and serve different classes of society, but the instruments of production produce material goods, while language produces nothing and serves only as a means of communication between people. Language is an ideological weapon. If the tools of production (axe, plow, combine, etc.) have a structure and structure, then language has a structure and systemic organization.

Thus, language cannot be classified as either a base, a superstructure, or an instrument of production; language is not the same as culture, and language cannot be class-based.

Nevertheless, language is a social phenomenon that occupies its own special place among other social phenomena and has its own specific characteristics. What are these specific features?

Since language, being a tool of communication, is also a means of exchanging thoughts, the question naturally arises about the relationship between language and thinking.

Regarding this issue, there are two opposing and equally incorrect trends: 1) the separation of language from thinking and thinking from language, and 2) the identification of language and thinking.

Language is the property of the collective; it communicates between members of the collective and allows them to communicate and store the necessary information about any phenomena in the material and spiritual life of a person. And language as a collective property has been evolving and existing for centuries.

Thinking develops and is updated much faster than language, but without language thinking is only a “thing for itself”, and a thought not expressed in language is not that clear, distinct thought that helps a person comprehend the phenomena of reality, develop and improve science, it is , rather, some kind of foresight, and not actual vision, this is not knowledge in the exact sense of the word.

A person can always use ready-made language material (words, sentences) as “formulas” or “matrices” not only for the known, but also for the new. Chapter II (“Lexicology”) will show how one can find means of expression for new thoughts and concepts in language, how one can create terms for new objects of science (see § 21). And it is precisely by finding the right words for oneself that a concept becomes understandable not only to other members of society, but also to those who want to introduce these new concepts into science and into life. The Greek philosopher Plato once spoke about this ( IV V. BC e.). “It seems funny to me, Hermogenes, that things become clear if you depict them through letters and syllables; however, this is inevitably so” (“Cratylus”) ¹.

¹ See: Ancient theories of language and style. L., 1936. P. 49.

Every teacher knows: only then can he affirm what he teaches when it is clear to him - when he can tell it to his students in words. No wonder the Romans said: Docendo discimus (“By teaching, we learn”).

If thinking cannot do without language, then language without thinking is impossible. We speak and write while thinking, and we try to express our thoughts more accurately and clearly in language. It would seem that in those cases when the words in speech do not belong to the speaker, when, for example, a reciter reads someone’s work or an actor plays a role, then where is the thinking? But it is hardly possible to imagine actors, readers, even announcers as parrots and starlings who pronounce but do not speak. Not only artists and readers, but also everyone who “speaks someone else’s text” interprets it in their own way and presents it to the listener. The same applies to quotes, the use of proverbs and sayings in ordinary speech: they are convenient because they are successful and laconic, but their choice and the meaning embedded in them are a trace and consequence of the speaker’s thoughts. In general, our ordinary speech is a set of quotations from a language known to us, the words and expressions of which we usually use in our speech (not to mention the sound system and grammar, where “new” cannot be invented).

Of course, there are situations when a given speaker (for example, a poet) is not satisfied with ordinary words “worn out like dimes” and creates his own (sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully); but, as a rule, new words of poets and writers most often remain the property of their texts and are not included in the common language - after all, they were formed not to convey the “general”, but to express something individual related to the figurative system of a given text; These words are not intended for mass communication or for conveying general information.

This idea was expressed in a paradoxical form by the Greek philosopher of the 2nd century. n. e. Sextus Empiricus, who wrote:

“Just as a person who loyally adheres to a well-known coin that is in circulation in a city according to local custom can easily carry out monetary transactions taking place in that city, another person who does not accept such a coin, but mints some other, new coin for himself and pretending to its recognition will do it in vain, so in life that person is close to madness who does not want to adhere to the speech accepted like a coin, but (prefers) to create his own.

¹ Ancient theories of language and style. L., 1936. P. 84.

When we think and want to convey to someone what we have realized, we put our thoughts into the form of language.

Thus, thoughts are born on the basis of language and are fixed in it. However, this does not mean at all that language and thinking are identical.

The laws of thinking are studied by logic. Logic distinguishes concepts with their characteristics, propositions with their members and conclusions with their forms. There are other significant units in the language: morphemes, words, sentences, which do not coincide with the indicated logical division.

Many grammarians and logicians of the 19th and 20th centuries. tried to establish parallelism between concepts and words, between judgments and sentences. However, it is easy to see that not all words express concepts (for example, interjections express feelings and desires, but not concepts; pronouns only indicate, and do not name or express the concepts themselves; proper names do not express concepts, etc.) and not all sentences express judgments (for example, interrogative and imperative sentences). In addition, the members of the judgment do not coincide with the members of the sentence.

