Филологические науки/7.Язык, речь, речевая коммуникация
Mukha T.
National
Functional-Semiological
Principle of Language Units Research
In the process of its development any science inevitably confronts with
the necessity of specification and comprehension of the major concepts due to
the appearance of new data and development of new methods, approaches and
directions of investigation.
Y.S. Stepanov considers that the sentence is the center of language.
Proceeding from this statement, “the researcher, with the help of ‘shuttle
procedure’ performs operations of abstracting from syntax to semantics, from
semantics back to syntax again, until – in the process of widening abstraction
– he establishes, at least theoretically, all connections of semantics with
syntax, i.e. the system as a whole” [6, p. 329].
Every language represents not only a static system of reflection of the
outer world, its semantic model but first of all a means of communication, an
implement of speech activity. As N.N. Boldyrev has it, “even the systemic
aspect of language reflects its functional potential and characteristics of its
real functioning” [2, p. 10]. In the most precise form
this thesis was formulated by E.Coseriu, who wrote that language is a phenomenon
of a special character, which deals with the facts determined by their
function. Therefore, language should be viewed functionally, “first as a function,
and then as a system ... since language functions not because it is a system,
but on the contrary, it is a system in order to perform its function and meet
the definite purpose” [9, p. 156].
Another linguist S.D. Katsnel’son claimed: “No language material exists out of
the functioning of language” [4, p.102].
Practically none of the researchers neglect this statement and has to consider
the problem of correlation of language and speech. That is why the second part
of the XX-th century in linguistics is characterized by the constant
search of methodological principle of language analysis which reflects the
dialectically complex nature of language as a system and as an activity.
Just in this period it became evident that formal linguistic exhausted
itself, the fundamental turn to the study of the semantic aspect of language
became palpable. Considerable contribution was made by generative linguistics,
that gave language its status of “creative process”, activity. This research
was undertaken in the framework in different directions and approaches in the
form of functional grammars, functional-semantic fields, semiological,
denotative and cognitive grammars. Particular attention was paid to the human
factors in language, interaction of semantics and pragmatics, consideration of
national specificity of concrete language [2,
p. 11].
This research was typical and for the philosophers, psychologists and
linguists of the previous centuries. For example, N.Chomsky claimed that a lot
of the things that we pronounce while using language are totally new things not
mere reproductions of something heard earlier and even not having a similar
model with those sentences and texts we have heard in the past [8, p. 9-21]. In
linguistics the same idea was developed by V. von Humboldt, who emphasized that
the speaker uses limited means in an unlimited way [3].
As a result enough empirical data in different languages were
accumulated, different spheres of language activities were studied, detailed
characteristics were given to different aspects of language systems:
structural, functional, cognitive. There appeared an urgent necessity to
develop a single methodological principle of language research as an ontological
object, a principle that unites language system and speech functioning [2,
p. 14].
The conception of twofold nature of language was assumed as a basis of
the semiological principle of its description. The idea was suggested by F. de
Saussure and later formulated by E. Benvenist [1,
p. 87]. In Russian linguistic this approach received further development in the
works of Y.S. Stepanov [5; 6; 7] and other
researchers. Semiological principle reveals connections between semantics and
syntax, conditions and mechanisms of primary and secondary signification of language
units, elucidates interrelations between the “signifier” and the “signified” of
language sign, that is displayed in the form of three principles of language
structuring – asymmetry, hierarchy and metamorphism [5,
p. 123].
Unlike the structural and generative approach, the semiological
principle presupposes the usage of observable facts of language, emphasizes the
role of observation while studying the contradictory character of concrete
languages [7, p. 206]. A word is examined in its two basic aspects: as virtual
verbal sign, in definition and description of the mechanism of semantic
actualization, condition and means of semantic variation of words in the
statement, i.e. all relations of semantics and syntax, that constitute language
system.
Y.S. Stepanov developed on this basis semiological grammar, that
presupposes the static character of semantic-syntactical language system [5].
But the problem, however, lies in the fact that in the practice of linguistic
research the idea of “double signification” of language often leads to the
artificial split of the object under analysis into language and speech.
Techniques and methods of language analysis sometimes get ontological status,
i.e. are regarded as language characteristics. However, splitting the whole
into its constituent parts, it is possible to overlook the specificity of the
whole.
For the functional classification of the language units the
consideration of their semiotic characteristics (their qualities as language
signs) is of the utmost importance. Categorial meaning of language sign is
viewed as a dynamic structure that reflects functional correlation of the
object with a certain semiotic category.
Language signs neither appear nor function separately; any language
element becomes a sign in the limits of a certain system on the basis of
worked-out models and submits to the laws of paradigmatics and syntagmatics.
Semiotics is the study of signs and their use, focusing on communicative
mechanisms, and on the nature of knowledge and the passways through which it is
acquired. Within semiotics, language is regarded as one type of sign system,
along with bodily gestures, clothing, spatial usages, ritual practices, and
expressive systems such as arts.
Communicative approach to word meaning consists in the necessity to
include into the semantic characteristics of a language unit the functional
loading. The attitude of the speaker to the linguistic sign is traced not only
in the choice of the necessary unit, that corresponds to the aim of the
utterance. Language signs as material and ideal formations represent the
fragments of objective reality; in the plane of expression they form either the
image of concrete objects and actions, or the image of relations between them,
as well as relations between signs and mental processes.
References:
1.
Бенвенист Э. Общая лингвистика. – М.: Прогресс, 1974.
– 447 с.
2.
Болдырев
Н.Н. Функциональная категория английского глагола: Автореф. дис. ... докт.
филол. наук: 10.02.04 / СПб. гос. ун-т. – Спб., 1995. – 35 с.
3.
Гумбольдт
В. фон. Избранные труды по языковедению. – М.: Прогресс, 1984. – 397 с.
4.
Кацнельсон
С.Д. Типология языка и речевое мышление. – Л.: Наука, 1972. – 216 с.
5.
Степанов
Ю.С. Методы и принципы современной лингвистики. – М.: Наука, 1975. – 312 с.
6.
Степанов
Ю.С. В поисках прагматики (Проблема субъекта) // Изв. АН СССР. Серия лит-ры и
языка. – 1981. – Т. 40, № 4. – С. 325-332.
7.
Степанов
Ю.С. В трехмерном пространстве языка: Семантические проблемы лингвистики,
философии, искусства. – М.: Наука, 1985. – 335 с.
8.
Chomsky N. Reflections on Language. –
N.Y.: Pantheon Books, 1976. – 269 p.
9.
Coseriu E. Textlinguistik. – Tubingen:
Narr, 1980 – 178 S.