The function of language as a scientific concept is a practical manifestation of the essence of language, the realization of its purpose in the system of social phenomena, the specific action of language, due to its very nature, something without which language cannot exist, just as matter does not exist without movement.

Communicative and cognitive functions are basic. They are almost always present in speech activity, therefore they are sometimes called language functions, in contrast to other, not so mandatory, speech functions.

The Austrian psychologist, philosopher and linguist Karl Buhler, describing in his book "Theory of Language" the various directions of the signs of the language, defines 3 main functions of the language:

) The function of expression, or expressive function, when the state of the speaker is expressed.

) The function of calling, addressing the listener, or appellative function. 3) The function of presentation, or representative, when one says or tells something to another.

Functions of the language according to the Reformed. There are other points of view on the functions performed by the language, for example, as Reformatsky A.A. understood them. 1) Nominative, that is, the words of the language can name things and phenomena of reality. 2) Communicative; proposals serve this purpose. 3) Expressive, thanks to it is expressed emotional condition speaker. Within the framework of the expressive function, one can also single out a deictic (pointing) function that combines some elements of the language with gestures.

Communicative function Language is connected with the fact that language is primarily a means of communication between people. It allows one individual - the speaker - to express his thoughts, and the other - the perceiver - to understand them, that is, to somehow react, take note, change his behavior or his mental attitudes accordingly. The act of communication would not be possible without language.

Communication means communication, exchange of information. In other words, language arose and exists primarily so that people can communicate.

The communicative function of the language is carried out due to the fact that the language itself is a system of signs: it is simply impossible to communicate in another way. And the signs, in turn, are designed to transmit information from person to person.

Linguistic scholars, following the prominent researcher of the Russian language, Academician Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov (1895-1969), sometimes define the main functions of the language in a slightly different way. They distinguish: - a message, that is, a presentation of some thought or information; - influence, that is, an attempt to change the behavior of the perceiving person with the help of verbal persuasion;

communication, that is, the exchange of messages.

Message and influence are related to monologue speech, and communication - to dialogic speech. Strictly speaking, these are, indeed, functions of speech. If we talk about the functions of the language, then the message, and the impact, and communication are the implementation of the communicative function of the language. The communicative function of language is more comprehensive in relation to these functions of speech.

Linguistic scientists also single out sometimes, and not unreasonably, the emotional function of language. In other words, signs, sounds of language often serve people to convey emotions, feelings, states. As a matter of fact, it is with this function, most likely, that the human language began. Moreover, in many social or herd animals, it is the transmission of emotions or states (anxiety, fear, appeasement) that is the main way of signaling. With emotionally colored sounds, exclamations, animals notify their fellow tribesmen about the found food or the approaching danger. In this case, it is not information about food or danger that is transmitted, but the emotional state of the animal, corresponding to satisfaction or fear. And even we understand this emotional language of animals - we can quite understand the alarmed barking of a dog or the purring of a contented cat.

Of course, the emotional function human language much more complex, emotions are conveyed not so much by sounds as by the meaning of words and sentences. Nevertheless, this ancient function of language probably dates back to the pre-symbolic state of human language, when sounds did not symbolize, did not replace emotions, but were their direct manifestation.

However, any manifestation of feelings, direct or symbolic, also serves to communicate, transfer it to fellow tribesmen. In this sense, the emotional function of language is also one of the ways to implement the more comprehensive communicative function of language. So, various types of implementation of the communicative function of the language are message, influence, communication, as well as the expression of feelings, emotions, states.

cognitive, or cognitive, The function of language (from the Latin cognition - knowledge, cognition) is connected with the fact that human consciousness is realized or fixed in the signs of the language. Language is a tool of consciousness, reflects the results of human mental activity.

Scientists have not yet come to an unambiguous conclusion about what is primary - language or thinking. Perhaps the question itself is wrong. After all, words not only express our thoughts, but the thoughts themselves exist in the form of words, verbal formulations, even before their oral pronunciation. At least, no one has yet been able to fix the pre-verbal, pre-linguistic form of consciousness. Any images and concepts of our consciousness are realized by ourselves and those around us only when they are clothed in a linguistic form. Hence the idea of ​​the inseparable connection between thinking and language.

The connection between language and thought has been established even with the help of physiometric evidence. The subject was asked to think over some difficult task, and while he was thinking, special sensors took data from the speech apparatus of a silent person (from the larynx, tongue) and detected the nervous activity of the speech apparatus. That is, the mental work of the subjects "out of habit" was reinforced by the activity of the speech apparatus.

Curious evidence is provided by observations of the mental activity of polyglots - people who can speak well in many languages. They admit that in each case they "think" in one language or another. An illustrative example of the intelligence officer Stirlitz from the famous movie - after many years of work in Germany, he caught himself "thinking on German».

The cognitive function of language not only allows you to record the results of mental activity and use them, for example, in communication. It also helps to understand the world. A person's thinking develops in the categories of language: realizing new concepts, things and phenomena for himself, a person names them. And in doing so, he organizes his world. This function of the language is called nominative (naming objects, concepts, phenomena).

nominative the function of language follows directly from the cognitive one. Known must be called, given a name. Nominative function associated with the ability of language signs to symbolically designate things. The ability of words to symbolically replace objects helps us create our second world - separate from the first, physical world. The physical world does not lend itself well to our manipulations. You don't move mountains with your hands. But the second, symbolic world - it is completely ours. We take it with us wherever we want and do whatever we want with it.