The laws of logic are universal laws, since people all think the same way, but express these thoughts in different languages ​​in different ways. The national characteristics of languages ​​have nothing to do with the logical content of a statement; the same applies to the lexical, grammatical and phonetic form of an utterance in the same language; it can be varied in the language, but correspond to the same logical unit, for example: This is a huge success And This is a huge success. This is their home And This is their home, I wave the flag And I'm waving the flag[uh 2 t @ tv ö ro 2 k] and [e 2 t @ tvo 2 r @ x], etc.

With regard to the connection between language and thinking, one of the main issues is the type of abstraction that permeates the entire language, but is different in its structural tiers, lexical, grammatical and phonetic, which determines the specificity of vocabulary, grammar and phonetics and the special qualitative difference between their units and the relationships between them¹.

¹ See about this in chap. II, III and IV.

Language and thinking form a unity, since without thinking there can be no language and thinking without language is impossible. Language and thinking arose historically simultaneously in the process of human labor development.

Language is the most important means of human communication. Language is a necessary condition for the existence and development of human society. The main function of language is to be a means of communication.

Language serves society in absolutely all spheres of human activity. Therefore, it cannot be identified with any other social phenomenon. Language is neither a form of culture, nor the ideology of a particular class, nor a superstructure in the broadest sense of the word. This feature of language follows entirely from the features of its main function - to be a means of communication.

An essential feature of language as a social phenomenon is its ability to reflect and express social consciousness.

When characterizing language as a social phenomenon, one should also take into account its dependence on changes in the state of human society. Language is capable of reflecting changes in the life of society in all its spheres, which significantly distinguishes it from all other social phenomena.

Language depends on the nature of economic formations and the form of the state. For example, the era of feudalism was characterized by the disintegration of countries into many small cells. Each feud and monastery with its surrounding villages represented the state in miniature. This structure of society contributed to the emergence of small territorial dialects. Local territorial dialects were the main form of language existence in feudal society.

Differences in the social organization of society in the past may be reflected in the state of dialects existing at the present time. P. S. Kuznetsov notes that in the territory of our old southern provinces (Central Black Earth Strip), where landownership was especially developed, a large number of small local dialects have been preserved.

Each socio-economic formation creates a certain way of life of society, which is manifested not in one particular phenomenon, but in a whole complex of mutually determined and interconnected phenomena. Of course, this unique way of life is reflected in the language.

Human society does not represent an absolutely homogeneous group. There is differentiation caused by various reasons. This may be differentiation along class, estate, property and professional lines, which is naturally reflected in language.

Along with specific professional vocabulary associated with the needs of a particular industry, special vocabulary appears, typical of various argots, jargons, etc., cf., for example, student, thief, soldier, and other jargons.

Social differentiation of language usually affects only the area of ​​vocabulary. There are, however, isolated cases when it also covers the area of ​​the grammatical structure of the language.

Class differentiation of society can be the reason for the creation of significant differences between languages, or rather, styles of languages. Characterizing the state of Indian languages ​​in the early 30s, A.P. Barannikov, a Soviet philologist and Indologist, noted that modern literary languages ​​of India are adapted to serve the interests of the ruling classes and most of them are little understood by wide circles of the proletariat and peasantry. The reason for this is that lexical elements used by wide circles of the population have been expelled from many literary languages ​​and replaced with words from the literary languages ​​of the ruling classes of feudal India, i.e. from Sanskrit (for Hindus) and from Persian and Arabic (for Muslims).

Demographic changes can also be reflected in language in certain ways. For example, the influx of rural populations into cities due to the development of industry had a certain impact on the literary language. Researchers of the history of the Russian literary language note that in the 50-60s there was some looseness in the verbal use of non-literary words and phrases and, in particular, elements of vernacular.

A demographic factor such as high or low population density can facilitate or hinder the spread of phonetic changes, grammatical innovations, new words, etc.

Population movement, expressed in relocation to new places, can contribute to the mixing of dialects or increased dialect fragmentation. The well-known researcher of Russian dialects P. S. Kuznetsov notes that the border of the Russian and Belarusian languages ​​cannot be determined precisely enough. In the territory occupied by the Russian language, adjacent to the territory of the Belarusian language, there are a large number of dialects containing well-known Belarusian features and forming, as it were, a gradual transition from the Russian language to the Belarusian language. This is explained by the fact that the territory west of Moscow (for example, Smolensk land) was constantly the subject of struggle between the Russian and Lithuanian principalities. These lands repeatedly changed hands; they were part of either the Principality of Lithuania or the Russian state. It can be assumed that each conquest of this territory entailed an influx of Russian or Belarusian population. As a result of linguistic mixing, the area of ​​transitional dialects arose.

The invasion of large masses of conquerors and the seizure of territories with a foreign-speaking population can also be the cause of language changes. Intensive colonization of various countries around the world greatly contributed to the spread of languages ​​such as English and Spanish.

Mass penetration of a foreign-speaking population into territory occupied by another people can lead to the loss of the native language. The history of various peoples provides numerous examples of such cases, cf., for example, the disappearance of the Gauls on the territory of France, the Celtiberians on the territory of Spain, the Thracians on the territory of Bulgaria, the Ob Ugrians on the territory of the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Scythians on the territory of Ukraine, etc.

