| Parameter name | Value |
| Topic of the article: | Language functions |
| Category (thematic category) | Communication |
Functions of language - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Language functions" 2017, 2018.
There are various attempts to isolate the functions of language, however, all researchers, disagreeing in particulars, agree that there are two absolutely most important functions that language performs in human life - communicative and cognitive. IN... .
Sections of linguistics. The subject of linguistics. The science of language is called linguistics. This science deals with common issues for all languages. There are from 2,500 to 5 thousand languages \u200b\u200bin the world. Fluctuations in quantity are due to the fact that it is difficult to separate the language from it ...
These tasks ultimately boil down to optimizing the functions of the language. For example, the formation and maintenance of the tradition of reading and understanding sacred texts, ensuring contacts between different peoples. However, the range of tasks facing the PL cannot be considered ....
Functions of language: 1) this is the role (use, purpose) of language in human society; 2) correspondence of units of one set to units of another (this definition refers to language units). The functions of a language are a manifestation of its essence, its purpose and ....
Level Level Private language systems and linguistic disciplines At each system level, one or more private systems function. Each of them performs its particular function within the general function of the sign system .....
Thinking as a subject of logic Human thinking activity is a complex and many-sided process. Unlike other sciences that study thinking, in logic thinking is considered as an instrument of cognition of the surrounding world. Person... .
Our usual language, in which we speak, is a full-fledged co-author of our thoughts and deeds. Moreover, the co-author is often greater than ourselves. As our compatriot F. Tyutchev rightly noted: “We are not given to predict how our word will respond ...” The classic Indian epic says: ... [read more].
The function of language as a scientific concept is a practical manifestation of the essence of language, the realization of its purpose in the system of social phenomena, the specific action of language, conditioned by its very nature, something without which language cannot exist, just as matter does not exist without motion.
The communicative and cognitive functions are basic. They are almost always present in speech activity, therefore they are sometimes called the functions of language, in contrast to other, not so obligatory, functions of speech.
The Austrian psychologist, philosopher and linguist Karl Buhler, describing in his book "Theory of Language" the various directions of language signs, defines 3 main functions of the language:
) Function of expression, or expressive function, when the state of the speaker is expressed.
) The function of calling, addressing the listener, or appellative function. 3) The function of presentation, or representative, when one says or tells something to another.
Functions of the Reformed language. There are other points of view on the functions performed by language, for example, as A.A. Reformatsky understood them. 1) Nominative, that is, the words of the language can name things and phenomena of reality. 2) Communicative; suggestions serve this purpose. 3) Expressive, thanks to her the emotional state of the speaker is expressed. Within the framework of the expressive function, one can also single out the deictic (pointing) function, which combines some elements of the language with gestures.
Communicative function language is connected with the fact that language is primarily a means of communication between people. It allows one individual - the speaker - to express their thoughts, and the other - the perceiver - to understand them, that is, to somehow react, take note, and accordingly change their behavior or their mental attitudes. The act of communication would not be possible without language.
Communication means communication, exchange of information. In other words, language arose and exists primarily for people to be able to communicate.
The communicative function of the language is carried out due to the fact that the language itself is a system of signs: there is simply no other way to communicate. And signs, in turn, are intended to convey information from person to person.
Linguistic scientists, following the prominent researcher of the Russian language, Academician Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov (1895-1969), sometimes define the basic functions of the language in a slightly different way. They highlight: - a message, that is, a statement of some thought or information; - impact, that is, an attempt to change the behavior of the perceiving person with the help of verbal persuasion;
communication, that is, messaging.
Communication and impact refer to monologue speech, and communication to dialogical speech. Strictly speaking, these are indeed the functions of speech. If we talk about the functions of language, then the message, and the impact, and communication are the implementation of the communicative function of the language. The communicative function of language is more comprehensive in relation to these functions of speech.
Linguistic scholars also emphasize sometimes, and not without reason, the emotional function of language. In other words, signs and sounds of language often serve people to convey emotions, feelings, states. As a matter of fact, it was with this function that human language most likely began. Moreover, in many social or herd animals, it is the transmission of emotions or states (anxiety, fear, pacification) that is the main signaling method. With emotionally colored sounds and exclamations, animals notify their fellow tribesmen about the found food or the approaching danger. At the same time, it is not information about food or danger that is transmitted, but the emotional state of the animal, corresponding to satisfaction or fear. And even we understand this emotional language of animals - we can quite understand the alarmed barking of a dog or the rumbling of a contented cat.
Of course, the emotional function of the human language is much more complex, emotions are conveyed not so much by sounds as by the meaning of words and sentences. Nevertheless, this most ancient function of language probably goes back to the pre-symbolic state of human language, when sounds did not symbolize, did not replace emotions, but were their direct manifestation.
However, any manifestation of feelings, direct or symbolic, also serves to communicate, transmit it to fellow tribesmen. In this sense, the emotional function of the language is also one of the ways to implement the more comprehensive communicative function of the language. So, different types of implementation of the communicative function of language are message, impact, communication, as well as the expression of feelings, emotions, states.
Cognitive, or cognitive, the function of language (from the Latin cognition - knowledge, knowledge) is associated with the fact that in the signs of the language the consciousness of a person is realized or fixed. Language is an instrument of consciousness, reflects the results of a person's mental activity.
Scientists have not yet come to an unambiguous conclusion about what is primary - language or thinking. Perhaps the very statement of the question is wrong. After all, words not only express our thoughts, but the thoughts themselves exist in the form of words, verbal formulations even before they are spoken orally. At least, no one has yet succeeded in fixing the literal, pre-linguistic form of consciousness. Any images and concepts of our consciousness are realized by ourselves and those around us only when they are clothed in a linguistic form. Hence the idea of \u200b\u200bthe inextricable connection between thinking and language.
