Tashkent state university of uzbek language and literature named after alisher navoi

Language and culture.

One of the most important questions of linguistics is the question of the relationship between language and culture and the nature of their interaction. Scholars differ on this point. While one group of scholars believes that language forms culture, the other group of scholars argues that language is only a part of culture. Some modern linguists believe that interlingual activity is exclusively cross-cultural in nature, and translation is an exclusively cultural process. JB Casagrande, for example, believes that "... in reality, not languages ​​are translated, but cultures" [Komissarov 1980, p. 112– 113]. The latter interpretation deprives language of any independence; language is taken as an entity completely devoid of its individual characteristics, which are blurred in the general concept of culture.
To date, some theories have advanced the idea of ​​the independent development of language. But many philosophers and scholars support the idea that language becomes an incomprehensible phenomenon without cultural intervention.
“Language does not exist outside of culture, that is, outside the socially inherited set of practical skills and ideas that characterize our way of life” [Sapir 1993: 185].
We believe that linguistic ability, speech, and thinking are the ability to distinguish man from other living beings and even give him the power to dominate through that ability. But this fact cannot change the fact that language is the product of the evolution of living nature.
It is generally known, for example, that the geographic environment (climate, vegetation, landscape) to some extent determines the vocabulary of the respective languages. The languages ​​of the peoples of the Far North are cited as examples, where there are many words to denote snow in its various states, but there is no generalizing concept of "snow" and the corresponding word. The surrounding nature determines the different attitudes of different peoples to the same concepts. As A.D. Schweitzer points out, when translating Shakespeare's sonnet into Arabic, the mention of tender affectionate June (in literal translation) will cause an Arab to have completely different feelings than an Englishman, for Arabs associate June with intense heat. Nature influences the vocabulary of a language and through culture. So, the peculiarities of nature determined for some peoples the need to lead a nomadic lifestyle, and the latter determined the need to have housing that can be easily moved from place to place.
There is an opinion that if, quite conditionally, of course, “culture can be defined as what a given society does and thinks”, then language “is what they think” [Sapir 1993: 193].
In addition to the two concepts mentioned above, there is also a concept called the picture of the world.
The picture of the world, being the basic component of a person's worldview, contributes to a close connection and unity of knowledge and behavior of people in society. It forms the type of man's relationship to the world - nature, other people, himself as a member of this world, sets the norms of man's behavior in the world, and determines his attitude to living space. A person treats things in accordance with his picture of the world, which forms a system of prohibitions on his behavior in the world.
The relationship between language and culture is a complex one due largely in part to the great difficulty in understanding people’s cognitive processes when they communicate. Wardhaugh (2002, p. 2) defines language to be:
a knowledge of rules and principles and of the ways of saying and doing things with sounds, words, and sentences rather than just knowledge of specific sounds, words, and sentences.
While Wardhaugh does not mention culture per se, the speech acts we perform are inevitably connected with the environment they are performed in, and therefore he appears to define language with consideration for context, something Thanasoulas (2001) more directly compiled in the following.
…(l)anguage does not exist apart from culture, that is, from the socially inherited assemblage of practices and beliefs that determines the texture of our lives (Sapir, 1970, p. 207). In a sense, it is ‘a key to the cultural past of a society’ (Salzmann, 1998, p. 41), a guide to ‘social reality’ (Sapir, 1929, p. 209, cited in Salzmann, 1998, p. 41).
And if we are to discuss a relationship between language and culture, we must also have some understanding of what culture refers to. Goodenough (1957, p. 167, taken from Wardhaugh, 2002, p. 219) explains culture in terms of the participatory responsibilities of its members. He states that a society’s culture is made up of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves. Culture can be represented as a complex phenomenon involving the presence of material, spiritual and social components. The process of communication between people is carried out using a combination of non-verbal (sound, visual, odoric, acoustic, haptic, mimic, gestural, kinetic, proxemic, etc.) and verbal or verbal (oral and written) ways of transmitting culturally significant information. Both verbal and nonverbal ways of encoding cultural information constitute the external aspect of culture, while the internal aspect is associated with its axiological system. Language is not only the main means of communication in society, i.e. it performs a communicative function, but also allows the transfer of cultural heritage from one generation to another through an accumulative function. Learning a language is necessary to understand the culture with which it relates as N.L. Shamne notes. Apparently, in the process of socialization, a person learns certain features of the vision of the world, patterns and models of categorization of the surrounding world. Language plays a significant role in the formation and awareness of these features of vision. Different interpretations of reality are reflected in language and transmitted through language. "The language of a nation is in itself a condensed expression of the entire culture of a nation" [Shamne, 2000, 32]. V. Humboldt was one of the first in linguistics to attempt to solve the problem of the interaction of language and culture. In the scientific community over the past two centuries, the question posed by this scientist has been controversial: can we talk about a universal picture of the world, or does each nation perceive reality and express the results of this perception in language differently? According to V. Humboldt, "starting from any language, one can draw a conclusion about the national character" [Humboldt V. von Selected Works on Linguistics, 2000, p.