The formation of literary language norms is not created without the active participation of various groups of the population.

Various social movements and views have a noticeable influence on the nature of language. During the years of the revolution, a conscious appeal to jargon and argot was cultivated as the “language of the proletariat,” as opposed to the old “bourgeois intelligentsia language.” A wide stream of various jargons, argotisms and provincialisms poured into the literary speech of the first post-revolutionary years. These layers of vocabulary also penetrated into fiction.

Many outstanding writers, playwrights, and artists played an important role in the development of one or another literary language. This is, for example, the role of Pushkin and a whole galaxy of classics of Russian literature in Russia, the role of Dante in Italy, Cervantes in Spain, Chaucer and Shakespeare in England, etc.

The presence of different class and nationalist interests in society can also affect the development of language. Indian language experts say that the two Indian languages ​​Urdu and Hindi could be easily merged. The elements of the grammatical system of these languages ​​are the same, the vast majority of the vocabulary is common. It is enough to limit the use of Sanskrit elements in Hindi, and Persian and Arabic elements in Urdu, and the conditions for the formation of a language would be created. However, it was beneficial for the imperialist bourgeoisie of England and representatives of the religious cult to maintain linguistic differences that have persisted to this day.

The development of the productive forces of society, technology, science and general culture is usually associated with the emergence of a large number of new concepts that require linguistic expression. New terms are created, some old terms receive new meanings, and the area of ​​special vocabulary is expanded. The influx of new terminology is at the same time accompanied by the disappearance or relegation to the periphery of some terms that no longer reflect the current level of development of sciences.

The growth of culture contributes to an increase in the functions of the literary language. The expansion of the functions of the literary language and its dissemination among the broad masses of the population necessitates the establishment of uniform spelling and grammatical norms.

The emergence of an extensive system of linguistic styles and the establishment of linguistic norms contributes to the development of the so-called linguistic aesthetics, which is expressed in protecting the language or style from the penetration of everything that violates stylistic or linguistic norms.

The development of culture is naturally associated with increased contacts with various countries of the world, with the goal of exchanging experience in various fields of science and technology. On this basis, international terminology arises. Translation of technical and scientific literature inevitably leads to the emergence of common stylistic features and features in the social spheres of the language.

Among the most characteristic features of language as a social phenomenon is also the fact that society creates a language, controls what is created and consolidates it in the system of communicative means.

Every word and every form is created first by some individual. This happens because the creation of a certain word or form requires the manifestation of initiative, which, due to a number of psychological reasons, cannot be demonstrated by all members of a given society. However, the initiative of an individual is not alien to other members of society. Therefore, what is created by an individual can either be accepted and approved, or rejected by society.

Sometimes the factors that support a word or push it out of the language appear in a rather contradictory plexus. A slang word of low style can become the property of the literary language if one group of factors turns out to be more effective in this struggle.

There are areas of word creation where social affirmation plays almost no role. This refers to the creation of very narrow technical terms.

Despite the huge variety of intralinguistic and external linguistic factors that determine the fate of a newly emerged word or form, which cannot even be described in detail within the framework of this section, the decisive role always belongs to society. Society creates and shapes language in the true sense of the word. Language is a product of society. For this reason, more than any other phenomenon serving society, it deserves the name of a social phenomenon.

LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

The problem of language and society has not been sufficiently developed theoretically, although it would seem that it has long been in the attention of linguists, especially domestic ones.

Meanwhile, the study of this problem is very important for society and the state, since it most directly affects many aspects of people's lives. Without a scientific solution to this problem, it is impossible to pursue correct language policy in multinational and single-national states. The history of the peoples of the world, especially in the 20th century, has shown that the language policy of states needs scientific justification. First of all, this concerns the understanding by public and government figures, as well as, ideally, by all members of society of the phenomenon of language itself as one of the fundamental characteristics of a people. In addition, science is called upon to summarize the centuries-old experience of the existence of multinational states, the language policies pursued in them, and to give correct recommendations to ensure the free use and development of the languages ​​of the peoples living in one or another state.

In the previous and existing domestic literature on this problem there are many declarative, general provisions derived from the ideological, philosophical position of the authors, while the linguistic side of the problem itself remains insufficiently clarified. The social mechanism itself, which determines the formation of language as an objectively developing, self-regulating social phenomenon, independent of the will of its individual speakers, has not been revealed or explained. The genetic connection between society, work, thinking and language has not been unequivocally proven. The simultaneity of their appearance is entirely based on their interconnection and interdependence in modern society and on the assumption and belief that such a connection and mutual necessity have always existed, even during the period of language formation. However, with this formulation of the problem, a number of fundamental questions remain unanswered (see Chapter X about this).