The connection between language and thinking has been established even with the help of physiometric evidence. The person being tested was asked to think over some difficult problem, and while he was thinking, special sensors took data from the speech apparatus of a silent person (from the larynx, tongue) and detected the nervous activity of the speech apparatus. That is, the subjects' mental work "out of habit" was reinforced by the activity of the speech apparatus.
Interesting evidence is provided by observations of the mental activity of polyglots - people who can speak well in many languages. They admit that in each specific case they “think” in one language or another. An illustrative example is the scout Stirlitz from the famous film - after many years of work in Germany, he caught himself "thinking in German."
The cognitive function of language not only allows you to record the results of mental activity and use them, for example, in communication. It also helps to explore the world. Human thinking develops in the categories of language: realizing new concepts, things and phenomena, a person names them. And thus he orders his world. This function of language is called nominative (naming objects, concepts, phenomena).
Nominativethe function of language is directly derived from the cognitive. The cognized must be named, given a name. The nominative function is associated with the ability of the signs of a language to symbolically designate things. The ability of words to symbolically replace objects helps us create our second world - separate from the first, physical world. The physical world is difficult to manipulate. You can't move mountains with your hands. But the second, symbolic world - it is completely ours. We take it with us wherever we want and do whatever we want with it.
There is an important difference between the world of physical realities and our symbolic world, which reflected the physical world in the words of language. The world, symbolically reflected in words, is a cognized, mastered world. The world is known and mastered only when it is named.The world without our names is alien, like a distant unknown planet, there is no man in it, human life is impossible in it.
The name allows you to fix what has already been learned. Without a name, any known fact of reality, any thing would remain in our minds as a one-time accident. By naming words, we create our own - understandable and convenient picture of the world. Language gives us canvas and paint. It should be noted, however, that not everything even in the known world has a name. For example, our body - we “encounter” it every day. Every part of our body has a name. And what is the name of the part of the face between the lip and the nose, if there is no mustache? No way. There is no such name. What is the name of the top of the pear? What is the name of the pin on the belt buckle that fixes the length of the belt? Many objects or phenomena seem to have been mastered by us, used by us, but do not have names. Why is the nominative function of the language not implemented in these cases?
This is the wrong question. The nominative function of the language is still implemented, simply in a more sophisticated way - through description, not naming. In words, we can describe anything, even if there are no separate words for it. Well, those things or phenomena that do not have their own names, simply do not deserve such names. This means that such things or phenomena are not so significant in everyday life for the people that they were given their own name (like the same collet pencil). In order for an object to receive a name, it is necessary for it to enter public use, to step over a certain "threshold of significance." Until some time, it was still possible to get by with a random or descriptive name, but from then on it is no longer possible - you need a separate name. The act of naming is of great importance in a person's life. When we meet with something, we first of all call it. Otherwise, we can neither comprehend what we have encountered ourselves, nor convey a message about it to other people. It was with inventing names that the biblical Adam began. Robinson Crusoe first of all called the rescued savage Friday. Travelers, botanists, zoologists of the times of great discoveries were looking for something new and gave this new name and description. An innovative manager does about the same by his occupation. On the other hand, the name also determines the fate of the named thing.
Accumulativethe function of the language is associated with the most important purpose of the language - to collect and store information, evidence of human cultural activities. A language lives much longer than a person, and sometimes even longer than entire nations. There are so-called dead languages \u200b\u200bthat survived the peoples who spoke these languages. No one speaks these languages, except the specialists who study them. The most famous "dead" language is Latin. Due to the fact that for a long time it was the language of science (and earlier it was the language of a great culture), Latin is well preserved and quite widespread - even a person with a secondary education knows several Latin sayings. Living or dead languages \u200b\u200bkeep the memory of many generations of people, evidence of centuries. Even when the oral tradition is forgotten, archaeologists can discover ancient writings and use them to reconstruct the events of bygone days. Over the centuries and millennia of mankind, a huge amount of information has been accumulated, produced and recorded by man in different languages \u200b\u200bof the world.
All gigantic volumes of information produced by humanity exist in linguistic form. In other words, any piece of this information, in principle, can be pronounced and perceived by both contemporaries and descendants. This is the accumulative function of language, with the help of which mankind accumulates and transmits information both in modern times and in the historical perspective - along the baton of generations.
Various researchers identify many more important functions of the language. For example, language plays an interesting role in establishing or maintaining contacts between people. Returning after work with a neighbor in the elevator, you can tell him: "Something has started to stir out of season today, eh, Arkady Petrovich?" In fact, both you and Arkady Petrovich have just been outside and are well aware of the state of the weather. Therefore, your question has absolutely no information content, it is informationally empty. It performs a completely different function - phatic, that is, contact-establishing. With this rhetorical question, you actually once again confirm to Arkady Petrovich the good-neighborly status of your relations and your intention to preserve this status. If you write down all your remarks for the day, then you will see that a large part of them are pronounced precisely for this purpose - not to convey information, but to certify the nature of your relationship with the interlocutor. And what words are spoken at the same time is the second thing. This is the most important function of the language - to certify the mutual status of interlocutors, to maintain certain relationships between them. For a person, a social being, the phatic function of language is very important - it not only stabilizes people's attitude to the speaker, but also allows the speaker himself to feel “his own” in society. It is very interesting and revealing to analyze the implementation of the main functions of language on the example of such a specific type of human activity as innovation.