There is an important difference between the world of physical realities and our symbolic world, which reflects the physical world in the words of the language. The world, symbolically reflected in words, is a known, mastered world. The world is known and mastered only when it is named. The world without our names is alien, like a distant unknown planet, there is no man in it, human life is impossible in it.

The name allows you to fix what is already known. Without a name, any known fact of reality, any thing would remain in our minds as a one-time accident. Naming words, we create our own - understandable and convenient picture of the world. Language gives us canvas and paints. It is worth noting, however, that not everything, even in the known world, has a name. For example, our body - we "face" with it daily. Every part of our body has a name. And what is the name of the part of the face between the lip and nose, if there is no mustache? No way. There is no such name. What is the top of the pear called? What is the name of the pin on the belt buckle that fixes the length of the belt? Many objects or phenomena seem to be mastered by us, used by us, but do not have names. Why is the nominative function of the language not implemented in these cases?

This is the wrong question. The nominative function of the language is still implemented, just in a more sophisticated way - through description, not naming. With words, we can describe anything, even if there are no separate words for this. Well, those things or phenomena that do not have their own names simply “did not deserve” such names. This means that such things or phenomena are not so significant in the everyday life of the people that they were given their own name (like the same collet pencil). In order for an object to receive a name, it is necessary for it to enter into public use, to step over a certain “threshold of significance”. Until some time, it was still possible to get by with a random or descriptive name, but from now on it is no longer possible - a separate name is needed. The act of naming is of great importance in a person's life. When we encounter something, we first of all name it. Otherwise, we can neither comprehend what we meet ourselves, nor convey a message about it to other people. It was with the inventing of names that the biblical Adam began. Robinson Crusoe first of all called the rescued savage Friday. Travelers, botanists, zoologists of the times of great discoveries were looking for something new and gave this new name and description. Approximately the same is done by the type of activity and innovation manager. On the other hand, the name also determines the fate of the thing named.

accumulative the function of the language is connected with the most important purpose of the language - to collect and store information, evidence of human cultural activity. Language lives much longer than a person, and sometimes even longer than entire nations. The so-called dead languages that survived the peoples who spoke these languages. Nobody speaks these languages, except for specialists who study them. The most famous "dead" language is Latin. Due to the fact that for a long time it was the language of science (and earlier - the language of great culture), Latin is well preserved and quite common - even a person with a secondary education knows a few Latin sayings. Living or dead languages ​​keep the memory of many generations of people, the evidence of centuries. Even when oral tradition is forgotten, archaeologists can discover ancient writings and use them to reconstruct the events of bygone days. Over the centuries and millennia of mankind, a huge amount of information has been accumulated, produced and recorded by man on different languages peace.

All gigantic volumes of information produced by mankind exist in linguistic form. In other words, any fragment of this information can in principle be spoken and perceived by both contemporaries and descendants. This is the accumulative function of language, with the help of which mankind accumulates and transmits information both in modern times and in a historical perspective - along the relay race of generations.

Various researchers highlight many more important functions of the language. For example, language plays an interesting role in establishing or maintaining contacts between people. Returning from work with a neighbor in the elevator, you can say to him: “Something was out of season today, huh, Arkady Petrovich?” In fact, both you and Arkady Petrovich have just been outside and are well aware of the state of the weather. Therefore, your question has absolutely no information content, it is informationally empty. It performs a completely different function - phatic, that is, contact-establishing. By this rhetorical question, are you really once again confirm to Arkady Petrovich the good neighborly status of your relations and your intention to maintain this status. If you write down all your remarks in a day, then you will see that a considerable part of them are pronounced for this very purpose - not to convey information, but to confirm the nature of your relationship with the interlocutor. And what words are said at the same time - the second thing. This is the most important function of the language - to certify the mutual status of the interlocutors, to maintain certain relations between them. For a person, a social being, the phatic function of language is very important - it not only stabilizes people's attitude towards the speaker, but also allows the speaker himself to feel in society "their own". It is very interesting and revealing to analyze the implementation of the main functions of the language on the example of such a specific type of human activity as innovation.

Undoubtedly, innovative activity is impossible without the implementation of the communicative function of the language. Setting research tasks, working in a team, checking research results, setting implementation tasks and monitoring their implementation, simple communication in order to coordinate the actions of participants in the creative and work process - all these actions are unthinkable without the communicative function of the language. And it is in these actions that it is realized.

The cognitive function of language is of particular importance for innovation. Thinking work, highlighting key concepts, abstracting technological principles, analyzing oppositions and contiguity phenomena, fixing and analyzing an experiment, translating engineering tasks into a technological and implementation plane - all these intellectual actions are impossible without the participation of the language, without the implementation of its cognitive function.