In Russian linguistics, the relationship between language and society has been predominantly studied within the framework of the relations of society and those parts of the language that individual linguists attribute to its external structure. This is an obvious connection, and its study clearly proves that certain aspects of the language system are conditioned by the life and development of society (the presence in the language of functional styles, territorial and social dialects, scientific sublanguages, class and estate features of speech, thematic, semantic groupings of words, historicisms, etc.) . The study of the relationship between language and society was usually limited to these questions, undoubtedly important and necessary. In domestic linguistics in the 20-40s, based on the study of such facts, conclusions were made about the class character of the language, about its belonging to the superstructure above the economic basis of society, etc. Attempts to spread the direct conditionality of the internal structure of the language by social, production factors (phonetics, grammar, partly word formation) turned out to be untenable. It should be noted, however, that an indirect influence of social development on the internal structure of language cannot be ruled out. But this aspect of the relationship between language and society, in fact, has not been studied.

Many questions concerning the differentiation of language under the influence of class, estate, professional, age and other divisions of society have not received sufficient theoretical explanation. A language can serve different classes, estates, ideologies, professions, and age groups of people without violating its identity. The same language, also without violating its genetic and functional identity, can be a means of communication in different states with different ways of life of people, economic, government systems, ideology, etc. Of course, these differences are reflected in the elements of the external structure, but they are not violate the identities of language. The continuity of language preserves its identity in conditions of national social upheavals, upheavals, disasters, ensuring communication and a certain mutual understanding of speakers even in such exceptional conditions. Language as a form is capable of expressing various, including opposing contents; it, in the form of a “third being”, seems to rise above society, its division into classes, estates, professions, ages, etc., reflecting their differences with certain elements, but at the same time uniting them with its common system and structure, indicating that these differences are not violate his identities.

In the 60-70s, there was a tendency in Russian linguistics towards a purely internal, structural study of language. Under the influence of structural, mathematical, cybernetic techniques and research methods, language began to be considered by many linguists as a kind of generating device, which at the input has

a certain vocabulary and rules for operating it, and the output is sentences constructed according to these rules. These description procedures, in fact, did not talk about any connection between language and society, about the conditioning of language by reality in general. Thus, the idea of ​​complete spontaneity of his development, independence from reality and society was tacitly allowed. In their study of language, linguists followed Saussure’s behest: “...The only and true object of linguistics is language, considered in itself and for itself” (1, p. 269). For linguists of this direction, the main thing in language is the structure of the language, its elements and models of their relationships. There is no doubt that these aspects of language learning reflect its essential aspects. But limiting its study only to them and ignoring or completely denying others, also undoubtedly important, would lead to one-sidedness, a distortion of the actual state of affairs. Without connection with reality, it is impossible to understand the role, place and the very internal structure of language. Its abstract nature does not mean its complete separation from reality, but only speaks of its special role in reflecting the same reality.

Above, we have repeatedly emphasized that the connection of language with reality, the conditioning of reality does not deprive the language of its unique nature and originality. Both during the heyday of structuralism and in subsequent times, its extreme manifestations were subject to fair criticism. Despite the importance of studying the structure of language, it is necessary to take into account that language performs social functions, and therefore is influenced by society and, more broadly, by reality in general, which it reflects in its signs, their meanings and relationships.

The above proves that in language we have a very unique phenomenon, open in relation to society, serving as its necessary condition and attribute, but in its own way “processing” social and other reality. Language has its own “filters”, passing through which social processes and events, it refracts them in a unique way and consolidates them in its signs and their relationships. In these connections and interdependence of language and society, it is necessary to distinguish between the form and content of language. The form of language, like the internal structure (to a certain extent coinciding with it, see below), is a deep phenomenon of language. With its most abstract elements, it is capable of participating in the expression of various, including contradictory and mutually exclusive, concrete contents.

To understand the complexity and ambiguity of the relationship between language and society, one should keep in mind that language is not only a social phenomenon, but also a natural and psychological phenomenon (2, p. 47 et al.). Many scholars have written about the fact that language is not only a social phenomenon. So,

E.D. Polivanov emphasized the complex nature of language: “...Language is a mental and social phenomenon: more precisely, at the basis of linguistic reality there are facts of a physical, mental and social order; hence linguistics, on the one hand, is a natural-historical science (coming into contact here with acoustics and physiology), on the other hand, one of the disciplines that studies human mental activity, and, thirdly, a sociological science” (3, p. 182 ).

What social prerequisites can, for example, explain in the Russian language the fall of reduced vowels, 1st and 2nd softening of back-lingual ones, palatalization of consonants, reduction of vowels, deafening of voiced vowels at the end of a word, types of grammatical connections, models of syntactic constructions, etc., etc. etc. Meanwhile, all these are deep-seated distinctive features of the Russian language.

The social nature of language is revealed in the binding nature of its laws and rules for all speakers. The need to accurately express their thoughts for the purpose of mutual understanding forces speakers - spontaneously, and as they learn the language, consciously - to strictly adhere to the learned general laws and rules of the language. Such communication conditions objectively develop a language norm, and at a certain stage of development of language and society, as a consequence, a literary norm of the language (see below).