234]. E.F. Tarasov reduces the main provisions of V. Humboldt's concept regarding the relationship between language and culture to the following theses: 1) language is a means of expressing material and spiritual culture; 2) any culture is national, which manifests itself in the internal form of language specific to each nation; 3) language acts as an intermediary between a person and the surrounding reality [Tarasov, 2004, 43]. In Russian linguistics, V. Humboldt's concept of the interaction of language and culture was developed by A.A. Potebnya. The researcher recognized the important role of language in the formation of national worldview and thinking. According to A.A. Potebna, a person who speaks two languages, when switching from one to the other, "at the same time changes the nature and direction of the flow of his thought" [Potebnya, 1999, p. 78]. Some linguists (V.A. Maslova, S.G. Ter-Minasova) compare language with a mirror, noting its ability to reflect the surrounding world. Language, indeed, reflects reality: the way of life of the people, their history, climatic conditions of life.
The initial approach to the definition of culture was based on the idea that culture is a homogeneous phenomenon inherent in all societies. Differences in societies were interpreted not as differences in essence, in content, but as differences in the degree of development of the same phenomenon – culture. The measure of measurement was the progress from barbarism to civilization. The more signs of civilization a society had, the more culturally developed it was considered to be. The most vivid expression of this approach to understanding culture was found in the works of I.V. Taylor. His widely cited definition of culture describes it as "a complex whole, including knowledge, faith, art, morality, law, customs and any other traits and habits acquired by a person as a member of society" [Elizarova, 2009].
G. V. Elizarova proposed to distinguish three approaches to the definition of the concept of culture. In the social approach, the focus is on the fact that people are not born with a certain culture, but acquire it in the course of communication, based on social activities. According to V. Oswalt's definition, "in anthropology, culture is acquired general behaviors inherent in a group of people" [Elizarova, 2009]. One of the most important components of speech activity is speech activity, during which an individual acquires a language that is a component of culture, and through its use, gets access to its other components. The process of socialization aims to form the child's thinking and behavior patterns that are acceptable in the appropriate society.
The cognitive approach to understanding culture pays special attention to culture as knowledge and cognition [Ibid.]. Proponents of cognitive anthropology believe that culture is localized not in the diversity of practice and experience of everyday life, but in the cognitive world of the individual. The cognitive view of culture presents it as a summarized knowledge necessary for the adequate participation of a person in the life of society.
The semiotic approach to the definition of culture is based on understanding it, first of all, as a system of signs representing the world, which can then be used as a means of communication. According to this approach, culture is a system of social meanings encoded in symbols and expressed in behavior, which is considered as a symbolic action. Such symbols are a public expression of generally accepted approaches and beliefs, and guarantees mutual understanding among those who can be counted among the same culture. [Elizarova, 2009, p. 35]
Many linguists share the opinion of G. V. Elizarova that any culture includes two main components: beliefs and values. The truth of beliefs has nothing to do with logic or empirical considerations. They are true simply because they are accepted as such by almost all carriers of a certain culture. Some of the beliefs are rooted in everyday practice, are conscious and are perceived as self-evident truths.
Other beliefs are derived from the first and can be both conscious and unconscious. The perception of individuals can vary greatly with respect to individual propositions in the belief system, but the general commitment to the belief system as such remains [Elizarova, 2009].
According to Milton Rokich, emotional factors of desire and need, brought into beliefs, lead us into the realm of values. "Values are internal... standards for the direction of actions... a firm belief that a specific model of behavior ... is personally and socially preferable to alternative models..." (Rokeach 1968). They can be presented as complex, but modeled in a certain way, principles that give order and direction to the eternal flow of human actions and thoughts. In order for the values of individuals not to conflict with each other, culture provides social rules that represent a system of values. They give the activity a comprehensive structure defined by the framework of each culture. Beliefs concerning the relationship of forms and values that are associated with these beliefs, and allow an individual to relate them to his inner state and design his behavior. Behavior is not chaotic, and individuals do not build it anew every time, nor do they "use" what Goodenough calls recipes (Goodenough 1981). They relate to knowing (consciously or unconsciously) how to act, behave, so that behavior is acceptable. Actual behavior itself belongs to the category of customs and typical actions. It should be noted that carriers of different cultures may have the same or similar values, but embody them in completely different customs and vice versa. Customs, like most cultural appearances, often lose their tangible connection with the underlying model and the system of values that gave rise to it and are considered simply as "natural".
G. V. Elizarova believes that these components are characteristic of any culture and form what can be called culture in general (culture general). The content and proportions of these universal components in each particular culture will be unique and constitute the specifics of a particular culture (culture specific). [Elizarova, 2009, p.33].
The specificity of any national culture is reflected in the linguistic picture of the world of native speakers of this national language.

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