And language solves special problems when we are talking about fundamentally new technologies that do not have a precedent, that is, they do not have, respectively, operational, conceptual names. In this case, the innovator acts as the Demiurge, the mythical creator of the Universe, who establishes connections between objects and comes up with completely new names for both objects and connections. In this work, the nominative function of the language is realized. And the further life of his innovations depends on how literate and skillful an innovator will be. Will his followers and implementers understand it or not? If new names and descriptions of new technologies do not take root, then the technologies themselves are likely not to take root either. No less important is the accumulative function of the language, which ensures the work of the innovator twice: firstly, it provides him with the knowledge and information accumulated by his predecessors, and secondly, it accumulates his own results in the form of knowledge, experience and information. Actually, in a global sense, the accumulative function of language ensures the scientific, technical and cultural progress of mankind, since it is thanks to it that every new knowledge, every bit of information is firmly established on a wide foundation of knowledge obtained by its predecessors. And this grandiose process does not stop for a minute.

language communication cognitive dialogic

The subject of phonetics. Aspects of the study of speech sounds and sound units of the language. Phonology. Phonetics (from other Greek phone sound, voice) is the science of the sound material of a language, the use of this material in meaningful units of language and speech, and history. changes in this material and in the methods of its use. Sounds and other sound units (syllables) and phenomena (stress, intonation) are studied by phonetics from different aspects: 1) with "." their physical (acoustic) features 2) with "." work, production by the person who uttered them. and auditory perception, i.e. in biological aspect 3) with "." their use. in the language, their role in ensuring the functioning of the language as a means of communication.

The last aspect, cat. can be called functional, stood out in a special region-t-phonology, cat. yavl. an inseparable part and organizing core of phonetics.
^ 10. Acoustic. aspect of the study of speech sounds.

Every sound in speech oscillating motion transmitted through elastic. environment (air) and perceive. hearing. This is fluctuation. movement is characterized by def. acoustic cv-you, review. cat. and is acoustic. aspect.

If the vibrations are uniform, periodic, then the sound is called a tone, if unequal, non-periodic, then noise. Vowel-tones, deaf. acc.-noises, in sonatas tone prevails over noise, in a call. noisy - noise over tone.

Sounds character. height, hovering on the frequency of oscillations (the more oscillations, the higher the sound), and the force depending on the amplitude of the oscillations. Naib. important for language yavl. timbre difference, i.e. their specific coloration. It is the timbre that distinguishes from a, etc. Spec. the timbre of each sound is created by the resonant characteristics. Spectrum - decomposition of sound into tones with selection of frequency concentration bands (formants)
^ 11. The biological aspect of the study of speech sounds. The device of the speech apparatus and the functions of its parts.

The biological aspect is subdivided into pronunciation and perceptual.

Pronunciation- to pronounce this or that sound it is necessary: ​​1) def. an impulse sent from the motor center of speech (Broca's area) head. brain, find. in the 3rd frontal gyrus of the left hemisphere 2) transmission of this impulse along the nerves to the organs, performed. this command 3) in large. cases-difficult work of the respiratory apparatus (lungs, bronchi and trachea) + diaphragm and the entire chest. cells 4) difficult. the work of the pronunciation organs in narrow. sense (ligaments, tongue, lips, palatine curtain, pharyngeal walls, movement of the lower jaw) - articulation.

^ Pronunciation functions. organs( divided into assets. and passive.)

2) supraglottic cavities (cavity of the pharynx, mouth, nose) perform functions. a movable resonator that creates resonator tones. When images. according to an obstacle (gap, bow).

3) language is able to take different positions. Changes the degree of lifting, is pulled back, compressed into a ball in the rear. parts, served with the whole mass forward, approaching decomp. passive organs (sky, alvioli), forming either a bow or a gap. The tongue creates the phenomenon of palatalization.

4) lips (especially the lower one) - protruding forward and rounding, lengthen the total. the volume of the cavity, change its shape, creating labialized sounds; when pronouncing labial consonants. create an obstacle (labio-labial occlusive and fissured, labio-tooth fissured).

5) palatine curtain - takes a raised position, closing the passage into the nasal cavity, or, conversely, falls, connecting the nasal resonator.

6) tongue - when pronouncing a burry consonant

7) the back wall of the pharynx - when pron. pharyngeal acc. (English h).
^ 12. Articulatory (anatomical and physiological) classification of speech sounds (vowels and consonants).

1. vowels and consonants. when pronouncing. ch. there are no obstacles for air, they have no def. places of education, typical common. muscle tension pron. apparatus and relation. weak air flow. acc.-an obstacle arises, def. place image., muscular tension in the place image. barriers and stronger air. jet.

2. vowels according to the work of the tongue - a series (front, back, mixed + more fractional divisions), the degree of elevation of the tongue (open and closed ch.) Vowels according to the work of the lips - ogubl. and indestructible According to the work of the palatine curtain - non-nasal, nasal

In longitude, long and short.

4.Accord. according to the method arr. noise, by the nature of the barrier, are stop (explosive (n, t), affricates (s), implosive (there is neither an explosion, nor a transition to a gap, the pronunciation ends with a bow (m, n))), slot, trembling.

5.Accord. by actively articulating org.-labial (both lips, only the lower one), anterior lingual (active separate sections of the anterior part of the tongue), middle language, back language, uvular, pharyngeal, guttural.

6.Dr. signs according to - palatalization, velarization, labilization.

Phonemes –these are the minimum units of the sound structure of a language that perform in given language a certain function: they serve to fold and distinguish between the material shells of significant units of the language - morphemes, words.
Some functions of phonemes are already named in the definition. In addition, scientists call several more functions. So to the main functions of the phoneme include the following:

1. constitutive (building) function;

2. distinctive (significative, distinctive) function;

3. perceptual function (identifying, that is, the function of perception);

4. delimitative function (delimiting, that is, capable of separating the beginnings and ends of morphemes and words).