Of course, innovative activity is impossible without the implementation of the communicative function of the language. Setting research tasks, working in a team, checking research results, setting implementation tasks and monitoring their implementation, simple communication in order to coordinate the actions of participants in the creative and work process - all these actions are unthinkable without the communicative function of the language. And it is in these actions that it is realized.
The cognitive function of language is of particular importance for innovation. Thinking work, highlighting key concepts, abstracting technological principles, analyzing oppositions and contiguity phenomena, fixing and analyzing an experiment, translating engineering tasks into a technological and implementation plane - all these intellectual actions are impossible without the participation of language, without the implementation of its cognitive function.
And the language solves special problems when it comes to fundamentally new technologies that have no precedent, that is, do not have, respectively, operational, conceptual names. In this case, the innovator acts as the Demiurge, the mythical creator of the Universe, who establishes connections between objects and comes up with completely new names for both objects and connections. In this work, the nominative function of the language is realized. And the future life of his innovations depends on how competent and skillful the innovator is. Will his followers and implementers understand or not? If new names and descriptions of new technologies do not take root, then it is highly likely that the technologies themselves will not take root. No less important is the accumulative function of language, which ensures the work of the innovator twice: firstly, it provides him with the knowledge and information accumulated by his predecessors, and secondly, it accumulates his own results in the form of knowledge, experience and information. Actually, in a global sense, the accumulative function of language ensures the scientific, technical and cultural progress of mankind, since it is thanks to it that every new knowledge, every bit of information is firmly established on a broad foundation of knowledge gained by its predecessors. And this grandiose process does not stop for a minute.
language communication cognitive dialogical
The subject of phonetics. Aspects of studying the sounds of speech and sound units of the language. Phonology.Phonetics (from other Greek. Phone sound, voice) is the science of the sound material of language, the use of this material in the meaningful units of language and speech, about history. changes in this material and in the techniques for using it. Sounds and other sound units (syllables) and phenomena (stresses, intonation) are studied by phonetics from different aspects: 1) with "." their physical (acoustic) signs 2) with "." work, manuf. a man uttered them. and auditory perception, i.e. in the biological aspect 3) with "." their use. in language, their role in ensuring the functioning of language as a means of communication.
The last aspect, the cat. can be called functional, stood out in a special area-phonology, cat. yavl. inseparable part and organizing nucleus of phonetics.
^ 10. Acoustic. aspect of studying the sounds of speech.
Each sound pronounced in speech is an oscillatory movement transmitted through elastic. environment (air) and perceive. hearing. This is hesitant. movement is characterized by def. acoustic cv-you, consider. cat. and is acoustic. aspect.
If the vibrations are uniform, periodic, then the sound is called tone, if unequal, non-periodic, then noise. Vowel-tones, deaf. acc. to noises, in sonanatas the tone prevails over the noise in the bell. noisy - noise above the tone.
Sounds character. height, hovered. on the frequency of vibrations (the more vibrations, the higher the sound), and the force, which depends on the amplitude of the vibrations. Naib. important for the language yavl. difference in timbre, i.e. their specific color. It is the timbre that distinguishes both from a, etc. the timbre of each sound is created by resonance characteristics. Spectrum - decomposition of sound into tones with the allocation of frequency concentration bands (formants)
^ 11. The biological aspect of the study of speech sounds. The device of the speech apparatus and the functions of its parts.
The biological aspect is subdivided into pronouncing and perceptual.
Pronouncing-to pronounce this or that sound it is necessary: \u200b\u200b1) def. an impulse sent from the motor speech center (Broca's zone) head. brain, find. in the third frontal gyrus of the left hemisphere 2) the transmission of this impulse along the nerves to the organs, perform. 3) given command in large. cases - the difficult work of the respiratory system (lungs, bronchi and trachea) + the diaphragm and the entire chest. cells 4) complex. work of the pronunciation organs in narrow. sense (ligaments, tongue, lips, palatine curtain, pharyngeal walls, movement of the lower jaw) - articulation.
^ Pronunciation functions. organs (divided by asset. and passive.)
2) the supraglottic cavities (the cavity of the pharynx, mouth, nose) perform functions. a movable resanator that creates resanator tones. an obstacle arises (gap, bow).
3) language-capable of taking different positions. Changes the degree of lift, is pulled back, compressed into a lump in the back. parts, fed with the whole mass forward, approaches the decomp. passive organs (palate, alvioli), forming either a bow or a gap. The tongue creates the phenomenon of palatalization.
4) lips (especially the lower one) - protruding forward and rounding lengthen the total. the volume of the cavity, change its shape, creating labialized sounds; when pronouncing labial consent. create an obstacle (labial-labial occlusive and slotted, labial-dental slotted).
5) the palatine curtain - takes the raised position, closing the passage to the nasal cavity, or, conversely, lowers, connecting the nasal cavity.
6) uvula - when pronouncing a burnt consonant
7) the back wall of the pharynx - when pronouncing. pharyngeal acc. (eng h).
^ 12. Articular (anatomical and physiological) classification of speech sounds (vowels and consonants).
1. vowels and consonants. ch. there are no obstacles for air, they have no def. places of education, typical obshch. muscle tension pronounced. apparatus and relative. weak air jet. acc.-there is an obstacle, def. place image., muscle tension in place image. obstacles and stronger air. jet.
2. vowels for the work of the language-row (front, back, mixed + more fractional divisions), the degree of elevation of the tongue (open and closed ch.) Vowels for the work of the lips - ogubl. and unadulterated. For work, palatine curtains, nasal, nasal
Long and short in longitude.
