Uzbekistan state world languages university d. U. Ashurova m. R. Galieva

Linguoculturology as a new scientific trend

Linguistics of the XXI century is actively developing the idea that language is not only an instrument of communication but also the cultural code of a nation. It happened due to the development of a new anthropocentric paradigm, which gives a man the status of being “the measure of all things” and focuses on studying the “human factor” in the language. The human is considered the centre of the Universe and language, because he is the only bearer of universal and national-specific values. Accordingly, Yu.S. Stepanov claims that linguistics is a science about “language in the human and the human in language” (Степанов, 2004). From the perspectives of this paradigm a human being is not just a bearer of a language, but rather of a certain conceptual system according to which he understands, cognizes and conceptualizes information about the world and cultural (Ashurova, Galieva, 2018). Currently, many linguistic researches are done within the framework of the anthropocentric paradigm. Moreover, the emergence of the anthropocentric paradigm caused the shift in linguistic views, methods of investigations and the emergence of new interdisciplinary linguistic trends such as Sociolinguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, Linguoculturology, Gender linguistics, etc., focusing on the study of relationships between language and society, language and mind, language and culture.

Linguoculturology is one of the newly emerged linguistic disciplines developed within the framework of the anthropocentric paradigm. It is a rapidly expanding field at the interface between linguistics, cultural studies, cognitive linguistics, ethnolinguistics and sociolinguistics. However, it has its own integral aspect of studying language and culture. Linguoculturology deals with the deep level of semantics of linguistic units, and brings into correlation linguistic meanings and the concepts of universal and national cultures. V.N. Telia defines Linguoculturology as “a study aimed at investigating and describing the correlation between language and culture in scope of modern culture national self-consciousness and its sign representation” (Телия, 1996, p.16); V.V. Vorobyev states that it is “an integrated scientific discipline studying correlations and interactions between culture and language in their functioning” (Воробьев, 2008, p. 37); V.V. Krasnykh considers Linguoculturology to be “a discipline studying manifestation, reflection and fixation of culture in the language and discourse” (Красных, 2003, p. 27). It should be mentioned that though the definitions given above vary, the central idea is that Linguoculturology studies interaction between language and culture. In other words, the subject matter of Linguoculturology is to study relationships between language and culture, the ways how culture is presented in language and how language presents, stores and transmits cultural information.

Since Linguoculturology is a relatively new discipline, there is no exact periodization of its evolution. However, V.A. Maslova singles out two periods. The first one is based on the works by W. von Humboldt, E. Sapir and B. Whorf in western linguistics and the works by A.A. Potebnya in Russia. The second period started in the 90^th of the XX century and since then it has been regarded as an independent branch of linguistics. Along with these two periods, the scholars outline an upcoming one in the last decade – the development of Linguoculturology as an interdisciplinary science (Маслова, 2007, p.28).

As V.A. Maslova points out currently there are four linguocultural schools:

1. 
   Linguocultural school headed by Yu.S. Stepanov – the aim is to describe cultural concepts and constants in their diachronic aspects;
   
2. 
   The school of N.D. Arutyunova studying universal cultural models on the basis of the texts belonging to different ages and nations;
   
3. 
   The school of V.N. Telia which is known as “Moscow school of linguocultural analysis of phraseological units” – the aim is to study phraseological units with the aim to provide a deeper insight into cultural semantics;
   
4. 
   The school of linguists established at the Russian University of People’s Friendship by V.V. Vorobyev, who develops the ideas of Country Studies by E.M. Vereschagin and V.G. Kostomarov.
   

The following issues of linguocultural studies can be outlined:

• 
  linguocultural units and their types (linguoculturemes);
  
• 
  the national world picture and nationally specific linguistic units;
  
• 
  cultural specifics of the communicative behaviour (cultural aspects of the communicative behavior peculiar to a certain linguocultural community, social or gender groups, or an individual);
  
• 
  culture specific phraseology;
  
• 
  culture specific concepts and their verbalization;
  
• 
  speech etiquette (the norms and standards of a polite communicative behavior in various communicative situations of greetings, farewells, apologies, request, etc.).
  

Proceeding from the above-mentioned problems, we can define the main tasks of Linguoculturology. They are as follows:

• 
  to define the main trends of Linguoculturology;
  
• 
  to discuss the main notions of Linguoculturology;
  
• 
  to define the taxonomy of linguocultural units and analyze their cultural semantics;
  
• 
  to investigate cultural concepts and their typology;
  
• 
  to discuss the problem of national world picture and its peculiar features;
  
• 
  to reveal nationally specific linguistic units;
  
• 
  to analyze linguistic representations of the national character, mentality, behavior;
  
• 
  to analyze the ways of how cultural values are represented in the language.
  

One of the most conspicuous features of Linguoculturology is its interdisciplinary character. Interdisciplinarity means the correlation of two or more sciences on the basis of the common theoretical assumptions, notions and methods of analysis. It should be mentioned that there are different definitions of this phenomenon, but all of them are based on the idea of the interaction of two or more disciplines, and the range of interaction can vary from a simple exchange of ideas to the mutual integration of scientific notions, methodology and research methods. In the case of integration of scientific assumptions, theoretical principles and methodological basis, the emergence of new interdisciplinary directions such as Cognitive Linguistics, Linguoculturology, Linguopragmatics, Ethnolinguistics, Intercultural Communication is observed.

