Topic 6.

Language, Thinking, Consciousness

The problem of the relationship between language and thinking. The history
of solving the problem of the relationship between language, thinking and
consciousness
The problem of the relationship between language and thinking remains one
of the most difficult in modern theoretical linguistics. Before the invention of the
positron emission tomograph, psychologists and neurophysiologists could study
thinking only indirectly, according to language data. Nowadays tomography
together with genetic analysis at the molecular level allow to construct new
hypotheses about the origin of humans and the languages they use. In connection
with this issue, rather interesting is the article by T.V. Gamkrelidze “R.O.
Jacobson and the problem of isomorphism between the genetic code and semiotic
systems ".
Isomorphism - is a phenomenon of structural similarity between certain objects or
phenomena of reality.
The complexity of the problem also is in the difficulty of determining the
relationship between thinking and consciousness.
Thinking - is the highest form of reflection in the human psyche of objects and
phenomena of the world and their connections in the form of concepts, judgments,
inferences, theories, etc. It is a process of cognitive activity of an individual, which
is characterized by a generalized and indirect reflection of reality.
Consciousness - is a set of all mental processes that are involved in understanding
by the person the world around them and their own existence. This is the highest
level of mental reflection and self-regulation, inherent only in a person as a socio-
historical creature.
According to these definitions, consciousness is a broader notion than thinking.
In the history of linguistics, there are various, sometimes even opposite
approaches to understanding the problem of language interaction, on the one hand,
and thinking, consciousness and cognition, on the other. For example, Wilhelm von
Humboldt said, “The language of the people is their spirit, and the spirit of the
people is their language”. According to the well-known definition of language by
the classics of Marxism as the "direct reality of thought", the correct generalization
was created, that language always reflects human thinking. However, based on the
development of this provision, it was wrongly concluded that human thinking is
always carried out in language forms. Non-verbal thinking is the reality of our
consciousness. And if there is extralinguistic thinking, which can be carried out
outside the forms of natural language, then the point of view has the right to exist,
according to which language and thinking are two relatively independent entities.
Verbal and nonverbal thinking. Based on the assumption that people began to
interact earlier than to speak, and the process of interaction cannot be carried out
thoughtlessly, the academician B. A. Serebrennikov concluded that people began to
talk to each other, having a relatively developed thinking. Modern psychology
distinguishes three types of human thinking:
 conceptual (verbal) - is based on language forms
 technical and
 figurative - are realized beyond the language forms
The existence of extralinguistic forms of thinking is confirmed by the doctrine of
the academician I. P. Pavlov on two signal systems of reality, as well as studies of
neurophysiologists in the field of functional asymmetry of the cortex of the human
cerebral hemispheres. It is about the presence in the left hemisphere of the
Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas - human language centers - and the absence of such
centers in the right hemisphere.
Two signal systems of reality according to I. P. Pavlov:
 a set of conditioned reflexes that are formed on the basis of impressions of
the environment, where a person or an animal lives;
 a word as a signal of a signal – this system is peculiar only to people.
The inner speech. Universal subject code as the basis of the international
nature of human thinking
The inner speech was considered as the speech “for myself”. In the late 20s
of the twentieth century. were published the results of experiments by psychologist
L. Vygotsky, who radically changed the perception of the inner speech. He learned
the speech behaviour of the 3-5 years old children. And J. Piaget described this
“children's speech for yourself”. He showed that the inner speech developed from
this very self-centered speech, which formed in the early childhood. With age it
becomes reduced, turns into the whisper and finally outer speech disappears. With
the appearance of the inner speech the child forms a new type of mental activity -
intellectual. The inner speech acts as an intermediate link between thinking that
takes place in the speech areas of the brain and external oral or written speech.
The famous Russian linguist Y. M. Karaulov identified three structural
levels of linguistic personality: verbal-semantic (human lexicon and the fund of
their grammatical knowledge); linguo-cognitive, which fixes the system of human
knowledge about the world around; and motivational, which reflects the system of
attitudes, goals and motives of the individual. Linguistic personality - a
philosophical construct of man, which provides a certain way of using language.
The speech activity of a linguistic personality is determined by a number of socio-
ethnocultural factors: native language, education, social status, profession, etc.
Psychologist M.I. Zhinkin experimentally proved that the mechanism of
human thinking is two-stage, consisting of universal subject (USC) and motor-
speech codes. This feature allowed us to call the code of human thought "mixed".
Universal subject code is provided by the specified elements of "language of
thought": images, schemes (frames), fragments of sentences, pictures, symbols,
formulas, charts, words, etc. However, each language is characterized by national
identity. The set of concepts about the surrounding reality is unique for all
mankind, but the implementation of these concepts by the meaning systems of
different languages acquires national identity. National specificity is manifested in
the study of internal forms of relative words in different languages of the world, in
the features of metaphorization and metonymization of corresponding words that
have the same direct nominative meaning in the nature of common language
images and comparisons and so on.
Metaphorization - is the process of acquiring new figurative meanings by a
word, which are formed on the basis of the common form or functions of the
denoted object / phenomenon (new name) and the object of comparison (old
name).
Metonymization - is the process of acquiring new figurative meanings by a
word, which are formed on the basis of adjacency (temporal, spatial) of two objects
of designation.
National specifics of linguistic meaning systems. Internal form of lexical and
phraseological units. The internal form of the word - is a formal-semantic feature
that underlies the name of the denoted object or phenomenon. It motivates the
phonetic shell of the word, revealing the reason for the expression of a particular
meaning by a specific combination of sounds. The concept of internal form reveals
the national specificity of meaning not only at the lexical but also at the
phraseological linguistic level. Most idioms can’t be literally translated from one
language to another because literal translation does not convey the meaning of the
idiom or phrase, but only reveals its internal formula.
Psycholinguistics as an interdisciplinary science. Psycholinguistics as a special
interdisciplinary science emerged in the middle of the last century. It studies the
problems of generation and perception of speech, the formation and incipience of
speech in the ontogenesis (individual development) of the child, human speech
behavior, speech pathology, etc.