4. Acc. by the way arr. noise, by the nature of the obstacle-stop (explosive (n, t), affricate (s), implosive (there is no explosion, no transition to the gap, the pronunciation ends with a bow (m, n))), slotted, trembling.
5. Acc. according to the actively articulating org.-labial (both lips, only the lower one), front-lingual (active parts of the front. part of the tongue), middle language, back language, uvular., pharyngeal, laryngeal.
6.Dr. signs acc. - palatalization, velarization, labilization.
Phonemes
–these are the minimum units of the sound structure of a language that perform a certain function in a given language: they serve to fold and distinguish the material shells of significant units of the language - morphemes, words.
Already in the definition, some functions of phonemes are named. In addition, scientists name several more functions. So to basic functions of the phoneme
include the following:
1. constitutive (construction) function;
2. distinctive (significative, distinctive) function;
3. perceptual function (identification, ie, the function of perception);
4. delimitation function (delimiting, that is, capable of separating the beginnings and ends of morphemes and words).
As already mentioned, phonemes are one-sided units with a plan of expression (exponential - according to Maslov), while they are not meaningful, although, according to L.V.Bondarko, phonemes are potentially associated with meaning: they refer to sense discerning. It should be borne in mind that there are single-phonemic words or morphemes, for example, prepositions, endings, etc.
For the first time the concept of phoneme in linguistics was led by the Russian scientist I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay. Using the term used by the French. linguist L. Ave in the meaning of "sound of speech", he connects the concept of a phoneme with its function in the morpheme. The doctrine of the phoneme is further developed in the works of N. V. Krushevsky, a student of I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay. A great contribution to the development of this question was made by N. S. Trubetskoy, a St. Petersburg scientist, in the 20s of the twentieth century. emigrated abroad.
F. i. are a manifestation of its essence, its purpose and actions in society, its nature, that is, they are its characteristics, without which language cannot be itself. The two main, basic F. I. are: communicative - to be "the most important means of human communication" (V. I. Lenin), and cognitive (cognitive, epistemological, sometimes called expressive, that is, expressions of the activity of consciousness) - to be "the immediate reality of thought" (K. Marx). They also add as base emotional F. i. - to be one of the means of expressing feelings and emotions, and metalinguistic (metalinguistic) F. i. - to be a means of researching and describing language in terms of the language itself. Basic F. i. mutually condition each other when using the language, but in individual acts of speech and in texts they are revealed to varying degrees. With the basic, as primary, the quotients, as derivatives, are correlated. The communicative function includes contacting (phatic), conative (assimilation), voluntary (impact) and function storage and transmission national identity, cultural traditions and history of the people and some others. With cognitive functions are combined: tools of cognition and mastery of social and historical experience and knowledge, assessment (axiological), as well as - denotation (nomination), reference, predication and some others. The modal function is associated with the emotional function and the expression of creative potentials is correlated, which in different scientific fields is combined with the cognitive function, but is most fully realized in fiction, especially in poetry ( poetic function).
The implementation of the communicative function in different spheres of human activity determines the social F. I. Yu.D. Desheriev distinguishes languages \u200b\u200bwith the maximum volume of social functions - international and interethnic communication, followed by groups of languages, the volume of social functions of which is narrowed: languages \u200b\u200bof nationalities and ethnic groups existing in written (literary) and colloquial forms, including territorial and social dialects, then tribal spoken languages \u200b\u200b(some of them in developing countries acquire the status of official written languages) and languages \u200b\u200bwith a minimum amount of public phrases. - the so-called one-village unwritten languages. The nature of the relationship between linguistic and social structures is studied by sociolinguistics.
Interest in establishing F. i. outlined in the 20th century. Prior to this, the word "function" was used non-terminologically (for example, by G. Paul, A. A. Potebnya) to denote the role of units in syntax (subject function, complement function) and morphology (form function, inflection function). Later, the function began to be understood as the meaning of form, construction (O. Espersen), as a position in the construction (L. Bloomfield). All this led to the emergence of a particular scientific interpretation of a function as a grammatical meaning, a role (L. Tenier), the use of linguistic units (see Functional grammar, Functional linguistics).
In the "Theses of the Prague Linguistic Circle" (1929), the definition of language as a functional system was substantiated and two functions of speech activity were described: communication and poetic. The German psychologist K. Buhler singled out in the light of the semiological principle three F. i. as manifested in any act of speech: the function of expression (expressive), correlated with the speaker, the function of appeal (appellative), correlated with the listener, and the function of the message (representative), correlated with the object in question. The question of the number and nature of F. i. discussed many times, and were separated by F. i. and functions of language units. A. Martine postulates the presence of three F.I.: the main one - communicative, expressive (expressive) and aesthetic, closely related to the first two. R.O. Yakobson, taking into account the postulates of communication theory, added three more to the three participants in the act of speech - the speaker (sender, addressee), listener (recipient, addressee) and the subject of speech (context, referent): contact (communication channel), code and message, and, accordingly, identified six F. I .: expressive (expressions, emotive), conative (assimilation), referential (communicative, denotative, cognitive), phatic (contact-establishing), metalanguage and poetic (understanding the latter as a general form of communication). Critics of this theory note that all functions are essentially varieties of communicative and act as one-order functions.