As already mentioned, phonemes are one-sided units that have a plan of expression (exponent - according to Maslov), while they are not meaningful, although, according to L.V. Bondarko, phonemes are potentially associated with meaning: they refer to semantics. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that there are one-phonemic words or morphemes, for example, prepositions, endings, etc.
For the first time, the concept of a phoneme was introduced into linguistics by the Russian scientist I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay. Using the term used by the French. linguist L. Ave in the meaning of "sound of speech", he connects the concept of a phoneme with its function in a morpheme. The doctrine of the phoneme was further developed in the works of N. V. Krushevsky, a student of I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay. A great contribution to the development of this issue was made by N. S. Trubetskoy, a St. Petersburg scientist, in the 20s of the twentieth century. emigrated abroad.

Communicative The function of language is related to the fact that language is primarily a means of communication between people. The communicative function of language is carried out due to the fact that language itself is a system of signs. Various kinds The implementation of the communicative function of the language is the message, impact, communication, as well as the expression of feelings, emotions, states. Provides social connections, life in society.

Cognitive (cognitive). The verbal form of thinking is the main one. It serves as a means of forming and expressing thoughts. Speaking means expressing your thoughts. Thoughts are formed through language. The main form of thinking is linguistic, verbal. But there are other forms of thinking - figurative, objective. The cognitive function of language not only allows you to record the results of mental activity and use them, for example, in communication. It also helps to understand the world.

Cognitive language function. Language in cognition acts in two aspects:

The organ of thinking is the ability to create concepts, new words, use the methods of thinking.

Means of storage and transmission of information:

Knowledge library - information contained in dictionaries, grammars, textbooks, etc.

Library of texts - all information, oral and written messages created in a given language.

Nominative function language follows directly from the cognitive. the ability of language signs to symbolically designate things. Sometimes it is realized through description, not naming.

The nominative function names objects and phenomena.

Language functions: phatic, regulative, conative.

Regulatory language function. Theory of speech acts. In messages focused on the addressee, the function of regulating his behavior comes to the fore (by inducing action, answering a question, by prohibiting action, by providing information in order to change the addressee's intentions to perform a certain action, etc.) Jacobson has this the function is called differently: conative (eng. - the ability to volitional movement) or appellative (lat. address, call, incline to action); sometimes it is also called an invocative or volitional (lat. will, desire, wanting) function.

phatic(contact-settable) function. The goal is to establish contact, make acquaintance, continue it. The phatic function is mainly realized in greetings, congratulations, and the ability to conduct secular conversation.

Conative the function of speech is an expression in the speech of the speaker of his installation on the addressee (listener), the desire to influence him, to form a certain nature of the relationship.

Language functions: emotive, aesthetic, magical, metalinguistic.

emotive language function. It manifests itself if the subjective attitude to what is being said is directly expressed in the statement, that is, the main goal of this message is to be emotionally realized. The emotional effect is realized with the help of: intonations, interjections of speech, the use of words with connotations.

Connotation is an additional emotional evaluation in the meaning of words.

A denotation is the subject meaning of a word. The denotation indicates what the word means.

aesthetic(poetic, prosaic) function. Function associated with attentive attitude to a message for the sake of the message itself. Features of this function: it destroys the automatism of everyday speech, introduces words that do not lie on the surface of speech consciousness, so speech becomes bright, fresh, unpredictable.

magical(spell) function. it special case relative function with the difference that the addressee is not people, but higher power. The manifestation of this function is taboo, prayers, oaths, vows. Non-conventional interpretation of a linguistic sign, according to which the word (the name of the thing) is merged with the thing.

Metalinguistic(language comment) function. Associated with any difficulties in communication when verbal commentary is required.

Methods of linguistics

Method is a way of cognition and interpretation of any phenomenon of reality. In a narrow sense, a method is a system of research methods and procedures that contribute to the purposeful study of objects from one point of view or another. In linguistics, the object learning- language in a variety of concrete historical forms. 2 types of methods - logical (analytical, deductive ...) historical methods (comparative historical, field, survey) Linguistics borrows some methods from other sciences - structural method (distributive, oppositional) Distributive analysis method linguo research, in which the classification of language units and the study of their properties is carried out solely on the basis of the distribution of the units in question in the speech stream. Opposite analysis is a method of linguistic research, in this method language is considered as a system of mutually opposed elements. Methodology - the inclusion of a particular research technique in the research procedure. Distinguish between the method of observation, the method of generalizing units into a class, the method of modeling, the experimental method, etc. Aspects of the methodology - the studied aspects of the language - the functional properties of the language.

Language methods: Descriptive method applied to one language - methodological-synchronous analysis - characterization language at this stage of its development. Applies to a specific language. The basis of the descriptive technique method - observation, selection of language units, bringing them together. We have a clear idea of ​​the chosen subject of study. It gives us systematization, classification, characterization. The initial stage is the collection of materials, cataloging, etc.

Comparative historical method. - the study of the kinship of languages ​​​​and their development.

Comparative or typological method - for comparing unrelated languages.

Statistical method - for dictionaries, machine translation (in applied linguistics)

Experimental method - used to study the formation and perception of speech.

Continuation. Beginning in No. 42/2001. Printed in abbreviation

11. COMMUNICATION FUNCTION

The most important function of language is communicative. Communication means communication, exchange of information. In other words, language arose and exists primarily so that people can communicate.

Let us recall the two definitions of language given above: as a system of signs and as a means of communication. It makes no sense to oppose them to each other: these are, one might say, two sides of the same coin. Language also carries out its communicative function due to the fact that it is a system of signs: it is simply impossible to communicate in another way. And the signs, in turn, are designed to transmit information from person to person.

Actually, what does information mean? Does any text (recall: it is a realization of a language system in the form of a sequence of characters) carry information?