Topic 5. Language and society

The study of the essence of language is one of the central problems of
linguistics. The prominent German linguist August Schleicher, who initiated the
naturalistic trend in linguistics, and his follower Max Müller considered language
to be a special physiological function of a person. According to the representatives
of the psychological trend, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Gaiman Steinthal, all
language activity of people is determined by the individual psyche of the person, is
a manifestation only of mental processes occurring in the mind of the individual.
German linguists Hermann Paul, Karl Brugmann and others, who are the
representatives of the neogrammarian trend, interpreted language as a product of
psychophysical activity. Language is a social phenomenon by its very origin, it
arose in a group of people to fit the needs of mutual understanding.
 Language norm - is a set of the most stable, traditional realizations of
elements of language structure, collectively perceived as correct, exemplary,
selected and fixed by society in the process of its language activity at a certain
stage of its development. Properties of language norm:
 Selectivity - each language norm realizes the possibilities of language in a
certain case in its own way;
 Stability – is the preservation of language traditions, prevention of
deviations from them, limitation of options.
 Obligatoriness - all socially recognized language forms are considered as
correct and must be followed by the speakers.
Language is a national phenomenon, because it is used by the whole nation,
one person is powerless to change anything in the language, because the language
develops and changes according to its objective laws. Local variations of language
are called territorial dialects. Their existence determines the territorial
differentiation of language. Criteria for distinguishing dialect from language are
diverse: linguistic, geographical and / or political, psycho-cultural, etc. The
smallest territorial variety of language is the subdialect (говірка), which is used in
one or more settlements. Subdialects are grouped into dialects (говори, діалекти),
and dialects - into a group of dialects or “narichchya”.
Linguistic features of dialects are called vernacularisms (діалектизми).
They can be phonetical, morphological, syntactic, lexical, phraseological.
Comparative study of dialects in connection with their geographical distribution is
the subject of linguistic geography.
If the territorial differentiation of language covers the entire population of a
particular area, the social differentiation concerns its individual strata. The
practical experience of speakers in a particular field of activity forces them to
create special words to denote concepts that are unknown to people of other
professions.
Professional vocabulary – is a specific vocabulary that characterizes the
speech of people united by a common profession. It is very differentiated. The
purposefully created scientific and technical terminology is close to the
professional vocabulary that arises spontaneously. The difference between them is
that scientific terminology does not allow the existence of regional variants, and
professional vocabulary can sometimes acquire a local character.
Term – is a word or phrase that, in contrast to professionalism, is the
officially accepted name of a clearly defined concept in a particular field of
science, technology, art, socio-political life, etc.: suffix, prefix, sonnet, cosine,
ampere, MP, still life, tenor etc.
Jargon - is a social dialect that differs from literary language by a specific,
usually emotionally colored vocabulary and pronunciation, but does not have its
own grammatical structure, always existing on the basis of a particular language. A
parallel term for this form of language is slang, which is more widely used in
English-language scientific literature.
Argo - is the language of a narrow social or professional group, mostly
declassed elements (thieves, beggars and other anti-social groups), which is created
to separate linguistically from other speakers.
Vernacular (просторіччя) - is another kind of the national language, which
occupies an intermediate place between dialect and literary language. Vernacular
includes all linguistic phenomena that are not dialectal (i.e do not have a territorial
character) and at the same time are not literary. It is a superdialectal variety of the
nationwide language, which emerged in the era of formation of national languages.
Koine - is a language that serves as a means of interdialect communication
in a certain area, arising on the basis of one (or several) dialects that are common
in this area.
Literary language - a standardized form of the nationwide language, which
serves the main areas of activity of a nation, its cultural needs. The norm of
literary language is formed as a result of the combined action of the following
factors: territorial, the language of authoritative writers, statistical.
Features of the literary language: 1) the existence of writing; 2)
standardization; 3) general acceptance; 4) distribution throughout the whole
language area; 5) branched stylistic differentiation; 6) the presence of two varieties
- written-book and oral-spoken.
Literary language is characterized by stylistic differentiation.
Style - is a socially conscious, internally united set of methods of selection,
combination and use of means of linguistic communication in the field of that or
another literary language.
Society can also consciously influence the development of language.
Language policy - is the conscious influence of society on language
(purposeful government measures). The language situation in a multilingual
society depends on this policy: the government can stimulate the development of
multilingualism in the state, restrain and narrow the functioning of the languages
of non-state nations, often leading them to extinction.
Sociolinguistics - is a branch of linguistics that studies the general patterns
of language functioning in society, the peculiarities of language development in
different social conditions, and the influence of social factors on language.
Ukrainian sociolinguistics has recently achieved significant success. The
issue of language policy in Ukraine is defined by such legislative acts as the Law
on Language in Ukraine, the Constitution of Ukraine, Article 10.