Considering speech activity as a unity of communication and generalization, A.A.Leont'ev separated the phonetic self, which are manifested in any communication situation, from the functions of speech as optional, arising in special situations. In the field of communication to F. I. attributed to the communicative, and in the sphere of generalization - the function of the tool of thinking, the function of the existence of socio-historical experience and the national-cultural function; all of them can be duplicated by non-linguistic means (mnemonic means, counting tools, plans, maps, schemes, etc.). The functions of speech include: magic (taboo, euphemisms), diacritical (compression of speech, for example, in telegrams), expressive (expression of emotions), aesthetic (poetic) and some others. V. A. Avrorin among F. I. named four: communicative, expressive (thought expressions), constructive (thought formation) and accumulative (accumulation of social experience and knowledge), and among the functions of speech there are six: nominative, emotive-voluntary, signal, poetic, magical and ethnic. Some researchers distinguish over 25 F. i. and functions of language units.
In the 70-80s. 20th century there was a desire to tie F. to I. with the apparatus for their implementation in the system and structure of the language (M.A.K. Halliday). Yu. S. Stepanov, on the basis of the semiotic principle, deduced three phytosanitary languages: nominative, syntactic and pragmatic, as universal properties of language, corresponding to three aspects of general semiotics: semantics - nomination, syntactics - predication, and pragmatics - location. The primary apparatus of the nomination is characterizing signs (noun and verb classes of words), predication is elementary syntactic contact phrases, location is the deixis of a communication situation (“I-here-now”), and the secondary apparatus is formed on the basis of transposition of signs. These F. I., According to this theory, underlie all the possibilities of using language as a means of communication, cognition and influence.
F. i problem. is of particular interest in connection with the expansion of the scope of language learning in action, the features of colloquial speech, functional styles, text linguistics, etc. I.
- MartineA., Fundamentals of General Linguistics, trans. from French, in the book: New in linguistics, in. 3, M., 1963;
- BuhlerK., Theory of language (extract), in the book: Zvegintsev VA, History of linguistics of the XIX-XX centuries in essays and extracts, part 2, M., 1965;
- LeontievA. A., Language, speech, speech activity, M., 1969;
- StepanovYu.S., Semiotic structure of language (three functions and three formal apparatus of language), Izv. USSR Academy of Sciences, ser. LiYa, 1973, vol. 32, v. 4;
- SyrovatkinSN, The meaning of utterance and the function of language in a semiotic interpretation, "Questions of Linguistics", 1973, No. 5;
- AvrorinVA, Problems of studying the functional side of language, L., 1975;
- JacobsonR., Linguistics and poetics, in the book: Structuralism: "for" and "against", M., 1975;
- TorsuevaIG, Theory of utterance and intonation, "Questions of linguistics", 1976, no. 2;
- DesherievYu. D., Social linguistics, M., 1977;
- HallidayMAK, The place of the "functional perspective of the proposal" (FPP) in the system of linguistic description, trans. from English, in the book: New in foreign linguistics, v. 8, M., 1978;
- SlyusarevaN.A., Methodological aspect of the concept of language functions, Izv. USSR Academy of Sciences, ser. LiYa, 1979, vol. 38, v. 2;
- TenierL., Fundamentals of structural syntax, trans. from French, M., 1988.
Language is not only a system of signs that symbolically mediates the human world, but also the most important instrument of human activity.
The following language functions are distinguished:
1) communicative;
2) cognitive (cognitive);
3) nominative;
4) accumulative.
The communicative function of language is associated with the fact that language is primarily a means of communication between people. It allows one individual - the speaker - to express their thoughts, and the other - the perceiver - to understand them, that is, to somehow react, take note, and accordingly change their behavior or their mental attitudes. The act of communication would not be possible without language.
Cognitive, or cognitive, functions of language (from the Latin cognition - knowledge, cognition) is associated with the fact that in the signs of the language the consciousness of a person is realized or fixed. Language is an instrument of consciousness, reflects the results of human mental activity.
Any images and concepts of our consciousness are realized by ourselves and those around us only when they are clothed in a linguistic form. Hence the idea of \u200b\u200bthe inextricable connection between thinking and language.
The nominative function of language is directly derived from the cognitive one. The cognized must be named, given a name. The nominative function is associated with the ability of the signs of a language to symbolically designate things.
The world is known and mastered only when it is named. The world without our names is alien, like a distant unknown planet, there is no man in it, human life is impossible in it.
The name allows you to fix what has already been learned. Without a name, any known fact of reality, any thing would remain in our minds as a one-time accident. By naming words, we create our own - understandable and convenient picture of the world. Language gives us canvas and paint.
The accumulative function of language is associated with the most important purpose of language - to collect and store information, evidence of human cultural activity. A language lives much longer than a person, and sometimes even longer than entire nations. There are so-called dead languages \u200b\u200bthat survived the peoples who spoke these languages. No one speaks these languages, except the specialists who study them.
The overwhelming majority of the gigantic volumes of information produced and produced by mankind exist in linguistic form. In other words, any piece of this information can in principle be uttered and perceived by both contemporaries and descendants. This is the accumulative function of language, with the help of which mankind accumulates and transmits information both in modern times and in the historical perspective - along the baton of generations.
Summing up this section, you can derive such a formula for memorizing the main functions of the language.
The communicative function provides social connections, life in society.
Cognitive function provides thinking, cognition and orientation in the world.
The nominative function helps to name objects and phenomena.
The accumulative function ensures the accumulation, continuity of knowledge and the existence of a person in history.
THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE
Linguistic sciences
As a result of the interaction of linguistics with other sciences, related sciences, scientific directions and corresponding scientific disciplines arise that study language in its connections and relationships with other social or natural phenomena, such as linguistic philosophy (philosophy of language, philosophy of "everyday language"), sociolinguistics ( social linguistics), ethnolinguistics, extralinguistics (external linguistics), psycholinguistics (metalinguistics, exolinguistics), neurolinguistics, mathematical linguistics, computational (computer, engineering) linguistics, linguistics (linguistic, philosophical, and philosophical statistics) and linguistics. As an integral scientific direction, it was formed in Great Britain in the middle of the XX century. The main task of the corresponding scientific discipline is "the study of the general philosophical basis of language and speech" in order to determine philosophically significant concepts (such as "good", "evil", "duty", "knowledge", "meaning", etc.), "based on on the contexts of the use of the corresponding words in everyday speech ", as well as to identify the special rules of" the functioning of the language in the conditions of everyday communication. " Sociolinguistics develops at the intersection of linguistics, sociology, social psychology and some other sciences. She studies the problems of public use of language and the social conditions of its development, causal relationships between language and other phenomena of social life, such as production, science, culture, economics, politics, ideology, state, law, etc. Sociolinguistics solves a number of specific issues directly related to the social nature of language: the role of language in the life of society, social functions of language, social differentiation of language, the influence of various social factors on the change and development of language, social aspects of bilingualism and multilingualism, language policy, i.e. measures taken by the state, public and other organizations associated with the preservation or change of linguistic norms, etc. Ethnolinguistics combines linguistics with the history of the people, ethnography. As an independent scientific direction, it stood out at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. from ethnography. She studies "the relationship between language and people and the interaction of linguistic and ethnic factors in the functioning and development of language", "language in its relation to culture", the content ("content plan") of culture, folk psychology and mythology using linguistic methods. There are two known variants of ethnolinguistics - American and German. American ethnolinguistics studies the problems of the relationship between language and culture, everyday life, customs, beliefs of peoples, Germanic - the relationship of language with the psychology of the people, which determines the creative power, the spirit of the language. Ethnolinguistics has been widely developed in American science since the 70s of the XIX century. in connection with the intensive study of the life of Indian tribes. Extra-linguistics is a scientific direction, a branch of linguistics that studies "the totality of ethnic, socio-historical, social, geographical and other factors as inextricably linked with the development and functioning of language." Psycholinguistics as a special scientific direction was formed in the 50s of the XX century. as a result of the application of methods of psychology, psychological experiments in relation to human speech activity. In the subject of research, it is close to linguistics, in research methods - to psychology. This scientific direction arose in the USA, and then became widespread in many other countries, including the USSR. Psycholinguistics is engaged in the study of human speech activity, it studies the processes of formation and perception of speech. More precisely, the subject of this scientific discipline can be defined as "the process of speech in terms of content, communicative value, adequacy of a speech act to a given communicative intention" or as "features of the content side of language in connection with the thinking and social life of the speaking community." Psycholinguistics solves such specific linguistic issues as, for example: patterns of language acquisition (development of speech in children, bilingualism, etc.), problems of speech influence (in particular, in propaganda work, in the activities of the media), etc. Neurolinguistics as a scientific direction and a scientific discipline arose at the junction of linguistics and neurology. On the basis of linguistic data, she studies the language system in relation to the activity of the human brain, as well as the zones and functions of the central nervous system associated with language. The connection between linguistics and literary criticism is to a certain extent found in such philological disciplines as stylistics and textual criticism. The tasks of these disciplines include the study of both literature (in the broadest sense of the word) and linguistic means used in texts of different styles and genres. Applied linguistics is called "a direction in linguistics that deals with the development of methods for solving practical problems associated with the use of language." These tasks are: creation of writing for a particular language; improving the writing systems of different languages; creation of writing systems for the blind; creation of phonetic transcription systems (transcription of oral speech, foreign words, etc.); creation of systems for stenographic recording of speech; teaching writing and reading; teaching a foreign language; development of methods of teaching languages; compilation of dictionaries of different types; streamlining, unification and standardization of scientific and technical terminology; automatic text processing, in particular for machine translation; automation of information work, creation of automated information retrieval systems; linguistic support of automated control systems (ACS); the creation of systems that ensure human-machine communication in natural language; annotation and abstracting of scientific and other information; linguistic deciphering of unknown scripts, written texts.
Linguistics and Social Sciences
Linguistics is one of the social sciences. It is clear that it is closely related to such social sciences as history, economic geography, psychology and pedagogical sciences. The connection between linguistics and history (the science of the development of human society) is understandable, since the history of the language is part of the history of the people. The connections with the history of society of the vocabulary of the language, the sphere and the nature of the functioning of the language, primarily the literary one, are especially clearly noticeable. The connection between linguistics and history is two-sided: history data provide a concrete historical consideration of language changes, linguistic data are one of the sources in the study of such historical problems as the origin (ethnogenesis) of a people, the development of the culture of a people and its society at different stages of history, contacts between peoples. Linguistics is associated, in particular, with such historical disciplines as archeology, which studies history from material sources - tools, weapons, jewelry, utensils, etc., and ethnography - the science of the life and culture of peoples. Linguistics most closely comes into contact with ethnography when studying the dialect dictionary - the names of peasant buildings, utensils and clothes, objects and tools of agriculture, crafts. The connection between linguistics and ethnography is manifested not only in the study of material culture, but also in the classification of languages \u200b\u200band peoples, in the study of the reflection of national identity in the language. Linguistics is closely related to literary criticism (literary theory, literary history, and literary criticism). The connection between linguistics and literary criticism is especially noticeable in disciplines such as stylistics and history of the literary language, as well as in the development of problems of fiction. However, there is a significant difference between the linguistic and linguistic approach and the methods of studying a literary text. A literary critic studies language as a component of an artistic form, as a primary element of literature, as the art of words. A linguist studies a literary text as a manifestation of the author's speech activity, as a fact of language norms and functional style. Functional stylistics deals with the study of the choice and use of linguistic means in works of art. Language as a fact of an individual's speech activity is the subject of study of psychology and linguistics.