Obviously not. Here I am, passing by people in white coats, by chance I hear: "The pressure has dropped to three atmospheres." So what? Three atmospheres - is it a lot or a little? Should I rejoice or, say, run away to hell?

Another example. Having opened the book, we come across, let’s say, the following passage: “Destruction of the hypothalamus and the upper part of the pituitary stalk as a result of neoplastic or granulomatous infiltration can lead to the development of the clinical picture of ND... In a pathoanatomical study, the developmental deficiency of supraoptic neurons of the hypothalamus was less common than paraventricular; a reduced neurohypophysis was also identified. Sounds like a foreign language, doesn't it? Perhaps the only thing we can take away from this text is that this book is not for us, but for specialists in the relevant field of knowledge. For us, it does not carry information.

Third example. Is the statement “Volga flows into the Caspian Sea” informative for me, an adult? No. I know it well. This is well known to everyone. Nobody doubts it. It is no coincidence that this statement serves as an example of banal, trivial, hackneyed truths: it is of no interest to anyone. It is not informative.

Information is transmitted in space and time. In space, it means from me to you, from person to person, from one people to another... In time, it means from yesterday to today, from today to tomorrow... And "day" here must not be understood literally , but figuratively, in a generalized way: information is stored and transmitted from century to century, from millennium to millennium. (The invention of writing, printing, and now the computer has made a revolution in this matter.) Thanks to language, the continuity of human culture is carried out, the accumulation and assimilation of the experience developed by previous generations takes place. But this will be discussed further below. In the meantime, let's note: a person can communicate in time and ... with himself. Really: why do you need a notebook with names, addresses, birthdays? It was you "yesterday" who sent a message to yourself "today" in tomorrow. And notes, diaries? Without relying on his memory, a person gives information "for preservation" to the language, or rather, to its representative - the text. He communicates with himself in time. Let me emphasize: in order to preserve oneself as a person, a person must communicate - this is a form of his self-affirmation. And in extreme cases, in the absence of interlocutors, he must communicate at least with himself. (This situation is familiar to people who have been cut off from society for a long time: prisoners, travelers, hermits.) Robinson in the famous novel by D. Defoe, until he meets Friday, begins to talk with a parrot - this is better than going crazy from loneliness. ..

We have already said: the word is also, in a certain sense, the deed. Now, in relation to the communicative function of language, this idea can be clarified. Let's take the simplest case - an elementary act of communication. One person says something to another: asks him, orders, advises, warns ... What dictated these speech actions? Concern for the welfare of your neighbor? Not only. Or at least not always. Usually the speaker has some personal interests in mind, and this is quite natural, such is human nature. For example, he asks the interlocutor to do something, instead of doing it himself. For him, in this way, the deed, as it were, turns into a word, into speech. Neuropsychologists say: talking man must first of all suppress, slow down the excitation of some centers in his brain, responsible for movements, for actions (B.F. Porshnev). Speech turns out deputy actions. Well, is the second person the interlocutor (or, in other words, the listener, the addressee)? He himself, perhaps, does not need what he will do at the request of the speaker (or the reasons and grounds for this action are not entirely clear), and nevertheless he will fulfill this request, turn the word into a real deed. But in this you can see the beginnings of the division of labor, the fundamental principles of human society! This is how the largest American linguist Leonard Bloomfield characterizes the use of language. Language, he said, allows one person to perform an action (act, reaction) where another person feels a need (stimulus) for this action.

So, it is worth agreeing with the idea: communication, communication through language is one of the most important factors that “created” humanity.

12. THOUGHT FUNCTION

But a person who speaks is a person who thinks. And the second function of language, closely related to the communicative one, is the function mental(in other words - cognitive, from lat. cognition- 'knowledge'). Often they even ask: what is more important, what is more primary - communication or thinking? Perhaps this is not the way to put the question: these two functions of language determine each other. Speaking means expressing your thoughts. But, on the other hand, these thoughts themselves are formed in our head with the help of language. And if we remember that in the environment of animals, language is “already” used for communication, and thinking as such is not “yet” here, then we can come to the conclusion about the primacy of the communicative function. But it's better to say this: the communicative function educates, “cultivates” the mental. How should this be understood?

One little girl put it this way: “How do I know what I think? I'll tell you, then I'll know." Truly, the truth speaks through the mouth of a child. We are in touch here with major problem formation (and formulation) of thought. It is worth repeating once again: the thought of a person at his birth is based not only on universal content categories and structures, but also on the categories of a unit of a particular language. Of course, this does not mean that, apart from verbal thinking, there are no other forms of rational activity. There is also figurative thinking, familiar to any person, but especially developed among professionals: artists, musicians, artists ... there is technical thinking - the professional dignity of designers, mechanics, draftsmen, and again, to one degree or another, not alien to all of us. There is, finally, objective thinking – we are all guided by it in a mass of everyday situations, from tying shoelaces to unlocking the front door... But the main form of thinking that unites all people in the vast majority of life situations is, of course, thinking linguistic, verbal.

It is another matter that words and other units of language appear in the course of mental activity in some “not their own” form, they are difficult to grasp, to single out (of course: we think much faster than we speak!), and our “inner speech” (this is a term introduced into science by the remarkable Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky) is fragmentary and associative. This means that the words here are represented by some of their “pieces” and they are connected to each other not in the same way as in ordinary “external” speech, but in addition, images are interspersed in the linguistic fabric of thought - visual, auditory, tactile, etc. P. It turns out that the structure of "inner" speech is much more complicated than the structure of "external" speech, accessible to observation. Yes it is. And yet the fact that it is based on the categories and units of a particular language is beyond doubt.