The general laws of language, mandatory for all speakers, are combined with the individuality of speech and its fundamentally creative character. Objectively, language as a social phenomenon exists in the form of “personal languages”, which represent language in different ways as a natural means of communication. The continuity of the language and its changes over time are ensured by the coexistence of different generations of native speakers and their gradual change at different times. Hence the importance of studying the language of an individual, since, as follows from the above, language actually exists and is embodied in the speech of speakers.

Linguistics cannot cover as the subject of its study the content of the language of individuals, relating to different areas of activity and knowledge, as well as to everyday life. But linguistics has its own approach to the study of personal language. However, until very recently, only certain aspects of this big problem were studied in linguistics. Thus, the formation of language in children, the language and style of writers are traditionally studied in linguistics; Currently, a new direction in the study of linguistic personality is being formed (Yu.N. Karaulov).

A born person “finds” the language formed, ready; with the help of other people, he masters language in society in early childhood, thereby becoming familiar with the existing forms of reflection and understanding of the world around him, enshrined in social

consciousness, to a general linguistic picture of the world. Having mastered language as a means of reflecting and cognizing reality, forming thoughts and transmitting them to others, the speaker thereby connects to the general movement of language and the collective cognition of reality with its help.

The content of the speech expressed externally becomes the property of the interlocutor, a certain circle of people, or - in certain cases - the entire speaking group. Moreover, its impact may not be limited to the moment of its utterance. Its content, assimilated by other participants in communication, can then be transmitted in the community, thereby expanding the perception of it by others in space and time. Participation in the communication of many speakers, the mutual exchange of information and its assimilation creates a certain social experience in the perception and knowledge of the surrounding world. Language consolidates this experience in its signs and their meanings. Language, therefore, is a means of storing and transmitting social experience from generation to generation. This role of language increases with the invention of writing, as it significantly expands the temporal and spatial boundaries of information transfer. These boundaries are expanding even further in our time with the use of electronic media, which incomparably increases the possibilities of accumulating, storing and transmitting information.

From the above, the conclusion suggests itself that its two main functions inherent in language - communicative and significative - reflect the inherent contradiction in ontological and epistemological terms. These two functions make language a tool for both individual and social reflection and knowledge of the world. And this, one must think, is the key to the progress of knowledge, its forward movement.

The general (social) and the individual (individual) are found in every fact of language, in any of its sentences. The dialectical unity of these sides reflects the nature of the language, its essence. Let's take the sentence as an example:

That year, the autumn weather stayed for a long time...

A sentence expresses a certain meaning, denoting the corresponding extra-linguistic situation. The general meaning of a sentence is made up of the meanings of the phrases and words used in it. All sentence units belonging to different levels of language participate in the expression and designation of meaning, each performing its inherent functions, which forms the sentence as a grammatical and semantic unity, correlated with the designated situation. However, being the constitutive units of language, each of them - phoneme, morpheme, word, phrase and sentence (the latter as models) - is applied in accordance with its inherent

them by syntagmatic and paradigmatic rules, not only in this sentence. Reflecting and denoting an infinite number of possible situations, language units remain free from these situations. And this freedom is a fundamental property of both them and the language as a whole. If units of all levels of language were associated only with a directly reflected specific situation, then the use of language as a means of communication, divided in time and space and at the same time representing a unity, would be impossible. Language is a subjective and relatively independent means of communication and reflection of reality and, as such, it is capable of reflecting and denoting changing contents about extralinguistic reality due to the presence of its stable mechanisms that, to a certain extent, are independent of changing contents. Even words, which, it would seem, are directly related to actual facts with their meanings, are used not only to designate objects of one or another situation, but thanks to their abstract meanings they are able to be used in an open number of situations.

The infinite variety of phenomena in the external and internal world of a person is reflected by an infinite chain of combinations of a finite number of language units at each level, starting with the combination of phonemes to form words and ending with combinations of words to form statements. Of course, not all theoretically possible combinations of units at different levels of language are realized in its use. The syntagmatic capabilities of linguistic units, their valence and distribution at each level have their own rules and restrictions, determined by both intralingual and extralinguistic factors, which are not possible to discuss here. Let us only point out the fundamental difference in the compatibility of significant units of language, on the one hand, words at the syntactic level and, on the other, morphemes at the morphemic-morphological level.

At the syntactic level, phrases and sentences are formed by a free combination of words, governed, however, by grammatical rules for connecting words of certain parts of speech, as well as subject-logical relations.

