National and cultural aspect of the word and its meaning



The language is the means of characterizing and differentiating the man. Looking at language culture as a form of national culture is of a special interest in culture learning and learning the people. In as much as the language is the basis and root of any culture. In this respect the language is regarded as a unity of generally excepted conception of people about the universe. The question of the unity of language and culture has been a point of interest for scientists for several centuries.

National difference in seeing, hearing and calling the events of the general reality are marked with national or people’s general looking. Of course it would be inappropriate to speak about the notion of lacuna here. Because external features of the event can be seen quickly, and notwithstanding what its appearance is, this phenomenon is called somehow. But inner peculiarities of things and events can be named or unnamed according to whether they have been looked at by spiritual glance. As a result a phenomenon being named in one language might be unnamed in another. The condition with no name chooser is estimated as national-mental lacuna. This place is filled with another units. For instance, word combinations or set expressions may fulfill such a task. Such alternatives as Старшийбрат in Russian and ака in Uzbek (elder brother) and младшийбрат in Russian and ука in Uzbek (little brother) can be examples for such phenomena. But in many cases the comparison of these two languages show that such condition may not exist as well. For example such words as амма, холаin Uzbek have no exact alternatives in Russian, and this shows that this language has lacuna based on national-mental values. Verbal description of the universe can be seen in being split to special features of expressive means — semantic and sememe semic structure of the word. In verbal description of reality plays significant role in the category of national-spiritual activeness which has national-mental basis and categorization of the phenomena of the reality, characteristics and conceptualization as well as in the stabilizing the meaning quality.

The language and culture are multi-aspect and colorful phenomena. That is why condition of national-mental culture in the domain of the language while being presented scientifically and given certain conclusions on the basis of the principle of “from form to meaning”, cannot be perceived identically. Lexeme differs from other units of verbal expression in higher meaning value and relative independence. This feature of it served for using the word like a language expression according to the principle of part-whole naming (synecdochic naming).

It is known that, the history of learning meaning features of the word dates back to ancient times. The problem/question of naming and the relation between things/objects and words were in the agenda of ancient philosophy. They were in opposition according to recognizing the naturalness or relativity of relations between thing/objects and words. Scientists who acknowledged the natural relation between word meaning and the named object used the term “fyuzey” (natural) as their slogan. Those who denied the natural relation between the name and the named, and considered these relations to be conditional, had the term “tesey” (according to agreement) for their slogan. The first ideas of such thinkers as Heraclites, Ephesus, Alexandrian about the problem became known as “continic conception about the word” [1. 192–193]. In the Renaissance period scientific-idealistic interpretation of word and meaning, language and speech improved a little. Linguistic system of ideas known as “Concept of Verbal Meaning of the Period of Renaissance” are of special attention. In the Renaissance period, namely in its period connected with Enlightenment interpretation of word and verbal meaning received a new form. As linguistics began interpreting the language from the comparative historical point of view, verbal essences began to be learned on the basis of mutually different and similar relations of languages which was base on the principle of relativism. Besides, religious-idealistic core was preserved in the science of language. The direction of learning meanings developed under this principle in perceiving the meanings, understanding and characterizing of the word pays main attention to three aspects of its object of learning:

a) Historical-cultural aspect of word meaning;

b) Literal-aesthetic aspect of word meaning;

c) Philosophical aspect of word meaning.

XIX century linguistics left its footprints in the history of the science with its name of Historical comparative linguistics. Wilhelm Humboldt based on his broad linguistic knowledge, classified the world languages, learned the origin and morphological structure of every language, devided them into language families” [2. 229]. He put forward the idea of the unity of people’s language and people’s spirit, and created the idea of verbal relativity in linguistics. We have to remember the following words Wilhelm von Humboldt: “We can say the idea that languages are organs of original understanding and original perception is generally excepted truth.” He says that thought is not only connected with language but also conditioned on with every certain language. Humboldt writes in his “About Difference of Forms of Languages and Their Impact on Spiritual Development of Man” that “The language is an organ which creates thought. Thinking and language make up a single integrity” [4. 65].

We cannot say that the scientist’s thoughts about the integrity of language and thought were fully and changelessly acknowledged by his followers. For example A. A. Potebnya considered himself to be Humboldt’s follower and apprentice, and formed his own views under the influence of Humboldt’s theory of “inner form of the word.” The scientist characterizes the notion of external and inner forms in connection with new words and creating their meaning [5. 176].

Some ideas on the twofold oppositional nature of a verbal sign were given by such scientists as Saussure, B. A. Serebrennikov, A. S. Melnichuk, A. A. Ufimtseva. Saussure marks verbal sign as an ideal phenomenon in the consciousness and does not see the meaning out of it. He gives room to both of them as one unit in social consciousness. Ch. Pirs, R. Yakobson, E. C. Kubryakova, A. A. Ufimtseva and others consider the verbal unit to be material and the meaning to be ideal phenomena [3. 18–28]. We think that differentiating/no differentiating, separating/ not separating language and speech is connected with whether we are speaking about a language peculiarity or speech peculiarity.

Many sidedness of the language is marked with extensiveness of its mutual relations with other phenomena. A linguist R. Yakobson, speaking about some aspects of the language, marked it from the point of view of its relations as “…the basis of intellectual and spiritual life and a means of communication” [7. 306].

In the framework of relations of the language, relations with culture, takes a special place. That is why the relation of the language and culture is marked with several factors:

Firstly, the language is a complex material, and it is made up of language and speech levels connected on the basis of the dialectics of denying mutual denying. The culture is reflected in different qualities and quantities in these levels;

Secondly, language levels are of different nature, and differ according to the degree of reflecting the culture;

Thirdly, not all the levels of the language are at the same extent with the cultural development, and this fact can be the cause of pointing out relative independence among them.;

Fourthly, the fact that the language and culture are not integral in the lexical level which is regarded to be an outstanding means of expression of national culture can be seen in the volume of borrowings as well as existence of universal lexical phenomena;

Fifthly, looking at the results of pointing out the language’s feature of expressing the culture as at its form, or strengthening of the idea that the language is a part of many unit culture make the case more complicated.

Categorization and conceptualization of the culture in language is connected with seeing the reality from different angles.

The unity of culture and language results in recognizing the heterogeneousness ofits constituent parts (that is culture and language). This situation results in interpreting the relation of the language and culture differently. We can bring the following as the most characteristic examples for our idea:

1) Language is independent for the culture;

2) Language is continuation of the culture;

3) Language is a form of the culture [6. 37].

Language is a means of understanding and interpreting stable qualities of man as well as of the society. Language characterizes the reality. At the same time the language is a unique phenomenon to characterize itself.

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