Confirmation of this was found in various experiments, especially actively carried out in the middle of our century. The subject was specially "puzzled" and while he - to himself - was thinking about some problem, his speech apparatus was examined from different angles. Either they shone through his pharynx and oral cavity with an X-ray machine, or with weightless sensors they removed the electric potential from his lips and tongue ... The result was the same: during mental (“dumb!”) activity, the human speech apparatus was in a state of activity. Some shifts, changes took place in it - in a word, work was going on!

Even more characteristic in this sense are the testimonies of polyglots, that is, people who are fluent in several languages. Usually they can easily determine at any given moment what language they are thinking in. (Moreover, the choice or change of the language on which the thought is based depends on the environment in which the polyglot is located, on the very subject of thought, etc.)

The famous Bulgarian singer Boris Hristov, who lived abroad for many years, considered it his duty to sing arias in the original language. He explained it this way: “When I speak Italian, I think in Italian. When I speak Bulgarian, I think in Bulgarian.” But one day at the performance of "Boris Godunov" - Hristov sang, of course, in Russian - the singer came up with some idea in Italian. And he unexpectedly continued the aria ... in Italian. The conductor was petrified. And the public (it was in London), thank God, did not notice anything ...

It is curious that among writers who speak several languages, authors who translate themselves are rarely found. The fact is that for a real creator to translate, say, a novel into another language means not only to rewrite it, but change mind, re-feel, write again, in accordance with a different culture, with a different "view of the world." Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, Nobel laureate, one of the founders of the theater of the absurd, created each of his pieces twice, first in French, then in English. But at the same time he insisted that we should talk about two different works. Similar arguments on this subject can also be found in Vladimir Nabokov, who wrote in Russian and English, and other "bilingual" writers. And Yu.N. Tynyanov once justified himself about the heavy style of some of his articles in the book “Archaists and Innovators”: “Language not only conveys concepts, but is also the course of their construction. Therefore, for example, the retelling of other people's thoughts is usually clearer than the retelling of one's own. And, consequently, the more original the thought, the more difficult it is to express it...

But the question arises by itself: if a thought in its formation and development is connected with the material of a particular language, then does it not lose its specificity, its depth when transmitted by means of another language? Is it then possible at all to translate from language to language, to communicate between peoples? I will answer this way: the behavior and thinking of people, with all their national coloring, obeys some universal, universal laws. And languages, with all their diversity, are also based on some general principles (some of which we have already observed in the section on the properties of the sign). So, in general, translation from language to language is, of course, possible and necessary. Well, some losses are inevitable. Just like acquisitions. Shakespeare in Pasternak's translation is not only Shakespeare, but also Pasternak. Translation, according to a well-known aphorism, is the art of compromise.

All of the above leads us to the conclusion: language is not just a form, a shell for thought, it is not even means thinking, but rather way. The very nature of the formation of mental units and their functioning largely depends on the language.

13. COGNITIVE FUNCTION

The third function of language is cognitive(its other name is accumulative, that is, accumulative). Most of what an adult knows about the world came to him with language, through language. He may never have been to Africa, but he knows that there are deserts and savannahs, giraffes and rhinos, the Nile River and Lake Chad ... He has never been to a smelter, but he has an idea about how iron is smelted, and perhaps about how steel is made from iron. A person can mentally travel in time, turn to the secrets of the stars or the microcosm - and he owes all this to language. His own experience gained by means of the senses constitutes an insignificant part of his knowledge.

How is it formed inner world human? What is the role of language in this process?

The main mental "tool" with which a person cognizes the world is concept. The concept is formed in the course of a person's practical activity due to the ability of his mind to abstract, generalize. (It is worth emphasizing: the lower forms of reflection of reality in consciousness - such as sensation, perception, representation, are also found in animals. A dog, for example, has an idea about its owner, about his voice, smell, habits, etc., but a generalized the dog does not have the concept of "owner", as well as "smell", "habit", etc.). This is a unit of logical thinking, the privilege of homo sapiens.

How is a concept formed? A person observes many phenomena of objective reality, compares them, identifies various features in them. Signs are unimportant, random, he “cuts off”, is distracted from them, and the essential signs add up, sum up - and a concept is obtained. For example, comparing various trees - tall and low, young and old, with a straight trunk and with a curved, deciduous and coniferous, shedding foliage and evergreen, etc., he singles out the following features as permanent and essential: a) these are plants (generic trait), b) perennial,
c) with a solid stem (trunk) and d) with branches forming a crown. This is how the concept of a “tree” is formed in the human mind, under which the whole variety of observed specific trees is summed up; it is fixed in the corresponding word: wood. The word is a typical, normal form of the concept's existence. (Animals have no words - and concepts, even if there were grounds for their emergence, have nothing to rely on, nothing to gain a foothold in ...)

Of course, some mental effort and probably a lot of time are needed to understand that, say, a chestnut tree under the window and a dwarf pine in a pot, an apple twig and a thousand-year-old sequoia somewhere in America are all "tree". But this is precisely the main path of human knowledge - from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the abstract.