New words are formed according to a similar principle. In a word teacher the root is found in other words of this word-formation nest (teach, student, student, study, teaching, scientist, student etc.), just like the suffix -tel - in many other words (writer, reader, layman, guarantor, rescuer etc.). Combination of word-forming elements teacher forms a new word with a new meaning. The difference between a word and phrase and a sentence formed with the help of these word-forming elements is that the word and its meaning are fixed in the language,

becomes a permanent element of it, while sentences and phrases are formed by a free combination of words taken to designate a specific phenomenon or situation. Words created in this way constitute a finite number of units, while sentences and free phrases are practically endless in the speech of speakers.

The sound shells of the words of a language are also formed from a limited number of phonemes, which together represent a strictly constructed, closed system.

In each case, the compatibility of various language units (words - in the formation of phrases and sentences, morphemes and phonemes - in the formation of words) is subject to its own syntagmatic rules and patterns. The compatibility of morphemes and phonemes is fixed in a word, in contrast to the compatibility of words in phrases and sentences, where it is each time created under specific speech conditions. But even in speech conditions, the connection of words, reflecting a unique situation and forming the individual meaning of a phrase or sentence, includes elements (grammatical forms of words, models of phrases and sentences, their typical meanings) that are characteristic of the language system in general and formulate many other words and syntactic structures.

The above facts indicate that language, presupposing society as a necessary prerequisite for its emergence and functioning, nevertheless, in relation to it, as to reality in general, remains a relatively independent entity with its own special laws and rules for reflecting reality.

We call language a social phenomenon primarily because society participates in its formation; the speaker acquires language only in society; the objective nature of language development also stems from the fact that language performs social functions; finally, with its semantics, and to a certain extent also with its structure, language in its “removed” form reflects society and its structure. But all this does not deprive the language of its special status as an independent sign system in relation to the reflected reality, including society.

Thus, the condition for the existence and development of language as a means of communication, education and expression of thought is the dialectical unity of the individual and the social in it. This nature of it unites and uses the achievements and energy of the linguistic personality and the entire linguistic community.

Any human activity that is creative in nature leads to certain new results. The peculiarity of speech activity is that it performs not only the well-known functions of communication (formation of a thought, communication of a thought to another, perception and understanding of it by the latter, etc.). In this activity that is constantly taking place in society, historically and functionally

but there is a constant systematization and creation of the very instrument of this activity - language. Moreover, despite the seemingly general need and necessity of language formation, each language remains an original and unique phenomenon in its nature. Languages ​​amaze with their diversity of phonetic, grammatical, and lexical systems. Why, as a result of speech activity that is social in nature, exactly such a composition of phonemes, such a grammatical structure, etc., is formed in each language - modern linguistics cannot answer this question. And first of all, because the origins of language, and therefore the beginning of the formation of its levels, are hidden by a layer of time of several tens or hundreds of millennia. In the historical era accessible to observation, science notes on the surface of the language only individual movements of its already ready, functioning system and structure; however, modern science has not yet been able to trace and understand the control of the mechanism of this system as a whole.

Language, as a social phenomenon, occupies its own special place among other social phenomena and has its own specific features.

The scientist and researcher Reformatsky says that what language has in common with other social phenomena is that language is a necessary condition for the existence and development of human society and that, being an element of spiritual culture, language, like all other social phenomena, is unthinkable in isolation from materiality.

He also does not deny the fact that language as a social phenomenon is not just unique - in a number of significant ways it differs from all social phenomena:

• 1. Language, consciousness and the social nature of work activity are initially interconnected and form the foundation of human identity.
• 2. The presence of language is a necessary condition for the existence of society throughout the history of mankind. Any social phenomenon in its existence is limited in chronological terms: it is not originally in human society and is not eternal. Unlike non-primary or transitory phenomena of social life, language is primordial and will exist as long as society exists.
• 3. The presence of language is a necessary condition for material and spiritual existence in all spheres of social space. Any social phenomenon in its distribution is limited to a certain “place”, its own space. Language is global, omnipresent. The areas of language use cover all conceivable social space. Being the most important and basic means of communication, language is inseparable from all and any manifestations of human social existence.
• 4. Language is dependent and independent of society. The globality of language, its inclusion in all forms of social existence and social consciousness give rise to its supra-group and supra-class character. However, the supra-class nature of a language does not mean that it is non-social. Society may be divided into classes, but it remains a society, that is, a certain unity of people. While the development of production leads to social differentiation of society, language acts as its most important integrator. At the same time, the social structure of society and the sociolinguistic differentiation of the speech practices of speakers are to a certain extent reflected in the language. The national language is socially heterogeneous. Its social structure, i.e. the composition and significance of the social variants of the language (professional speech, jargons, vernacular, caste languages, etc.), as well as the types of communicative situations in a given society are determined by the social structure of the society. However, despite the possible severity of class contradictions, social dialects of a language do not become special languages.
• 5. Language is a phenomenon of the spiritual culture of humanity, one of the forms of social consciousness (along with everyday consciousness, morality and law, religious consciousness and art, ideology, politics, science). The uniqueness of language as a form of social consciousness lies in the fact that, firstly, language, along with the psychophysiological ability to reflect the world, is a prerequisite for social consciousness; secondly, language is a semantic foundation and a universal shell of various forms of social consciousness. In its content, the semantic system of language is closest to ordinary consciousness. Through language, a specifically human form of transmission of social experience (cultural norms and traditions, natural science and technological knowledge) is carried out.
• 6. Language does not relate to ideological or ideological forms of social consciousness (unlike law, morality, politics, philosophical, religious, artistic, everyday consciousness).
• 7. Language preserves the unity of the people in their history despite class barriers and social cataclysms.
• 8. The development of language, more than the development of law, ideology or art, is independent of the social history of society, although, ultimately, it is conditioned and directed precisely by social history. It is important, however, to characterize the extent of this independence. The connection between the history of language and the history of society is obvious: there are features of language and linguistic situations that correspond to certain stages of ethnic and social history. Thus, we can talk about the uniqueness of languages ​​or linguistic situations in primitive societies, in the Middle Ages, and in modern times. The linguistic consequences of such social upheavals as revolutions and civil wars are also quite obvious: the boundaries of dialect phenomena are shifting, the previous normative and stylistic structure of the language is being violated, political vocabulary and phraseology are being updated. However, at its core, the language remains the same, unified, which ensures the ethnic and cultural continuity of society throughout its history.