Linguistics and natural sciences
Of the natural sciences, linguistics comes into contact mainly with human physiology and anthropology. Especially important for linguistics is the theory of speech activity, created by the Russian physiologists I.M. Sechenov and I.P. Pavlov. The words that a person hears and sees represent a second signal system - a specifically human form of reflection of reality. The second signaling system is signal signals. The interests of linguists and anthropologists converge in two cases: first, in the classification of races and languages, and, second, in the study of the question of the origin of speech.
Basic language functions
Communicative function Language is the most important means of human communication. He acts as an instrument of communication, thus carrying out a communicative function. Communicating with each other, people convey their thoughts, expressions of will, feelings and emotional experiences, influence each other in a certain direction, and achieve a common understanding. Language gives people the opportunity to understand each other and establish joint work in all spheres of human activity. Language has been and remains one of the forces that ensure the existence and development of human society. Language acts as a means of communication both when one person speaks (monologue speech), and when two or more persons speak (dialogical and group speech). Communication can be not only verbal, but also written. Cognitive and accumulative functions The purpose of language to be a means of expressing, transmitting and storing content is called its cognitive function. The cognitive function is manifested not only in the communication of individuals, it is revealed in the linguistic experience of the people, ensures the preservation of a wide variety of knowledge for posterity - about society and nature, about thinking and language. The function of language to reflect and store knowledge is called accumulative. Communicative, cognitive and accumulative functions are the main social functions of language as the most important means of communication. The rest of the functions are optional; they do not belong to the language as a whole, but to its variants and styles.
FEATURES OF VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Communication between humans and animals: the main differences
For understanding human nature, the differences between the language and communication of people from the languages \u200b\u200band communication activities of animals are especially significant. The main of these differences are as follows: 1. Linguistic communication of people is biologically irrelevant, that is, insignificant in the biological respect. It is characteristic that evolution did not create a special organ of speech, and this function uses organs whose original purpose was different. If the sounds of speech were caused by physiological necessity, that is, they were motivated biologically, then the content of speech could not go beyond the information about the biological state of the individual. The biological irrelevance of sounding speech allowed people to develop secondary means of coding linguistic information - such as writing, Morse code, nautical flag alphabet, relief-dot alphabet for writing and reading Braille, etc., which increases the possibilities and reliability of language communication. 2. Linguistic communication of people, in contrast to the communication of animals, is closely related to cognitive processes. In animals, orienting (cognitive) processes are separated from those mechanisms and organs with the help of which signs-messages are generated in animal communication. Orientation occurs as a result of the work of the senses, without the participation of communicative systems. A separate sign-message of an animal arises as a reaction of an individual to an event that has already occurred, already perceived ("cognized") by the senses, and at the same time as a stimulus to a similar reaction (or to a similar emotional state) in other individuals (to which the message is addressed). In such a message, there is no information about what caused this signal, L. S. Vygotsky said that a frightened gander, seeing danger and raising the whole flock with a cry, not so much reports what he sees as infects it with his fright (Vygotsky 1982 , 18). In this case, for example, in a herd of monkeys "the sound of danger will be the same for a snake, a turtle, a rustle in the bushes; in the same way, the sound of well-being remains the same, whether it refers to the appearance of the sun, food, or to the return of one of its members "(Tych 1970, 230-231). A different picture is observed in human cognitive activity. Already perception, that is, one of the first stages of sensory cognition, in a person is mediated by language: "... language is, as it were, a kind of prism through which a person" sees "reality ... projecting onto it with the help of language the experience of social practice" (Leontiev 1972, 153). Memory, imagination, and attention function mainly on the basis of language. The role of language in the processes of thinking is exceptionally great. The formation of thought is a merged verbal-cogitative process, in which the brain mechanisms and thinking and speech are involved. 3. Linguistic communication of people, in contrast to the communicative behavior of animals, is characterized by an exceptional richness of content. In principle, there are no restrictions on the semantics of possible messages. Timeless, eternal and momentary, general and individual, abstract and concrete, rational and emotional, purely informative and motivating the addressee to action - all conceivable types of content are available to language. "Language is the ability to say everything" (A. Martinet). In contrast to the qualitative and quantitative unboundedness of the content of linguistic communication, animal communication only has expressive information (i.e. information about the internal - physical, physiological - state of the sender of the message) and information that directly affects the recipient of the message (appeal, urge, threat, etc.) . P.). In any case, this is always "momentary" information: what is reported happens at the time of the message. Thus, the content of animal communication is limited to operational and exclusively expressive information - about what is happening only with the communication participants and only during communication. As for the diverse and vital information of a timeless or long-term nature (for example, information that allows you to distinguish what is dangerous, to find edible, etc.), in animals such information is transmitted genetically. This is how, on the one hand, informational support of the normal state of the population is achieved, and on the other hand, informational connection between animal generations. The hereditary assimilation of the experience of previous generations is distinguished by exceptional reliability, but poverty and the routine of genetically transmitted information are also associated with this. Human society is characterized by a different relationship between biological and social information. Genetically perceived information is essential in human behavior, but the decisive role - both in the activity of an individual and in the life of society - is played by the information transmitted in the process of linguistic communication. 4. A number of features in its structure are associated with the content richness of the human language (in comparison with the communication systems of animals). The main structural difference between the language of humans and the languages \u200b\u200bof animals lies in its level structure: parts of a word (morphemes) are formed from sounds, words from morphemes, and sentences from words. This makes the speech of people articulate, and the language - meaningfully capacious and at the same time compact semiotics. Thanks to the ability to combine words in different ways, the language provides people with inexhaustible resources for expressing new meanings. Unlike the language of people, in biological semiotics there are no signs of different levels, that is, simple and complex, composed of simple ones. So, according to zoopsychology, in the languages \u200b\u200bof monkey herds, about 30 sound signals are used, corresponding to 30 standard situations (meanings), while all signs are not decomposable into significant components. In linguistic terms, we can say that in animal communication, a separate message is both a "word" and a "sentence", that is, the message is not divided into significant components, it is inarticulate. The one-level structure of biological semiotics limits their content to a set of initial meanings, since complex signs (i.e., composed of simple ones) are impossible.