Let's pay attention to the following series of Russian words: sadness, grieve, admire, education, passion, treatment, understand, disgusting, openly, reservedly, hate, treacherous, justice, adore... Is it possible to find something in common in their meanings? Difficult. Unless they all denote some abstract concepts: mental states, feelings, relationships, signs ... Yes, it is. But they also share the same story in a way. All of them are formed from other words with more specific - "material" - meanings. And, accordingly, the concepts behind them also rely on concepts of a lower level of generalization. sadness derived from bake(after all, sadness burns!); grieve- from bitter, bitterness; upbringing- from nourish, food; enthusiasm- from drag, drag(i.e. ‘drag along’); justice- from right(that is, ‘located on the right hand’), etc.

This is, in principle, the path of semantic evolution of all languages ​​of the world: generalized, abstract meanings grow in them on the basis of more concrete meanings, or, so to speak, mundane ones. However, in every nation, some areas of reality are divided in more detail than others. It is well known that in the languages ​​of the peoples inhabiting the Far North (Lapps, Eskimos), there are dozens of names for different types snow and ice (although there may not be a generalized name for snow at all). The Bedouin Arabs have dozens of names for different types of camels - depending on their breed, age, purpose, etc. It is clear that such a variety of names is caused by the conditions of life itself. Here is how the famous French ethnographer Lucien Levy-Bruhl wrote about the languages ​​​​of the indigenous inhabitants of Africa and America in the book “Primitive Thinking”: only in relation to all objects, whatever they may be, but also in relation to all movements, all actions, all states, all properties expressed by language). Therefore, the vocabulary of these "primitive" languages ​​must be distinguished by such richness, of which our languages ​​give only a very distant idea.

One should not only think that all this diversity is due exclusively to exotic living conditions or the unequal position of peoples on the ladder of human progress. And in languages ​​belonging to the same civilization, let's say European, one can find any number of examples of different classifications of the surrounding reality. So, in a situation in which a Russian would simply say leg(“Doctor, I hurt my leg”), the Englishman will have to choose whether to use the word leg or word foot- depending on which part of the leg is in question: from the thigh to the ankle or the foot. A similar difference is Das Bein and der Fu?- Presented in German. Next, we will say in Russian finger regardless of whether it is a toe or a finger. And for an Englishman or a German, this is "various" fingers, and each of them has its own name. The toe is called in English toe, finger on the hand - finger; in German - respectively die Zehe and der Finger; at the same time, however, the thumb has its own special name: thumb in English and der Daumen in German. Are these differences between fingers really that important? It seems to us, the Slavs, that there is still more in common ...

But in Russian, blue and blue colors are distinguished, and for a German or an Englishman, this difference looks as insignificant, secondary, as for us, say, the difference between red and burgundy: blue in English and blue in German, this is a single concept of “blue-blue” (see § 3). And it makes no sense to raise the question: which language is closer to the truth, to the real state of affairs? Each language is right, because it has the right to its own "vision of the world."

Even languages ​​that are very close, closely related, now and then reveal their "independence". For example, Russian and Belarusian are very similar to each other, they are blood brothers. However, in Belarusian there are no exact matches to Russian words communication(translated as adnosins, that is, strictly speaking, ‘relationships’, or as wear and tear, i.e. ‘intercourse’) and connoisseur(translated as connoisseur or how amatar, that is, ‘amateur’, but this is not quite the same thing) ... But it is difficult to translate from Belarusian into Russian shchyry(this is both ‘sincere’, and ‘real’, and ‘friendly’) or captivity('harvest'? 'success'? 'result'? 'efficiency'?)... And such words are typed into a whole dictionary.

Language, as we see, turns out to be a ready-made classifier of objective reality for a person, and this is good: it, as it were, lays the rails along which the train of human knowledge moves. But at the same time, the language imposes its classification system on all participants in this convention - it is also difficult to argue with this. If we were told from an early age that a finger on a hand is one thing, and a toe is completely different, then by adulthood we would probably already be convinced of the justice of just such a division of reality. And it would be nice if it was only about the fingers or about the limbs - we agree “without looking” with other, more important points of the “convention” that we sign.

In the late 60s, on one of the islands of the Philippine archipelago (in the Pacific Ocean), a tribe was discovered that lived in the conditions of the Stone Age and in complete isolation from the rest of the world. Representatives of this tribe (they called themselves tasadai) did not even suspect that, besides them, there are still intelligent beings on Earth. When scientists and journalists came to grips with the description of the Tasadai world, they were struck by one feature: in the language of the tribe there were no words at all like war, enemy, hate... Tasadai, in the words of one of the journalists, "learned to live in harmony and concord not only with nature, but also among themselves." Of course, this fact can be explained as follows: the original friendliness and goodwill of this tribe found its natural reflection in the language. But after all, the language did not stand aside from public life, it left its mark on the formation of the moral norms of this community: how could the newly minted tasadai learn about wars and murders? We have signed a different information "convention" with our languages...

So, language educates a person, forms his inner world - this is the essence of the cognitive function of language. And to appear given function maybe in the most unexpected specific situations.

The American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf gave such examples from his practice (he once worked as a fire safety engineer). In a warehouse that stores gasoline tanks, people behave carefully: do not make fire, do not click lighters ... However, the same people behave differently in a warehouse that is known to store empty (in English empty) gasoline tanks. Here they show carelessness, they can light a cigarette, etc. Meanwhile, empty gasoline tanks are much more explosive than full ones: gasoline vapors remain in them. Why do people behave so carelessly? Whorf asked himself. And he answered: because the word calms them, misleads them empty, which has several meanings (for example, such: 1) 'containing nothing (about vacuum)', 2) 'not containing something'...). And people unconsciously, as it were, substitute one meaning for another. A whole linguistic concept has grown out of such facts - the theory of linguistic relativity, which states that a person lives not so much in the world of objective reality, but in the world of language...