The uniqueness of language as a social phenomenon, in fact, is rooted in its two features: firstly, in the universality of language as a means of communication and, secondly, in the fact that language is a means, not the content and not the goal of communication; the semantic shell of social consciousness, but not the content of consciousness itself. A language in relation to the spiritual culture of a society is comparable to a dictionary in relation to the whole variety of texts built on the basis of this dictionary. The same language can be a means of expressing polar ideologies, contradictory philosophical concepts, and countless versions of worldly wisdom.

So, language acts as a universal means of communication between people. It preserves the unity of the people in the historical change of generations and social formations, despite social barriers, thereby uniting the people in time, in geographical and social space.

Language and thinking

Language and thinking are two inextricably linked types of social activity, differing from each other in their essence and specific characteristics.

Thinking– (the ability to reflect reality in the form of concepts, judgments, conclusions and the very process of reflecting life in these forms). The highest form of active reflection of objective reality, targeted, mediated and generalized knowledge of essential connections and relationships of objects and phenomena. It is carried out in various forms and structures (concepts, categories, theories), in which the cognitive and socio-historical experience of mankind is fixed and generalized. Distinguish verbal And nonverbal thinking.

Verbal thinking is based on categories such as concept, judgment, inference. These categories are distinguished by a high level of abstraction. A concept is a generalized reflection in the human mind of essential aspects, characteristics of objects and phenomena of reality. A proposition is a thought that can be judged true or false. These categories are associated with linguistic units: a concept with a word, a judgment with a sentence. However, one should not think about the identity of categories of thinking and units of language.

Nonverbal thinking is not associated with linguistic expression. This type of thinking is present in both people and animals; thinking manifests itself in the form of visual and sensory images that arise in the process of perceiving reality. Visual and sensory images are formed on the basis of sensations received by our sensory organs.

Thinking processes manifest themselves in three main types, acting in complex interaction:

1) practically effective ( the mental task is solved directly in the process of activity. Practical thinking is both historically and ontogenetically the earliest type of human thinking)

2) visually figurative(the content of the mental task is based on figurative material, allows a person to reflect objective reality in a more multifaceted and diverse way)

3) verbal-logical (z The problem here is solved in verbal form. Using the verbal form, a person operates with the most abstract concepts. Thanks to this type of thinking, a person is able to solve mental problems in the most general way)

The instrument of thinking is language, as well as other systems of signs (both abstract, for example, mathematical, and concrete figurative, for example, the language of art).

Language- this is a sign activity (in its original form, sound) that provides the material registration of thoughts and the exchange of information between members of society. Thinking, with the exception of its practically effective form, has a mental, ideal nature, while language is a physical, material phenomenon in its primary nature.

Clarification of the degree and specific nature of the connection between language and language has been one of the central problems of theoretical linguistics and philosophy of language from the very beginning of their development. There are deep differences in the solution to this problem - from direct identification Ya and M. (F. E. D. Schleiermacher, I. G. Gaman) or their excessive convergence with exaggeration of the role of language (W. von Humboldt, L. Lévy-Bruhl, behaviorism, neo-Humboldtianism, neopositivism) to denying a direct connection between them(F.E. Beneke) or, more often, ignoring thinking in the methodology of linguistic research (linguistic formalism, descriptivism).

Humboldt: Thinking does not simply depend on language in general... to a certain extent

the extent to which it is determined by each individual language.” He didn't deny

universality of human thinking, but believed that ideas

a person's understanding of the world depends on the language in which he thinks. Humboldt was the first to see that language cannot be reduced to either logical thinking or copying the world, and put forward many arguments in favor of a new point of view. The world, as Humboldt noted, is divided differently in different languages.