LANGUAGE SIGN
Language as a system of signs
1. Language: "word" and "deed"
Language surrounds a person in life, accompanies him in all his affairs, whether he wants it or not, is present in all his thoughts, participates in his plans ... Actually, speaking of the fact that language accompanies all human activities, let us think about the stable expression “Word and deed”: is it worth opposing them at all? After all, the border between "deed" and "word" is conditional, blurred. No wonder there are people for whom the "word" is business, their profession: these are writers, journalists, teachers, educators, you never know who else ... Yes, and from our own experience we know: the success of this or that undertaking largely depends on the ability to speak, convince, formulate your thoughts. Consequently, "word" is also a kind of "deed", speech is included in the general system of human activity.
True, an adult gets used to the language so much that he does not pay attention to it - as they say, does not see at close range. To own a native language, to use speech seems to us as natural and unconditional as, say, the ability to frown or climb stairs. Meanwhile, the language does not arise in a person by itself, it is a product of imitation and learning. It is enough to look closely at how a child at the age of two or three years masters this system: every week, every month, new words, new constructions appear in his speech - and yet he is still far from full competence ... adults, consciously or unconsciously helping a child to master this new world for him, would he remain tongueless? Alas, yes. There is a lot of documentary evidence of this - cases when a child, due to certain tragic circumstances, is deprived of human society (for example, getting lost in the forest, he fell into the environment of animals). At the same time, he could survive as a biological individual, but he irrevocably lost the right to be called a human: as a rational being, he could no longer take place. So the story with Mowgli or Tarzan is beautiful, but a fairy tale. Even more cruel experiments are carried out by nature, sometimes producing human beings, devoid of sight and hearing. And since a child is deaf, he cannot develop sound speech either - therefore, we are dealing in this case with deaf-blind-mute creatures. And now it turns out that it is possible to form a human personality from such a child through long and purposeful work, however, provided that the teachers (and in Russia there is a whole school - Professor I.A.Sokolyansky) will teach this child language... What language? Practically on the only sensory basis possible for him - language based on touch. This serves as another confirmation of the idea that without society language cannot arise, without language a full-fledged personality cannot be formed.
Modern man as a biological species is called in Latin Homo sapiens, that is, a reasonable person. But homo sapiens is at the same time Homo loquens (homo lokvens) - a speaking person. For us, this means that language is not just a "convenience" that an intelligent creature invented to make its life easier, but a prerequisite for its existence. Language is an integral part of a person's inner world, his spiritual culture, it is a support for mental actions, one of the foundations of mental connections (associations), an aid for memory, etc. It is difficult to overestimate the role of language in the history of civilization. One can recall on this occasion the well-known aphorism of the German existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger: "Language creates a person" - or repeat after the Russian scientist Mikhail Bakhtin: "Language, a word is almost everything in human life."
Naturally, such a complex and multifaceted phenomenon as language can be approached from different angles, studied from different angles. Therefore, linguistics (synonym - linguistics, from Latin lingua - ‘language’) grows not only “in depth”, but also “in breadth”, capturing adjacent territories, in contact with other, neighboring sciences. New, intermediate and very promising disciplines are born from these contacts. Their names alone are worth something: mathematical linguistics and linguistic statistics, linguo-geography and ethnolinguistics, historical poetics and textual studies ... Some of these subsidiary sciences, such as socio- and psycholinguistics, have already found their place in the structure (nomenclature) of human knowledge, recognition of society, others - such as neurolinguistics - retain the flavor of novelty and exoticism ... In any case, one should not think that linguistics stands still, and even more so that it is only engaged in the invention of ever new rules that complicate life for an ordinary person : where, say, you need to put a comma, and where - a dash, when you need to write not with the adjective together, and when - separately ... This, I confess, linguistics also has to deal with, and yet its most important tasks are different: the study of language in its relationship with objective reality and human society.
And although the phenomenon of language seems self-evident, it is necessary to somehow define it from the very beginning. From all the variety of existing definitions, we will choose for further reasoning two, the most widespread and all-embracing: language is a means of human communication and language is a system of signs. These definitions do not contradict each other; rather, on the contrary, they complement each other. The first of them speaks about what the language is for, the second about what it is. And we will begin our conversation with this second aspect - with the general principles of the structure of the language. And only then, having familiarized ourselves with the basic rules for organizing this phenomenon and having talked about its diverse roles in society, we will return to the question of the structure of language and the functioning of its individual parts.