Linguistic world picture
PhD., assistant professor Tasanbayeva Z.R.
South-Kazakhstan
State Pedagogical Institute, Kazakhstan
Anthropocentric paradigm of modern
science requires a revision of the traditional approach to language learning,
highlighting the problems related to the role of language in the process of
categorization and conceptualization of reality and consolidation of the
results obtained in the form of a global image of reality, or world picture.
The picture of the world in the broadest sense is an
open system, correlated with a set of personal knowledge and understanding of
the essence of the surrounding reality in a certain historical period, set out
in the form of thematic frames.
There are conceptual and linguistic sides in composed world picture. The
linguistic world picture is a sign way of conceptual linguistic picture
verbalization. This is because that the concept as a product of human thoughts
and a phenomenon ideal has the full concrete material expression only in the
language. Taken together, the world picture is a bridge between reality and the
world of human culture, i.e., the man himself, which is necessarily reflected
in the language and in the units of its concrete implementation.
The interest to the linguistic world picture is found in the works of
von Humboldt, who wrote that "languages are different bodies for the
nation of their original thinking and perception." By the end of the
twentieth century there was a lot of work on this problem, - works by G.A. Brutyan, S.A. Vasiliev, G.V. Kolshansky, N.I. Sukalenko, M.
Black, D. Hymes and the others.
The varieties of languages reflects the
variety world pictures as every language in the world has its own way of
conceptualization, i.e. every language has a particular world picture and the
linguistic identity is obliged to organize the content of statements in
accordance with this picture. In that is manifested specifically human
perception of the world, inscribed in the language.
The language is the main way of formation and existence
of human knowledge about the world. Reflecting in the active process the
objective world, man captures in a word the results of cognitions. The totality
of this knowledge embodied in the language form is the fact that in a variety
of concepts is called something like "language intermediate world",
as "linguistic picture of the world."
The world picture is a central
concept of the general concept of human. Language is directly involved in two
processes associated with the world picture. Firstly, in its nucleus is formed
the language world picture ─ one of the most deep layers of human world
picture. Secondly, the language itself, through the special vocabulary
expresses and makes explicit the other picture of man world. With the help of
language the expert knowledge received by individuals is converted to
collective property, collective experience.
Each culture creates its own world
picture which is always difficult to understand. The notion of world picture is
one of the central fundamental notions expressing the specificity of man and
his beings, his relationship with the world, the most important conditions
man’s existence in the world, it is the image of world which is the result all
spiritual activity of man and arises in the course of man contact with the
world.
The term ‘world view’ was introduced by physicists in the late 19th
early 20th centuries. H. Hertz was one of the first scientists who began to use
this term in relation to physical world interpreted by him as ‘a set of
internal images of external objects from which we can obtain information about
the behavior of these objects in a logical way’ [1, p. 12].
According to Heidegger saying the word “picture” we first of all think
about displaying anything and “the world picture” essentially understood does
not mean a picture, reflecting the world but the world understood as a picture
[2,p. 49].
Bloch M.I. defines the world picture as “reflective” intellectual and
border to him sensory content of consciousness, which is mediated by the
language [3, p.102].
The world picture may be represented with the help of temporal, spatial,
ethical quantitative and other parameters. On its formation are influenced such
social factors as language, nature, upbringing, traditions and so on. Thus the
world picture discovers the properties of the world in that form, in which they
are comprehended by their carriers and integrate the whole psychic life of a
man. It should be noted that the world picture is not a simple reflection of
subjects, phenomena, properties and so on it includes not only reflected
objects, but the position of reflected subject, his attitude to these objects
Thus the role of language includes not only in message
transmission but primarily in internal organization of that the subject of
communication.
While investigating LWM, a special attention must be given to metaphors
and idioms, because of their very important role in forming of what we call
"language world model". The operation of metaphor is closely linked
with the so-called "human factor in language." For humans there is no
other way to think about different abstract notions, various phenomena of
nature or emotional world of a person except as in terms of anthropocentric paradigm.
Anthropomorphic principle operates in different languages through
different language incarnations of metaphor. The most important role in the
formation of linguistic world picture is played by expressive metaphor, which
appears to have rather complex structure if compared with other types of
metaphor, such as nominative or conceptual metaphors. Being the bearers of some
national associative stereotypes expressive metaphors reveal some very special
landmarks in understanding of the objective world by certain ethnic collective.
According to V.A. Maslova, "linguistic
world view matches the logical reflection of the world in people’s minds in
general." This is explained by the unity and universality of an abstract
nature of human intellection, a single categorical system and a single
biological organization of a man [4].
Y.D. Apresyan’ view is of a particular note.
He substantiated the idea that the linguistic world image is "naive."
It completes some objective knowledge of reality, often distorting them [5].
Most linguists agree that the conceptual world view entails a broader
concept than a linguistic world view. As E. Kubryacova
notes: "The world image is how people draw the world in their imagination,
the phenomenon is more complex than a linguistic world image, i.e. the part of
the conceptual world of man, which is attached to the language and has its refraction
through language forms"[6].
Language world picture forms a type of man's relationship to the world
(nature, animals, himself as a member of the world). It sets the standards of
human behavior in the world, defines his relationship to the world. Each
natural language reflects a certain way of world perceiving and organization
("conceptualization"). Value expressed in it is added in a certain
uniform system of views, a kind of collective philosophy, which is imposed as a
mandatory to all native speakers.
The
concept of world picture (including the language ones) is based on the study of
human ideas about the world. If the world is a man and the environment in their
interaction, the world picture is the result of information processing about
the environment and the man. Thus, representatives of cognitive linguistics
rightly claim that our conceptual system is displayed in the form of a language
world picture, depends on the physical and cultural experience and is directly
connected with it.
Each of the world picture
as a reflected world fragment represents the language as a special phenomenon,
defines its own language vision and in its own way defines the principle of
language acting. The study and comparison of different language visions through
prisms of different world pictures has to offer to linguistics the new way of
penetration in the language nature and its cognition, it gives the opportunity
the relationship of language and thought, as well as to show the role of
language in shaping the world picture in people's mind.
References
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Вопросы теории и практики, № 7 (18) 2012, часть 1.
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