Dialectical materialism considers the relationship between Ya and Ma as a dialectical unity. Language is the immediate material support of thinking only in its verbal-logical form. As a process of communication between members of society, language activity only in a small part of cases (for example, when thinking out loud in anticipation of the perception of listeners) coincides with the process of thinking, usually when language acts precisely as “the immediate reality of thought” ( K. Marx ), as a rule, an already formed thought is expressed (including as a result of practical-effective or visual-figurative thinking).

That. language and thinking form a unity, since without thinking there can be no language and thinking without language is impossible. Language and thinking arose historically simultaneously in the process of human labor development.

Language as a social phenomenon

Language differs from all social phenomena in a number of significant ways.

1 . Language, consciousness and the social nature of work are initially interconnected and form the foundation of human uniqueness in the biological species Homo sapiens.

2. The presence of language is a necessary condition for the existence of society throughout the history of mankind. Any social phenomenon in its existence is limited in chronological terms: it is not originally in human society and is not eternal. Unlike non-primary and/or transitory phenomena of social life, language is primordial and will exist as long as society exists.

3. The presence of language is a necessary condition for material and spiritual existence in all spheres of social space. Any social phenomenon in its distribution is limited to a certain “place”, its own space. Language is global, omnipresent.. Being the most important and basic means of communication, language is inseparable from all and any manifestations of human social existence.

4. Language is dependent and independent of society. The globality of language gives rise to its supra-group and supra-class character. However, the supra-class nature of a language does not mean that it is non-social. Society may be divided into classes, but it remains a society, that is, a certain unity, a community of people. The national language is socially heterogeneous. Its social structure, i.e., the composition and significance of the social variants of the language (professional speech, jargons, vernacular, caste languages, etc.), as well as the types of communicative situations in a given society are determined by the social structure of the society. However, social dialects of a language do not become special languages.

5. Language is a phenomenon of the spiritual culture of humanity, one of the forms of social consciousness (along with everyday consciousness, morality and law, religious consciousness and art, ideology, politics, science). The uniqueness of language as a form of social consciousness lies in the fact that, firstly, language is a prerequisite for social consciousness; secondly, language is a semantic foundation and a universal shell of various forms of social consciousness. In its content, the semantic system of language is closest to ordinary consciousness. Through language, a specifically human form of transmission of social experience is carried out.

6. Language does not relate to ideological or ideological forms of social consciousness (unlike law, morality, politics, philosophical, religious, artistic, everyday consciousness).

7. Language preserves the unity of the people in their history despite class barriers and social cataclysms.

8. The development of language, to a greater extent than the development of law, ideology or art, is independent of the social history of society, although ultimately it is conditioned and directed precisely by social history. It is important, however, to characterize the extent of this independence. The connection between the history of language and the history of society is obvious: there are features of language and linguistic situations that correspond to certain stages of ethnic and social history. Thus, we can talk about the uniqueness of languages ​​or linguistic situations in primitive societies, in the Middle Ages, and in modern times. The linguistic consequences of such social upheavals as revolutions and civil wars are also quite obvious. However, at its core, the language remains the same, unified, which ensures the ethnic and cultural continuity of society throughout its history.

The uniqueness of language as a social phenomenon is essentially rooted in its two features: Firstly, V universality of language as a means of communication and secondly, that language is a medium, not the content or purpose of communication; the semantic shell of social consciousness, but not the content of consciousness itself. The same language can be a means of expressing polar ideologies, contradictory philosophical concepts, and countless versions of worldly wisdom.

So, language acts as a universal means of communication between people. It preserves the unity of the people in the historical change of generations and social formations, despite social barriers, thereby uniting the people in time, in geographical and social space.

Language performs the following social functions in society:

- communicative / informative(transmission and receipt of messages in the form of linguistic / verbal statements, the exchange of information between people as participants in acts of linguistic communication, carried out in acts of interpersonal and mass communication),

-cognitive / cognitive(processing and storage of knowledge in the memory of the individual and society, the formation of a conceptual and linguistic picture of the world),

-interpretative / interpretative(discovering the deep meaning of perceived linguistic utterances/texts)

-regulatory / sociative / interactive(linguistic interaction of communicants with the goal of exchanging communicative roles, asserting their communicative leadership, influencing each other, organizing a successful exchange of information due to compliance with communicative postulates and principles),

-contacting / phatic(establishing and maintaining communicative interaction),

-emotionally expressive(expression of one’s emotions, feelings, moods, psychological attitudes, attitudes towards communication partners and the subject of communication), aesthetic (creation of works of art),

-magical/"spellcasting"(use in religious ritual, in the practice of spellcasters, psychics, etc.),

-ethnocultural(unification into a single whole of representatives of a given ethnic group as speakers of the same language as their native language),

-metalingual / metaspeech(transmission of messages about the facts of the language itself and speech acts in it).