It should be emphasized that interdisciplinarity is not just a mechanical transfer of the main notions and assumptions of one science into another, but their fruitful cooperation, contributing to the formulation and solution of new problems. It should be emphasized that interdisciplinarity is determined by the very nature of language, its orientation to a man and all spheres of human activity.

As for Linguoculturology, it is characterized by both internal and external interdisciplinarity. Internal links are observed in its relation to such linguistic disciplines as Ethnolinguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, Country Studies, Linguoconceptology, History of the Language, Lexicology, Stylistics, Comparative Linguistics. Let’s consider some of them.

Ethnolinguistics focuses on the relationships between language and ethnic culture, mostly in the historical retrospective. It studies how linguistic units reflect the way different ethnic groups perceive and conceptualize the world. The object of ethnolinguistics are folk texts (songs, jokes, fables, etc.), religious and mythological rituals. Its aim is the reconstruction of ethnic culture and vision of the world embodied in linguistic units. There are several directions in Ethnolinguistics: 1) etymological (problems of reconstruction of ontological and social understanding of the world represented in the etymology of the linguistic units); 2) dialectological (revealing culture types, terminology of rituals, culture phenomena, components of spiritual culture of a particular nation). Though Ethnolinguistics and Linguoculturology have much in common, there are some differences. Firstly, Ethnolinguistics deals only with national specifics of the language, whereas Linguoculturology embraces the issues of both national and world culture and their reflection in the language. Secondly, Ethnolinguistics studies the diachronic aspects of correlation between language and culture while Linguoculturology concentrates its attention on the synchronic representation of culture in language.

The closest links are observed between Cognitive Linguistics and Linguoculturology. Cognitive Linguistics, as is known, studies the relationships between language and mind, language and socio-psychological experience. In Cognitive Linguistics, language is regarded as: a) a cognitive mechanism that encodes and transfers a great amount of information; b) an integral part of cognition that represents different types of knowledge structures; c) a mental phenomenon that provides access to the conceptual system of the human; d) a tool of processing, storing and transferring information. It focuses on the processes of conceptualization, categorization and interpretation of the world information, knowledge structures and their verbal representations. The notion of “concept” is considered to be one of the main notions of Cognitive Linguistics and Linguoculturology. From the positions of Cognitive Linguistics “concept” is regarded as a complex mental unit, a means of representation of knowledge structures, a multifold cognitive structure, an operational unit of memory (Kubryakova E.S., Demyankov V.Z., Boldyrev N.N., Alefirenko N.F., Sternin I.A.). Cognitive linguists argue that concept is a part of our general knowledge about the world, a unit of the conceptual system reflecting the human cognitive activity. From the perspectives of linguoculturology “concept” is defined as a basic unit of culture, its core; a mental, cultural and nationally specific unit characterized by an array of emotional, expressive and evaluative components; a constituent part of the national conceptosphere (Stepanov Yu.S., Arutyunova N.D., Karasik V.I., Slyshkin G.G., Vorkachyov S.G., Pimenova M.V.). A distinctive feature of a linguocultural concept, as many researchers assert, is its evaluative or axiological component (Воркачёв, 2007, p. 6). Concept is a linguistic and mental structure, the research of which requires linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge, including, first of all, knowledge of the socio-cultural context and axiological values of a certain culture.

The next linguistic science that is connected with Linguoculturology is Country Studies. A. N. Schukin defines Country Studies as country-oriented linguistics, studying a foreign language in comparison with the native (Щукин, 2003). The term “Country Studies (Лингвострановедение)” was first used in the works “Лингвистическая проблематика страноведения в преподавании русского языка иностранцам” and “Язык и культура: лингвострановедение в преподавании русского языка как иностранного” by E.M. Vereschagin and G.V. Kostomarov (1971, 1973). These works were concerned with the use of cross-cultural phenomena in the process of learning a language and methods of acquainting students with a new culture. Later, it was interpreted as a methodological discipline that presents information about the national and cultural specifics of verbal communication of a native speaker in order to ensure the communicative competence of students learning Russian (Прохоров, 1996). So, the main aim of this discipline is to provide communicative competence in the process of intercultural communication. In other words, the main distinction between Linguoculturology and Country Studies lies in the fact that the latter is an applied and didactic discipline.

Another discipline that is closely connected with Linguoculturology is Text Linguistics. Relationships between language and culture are most clearly seen in the fictional text which by its very nature is considered to be one of the forms of culture. A fictional text transmitting sociocultural information, explicates the author’s conceptual world picture and introduces human feelings and culture into it. The shared features between text and culture are as follows: a) both text and culture contain objective and subjective, logical and emotional elements; b) both text and culture are meant to be interpreted. The above said testifies to the fact that there are close links between Text Linguistics and Linguoculturology (Ashurova, Galieva, 2016).

External interdisciplinary links of Linguoculturology can be observed in its close relations with such disciplines as History, Sociology, Anthropology, Culturology, Philosophy, Theology. etc. It is conditioned by the fact that deep semantics of culturally-marked linguistic units cannot be investigated without taking into account historical, religious, social, etc, factors.

So, Cultural linguistics raises a lot of theoretical and practical issues, an adequate consideration of which requires an interdisciplinary approach. In other words, linguocultural researches should be done at the crossroad of many disciplines, both linguistic and non-linguistic.

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