Cognitive interpretation of lexical units

1.3. Concept of concept in cognitive linguistics

The meanings that a person operates in his mental activity and which reflect his experience and knowledge are stored in consciousness in the form of special mental structures, which have received the name of concepts in cognitive science. The concept, being the object of study of different sciences, has different interpretations depending on what discipline it is being studied. So, cognitive linguistics is interested, first of all, in the question of how ideal entities, concepts, are connected with the language forms that objectify them. By answering this question, we can draw certain conclusions about the functioning of our cognitive system.

Here are some of the most common definitions of the term “concept”: “The concept exists in the mind (in the mental world) of a person. That “bundle” of representations, concepts, knowledge, associations, experiences that accompany the word is the concept”; concepts are "clots" of the cultural environment in the human mind"; concept is “a global mental unit, which is a quantum of structured knowledge”; concept - “an object from the “Ideal” world, having a name and reflecting certain culturally conditioned ideas about the “Reality” world.
As can be seen from the definitions, the concept is considered not only from the point of view of the mental information contained in it about a particular object / phenomenon of reality, but also at the same time as a unit of culture, therefore, the study of concepts in the cultural aspect, i.e. as mental cultural-specific structures, it seems extremely important for revealing their content.⁶
Conceptual-culturological and linguoculturological areas of research, within which the task of identifying cultural concepts and ways of their objectification, occupy an important place in Russian science. The number of conceptually significant vocabulary, from the point of view of cultural studies, is limited, since not every phenomenon of reality serves as a basis for the formation of a concept. Let's consider the main criteria for highlighting cultural concepts in linguoculturology .
It is generally accepted that cultural concepts are concepts that are the values of culture (and make up its “metalanguage”) and are expressed primarily by abstract nouns such as faith, joy, law, love, good, evil, fate, creativity, i.e. in verbal form, concepts are the “key words” of a given language and culture. N.D. Arutyunova notes that for all the significance of such worldview concepts for each person, few can reveal their content. “... the essence of such words in the usage is vague. Native speakers do not know their exact definitions and usually do not recognize them from dictionaries.” At the same time, such concepts receive different (and often contradictory) interpretations in the works of philosophers, culturologists, and literary critics; moreover, each of the sciences forms its own view of a particular concept.
The consequence of the presence of a value component in the structure of the concept is its verbalization by a large number of synonyms; this concept often becomes the topic of proverbs, sayings, works of art; it is found in the titles of popular books, in songs; a concept "deeply rooted in the language and culture of the people and therefore is a diachronic constant of language and culture."
A cultural concept is always an object of evaluation. The possibility of using evaluative predicates in relation to a particular phenomenon can be considered a kind of “indicator” of the existence within a given culture of a concept based on this phenomenon of reality. So, from this point of view, the analysis of predicates used with the word “ ideology ” ( Ideologyisnecessary / inadequate / important / dangerous / criminal / inspiring / tough ; Ideologyguides / motivates / leads / justifies / holdssmb . captive , etc.) shows that the phenomenon of ideology forms a concept - a certain value (or " anti -value ") for native English speakers.
In addition, cultural concepts that reflect the picture of the world of a particular society can be considered those that are represented by non- equivalent lexical units, i.e. “words that, in the process of linguocultural translation, require not word by word, but descriptive interpretation.” The last provision is not unambiguous in linguistics, because the question arises of what should be considered non- equivalent lexical units. It is known that in every language there are words denoting cultural realities (specific cultural phenomena) and therefore do not have semantic equivalents in other languages.
So, the words origami, karate, ikebana, samurai, bonsai are associated with Japan; gondola, doge, spaghetti, pizza - signs of Italian culture; torero, bullfighting, flamenco, paella are "signs" of traditional Spanish culture (all these lexical units represent exotic concepts ). No one doubts the “untranslatability” of such nominations into other languages. However, A. Vezhbitskaya postulates the "untranslatability" of such words as sadness, anger, vulgarity - in Russian, freedom - in English, Angst - in German, miai - in Japanese. Thus, according to the researcher, the words freedom and freedom are semantically non-identical: if we take into account the cultural realities behind these words, i.e. history, lifestyle, value system, etc. of this or that people, as well as the peculiarities of the speech use of lexical units “identical in meaning” in different languages, it turns out that the meanings that are considered to be coinciding are far from being close.⁷
A. Vezhbitskaya finds an interesting way to “translate” such words into other languages, using the “Natural Semantic Metalanguage” (ESM) developed by her (“ linguamentalis ”, “alphabet of human thoughts”) - a certain set of fundamental innate human concepts (I, you, something , good, bad, see, want, where, if, many, etc.) capable of generating other concepts. Here, for example, are the interpretations of the words freedom and freedom in ESM, obtained as a result of a detailed linguoculturological analysis of the corresponding concepts:
freedom
) someone (X) might think something like this:
) if I want to do something, I can do it
) no one else can tell me: "you can't do it, because I don't want it"
) if I don't want to do something, I can not do it
) no one else can tell me: “you must do this, because that I want it"
) is good for Xa
) bad if someone can not think so