So, language can be the cause of misunderstandings, mistakes, delusions? Yes. We have already spoken about conservatism as the original property of a linguistic sign. The person who signed the "convention" is not very inclined to change it later. And that's why language classifications very often they diverge from scientific classifications (later and more accurate). For example, we divide the entire living world into animals and plants, but systematologists say that such a division is primitive and incorrect, because there are still at least fungi and microorganisms that cannot be attributed to either animals or plants. Our "everyday" understanding of what minerals, insects, berries are does not coincide with the scientific one - to be convinced of this, it is enough to look into the encyclopedic dictionary. Why are there private classifications! Copernicus proved in the 16th century that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and language still defends the previous point of view. After all, we say: "The sun rises, the sun sets ..." - and we do not even notice this anachronism.

However, one should not think that language only hinders the progress of human knowledge. On the contrary, he can actively contribute to its development. One of the largest Japanese politicians of our time, Daisaku Ikeda, believes that it was the Japanese language that was one of the main factors contributing to the rapid revival of post-war Japan: the role belongs to the Japanese language, the flexible word-formation mechanism contained in it, which allows you to instantly create and easily master that truly huge number of new words that we needed to assimilate the mass of concepts pouring in from outside. The French linguist Joseph Vandries once wrote about the same: “A flexible and mobile language, in which grammar is reduced to a minimum, shows thought in all its clarity and allows it to move freely; inflexible and ponderous language constrains thought. Leaving aside the controversial question of the role of grammar in the processes of cognition (what does “grammar is reduced to a minimum” mean in the above quote?), I hasten to reassure the reader: you should not worry about this or that particular language or be skeptical about its capabilities. In practice, each means of communication corresponds to its “view of the world” and satisfies the communicative needs of a given people with sufficient completeness.

14. NOMINATIVE FUNCTION

Another extremely important function of the language is nominative, or naming. In fact, we have already touched on it, reflecting in the previous paragraph on the cognitive function. The fact is that naming is an integral part of knowledge. A person, generalizing a mass of specific phenomena, digressing from their random signs and highlighting the essential ones, feels the need to consolidate the knowledge gained in the word. This is how the name comes about. If not for it, the concept would have remained an incorporeal, speculative abstraction. And with the help of a word, a person can, as it were, “stake out” the surveyed part of the surrounding reality, say to himself: “I already know this,” hang up a name plate and move on.

Therefore, the entire system of concepts that modern man, rests on a system of names. The easiest way to show this is with proper names. Let's try to throw out all proper names from the courses of history, geography, literature - all anthroponyms (this means the names of people: Alexander the Great, Columbus, Peter I, Moliere, Athanasius Nikitin, Saint-Exupery, Don Quixote, Tom Sawyer, Uncle Vanya...) and all toponyms (these are the names of localities: Galaxy, North Pole, Troy, City of the Sun, Vatican, Volga, Auschwitz, capitol hill, Black River...), what will be left of these sciences? Obviously, the texts will become meaningless, the person reading them will immediately lose their orientation in space and time.

But names are not only proper names, but also common nouns. Terminology of all sciences - physics, chemistry, biology, etc. are all names. atomic bomb and that one could not have been created if the ancient concept of “atom”* had not been replaced by new concepts - neutron, proton and other elementary particles, nuclear fission, chain reaction, etc. - and all of them were fixed in words!

There is a characteristic confession by the American scientist Norbert Wiener about how the scientific activity of his laboratory was hampered by the lack of an appropriate name for this line of research: it was not clear what the employees of this laboratory were doing. And only when Wiener’s book Cybernetics was published in 1947 (the scientist came up with this name, taking as a basis the Greek word meaning ‘pilot, helmsman’), the new science rushed forward with leaps and bounds.

So, the nominative function of language serves not only to orient a person in space and time, it goes hand in hand with the cognitive function, it participates in the process of cognition of the world.

But a person is by nature a pragmatist, he seeks, first of all, practical benefits from his affairs. This means that he will not name all the surrounding objects in a row, in the expectation that these names will someday come in handy. No, he uses the nominative function intentionally, selectively, naming first of all what is closest to him, most often and most importantly.

Recall, for example, the names of mushrooms in Russian: how much do we know them? White mushroom (boletus), boletus(in Belarus it is often called grandma), boletus (red-headed), mushroom, camelina, oiler, chanterelle, honey agaric, russula, volnushka... - at least a dozen will be typed. But these are all useful, edible mushrooms. And the inedible ones? Perhaps we only distinguish two types: fly agaric and toadstools(well, apart from some other false varieties: false mushrooms etc.). Meanwhile, biologists say that there are much more varieties of inedible mushrooms than edible ones! It’s just that a person doesn’t need them, they are uninteresting (except for narrow specialists in this field) - so why waste names and bother yourself?

From this follows one regularity. Every language must have gaps, that is, holes, empty spaces in the picture of the world. In other words, there must be something not named- something that a person (yet) is not important, does not need ...

Let's take a look in the mirror at our own familiar face and ask: what is this? Nose. And this? Lip. What is between the nose and lip? Mustache. Well, if there is no mustache - what is the name of this place? In response - a shrug of the shoulders (or the sly "Place between the nose and the lip"). Okay, one more question. What is this? Forehead. And this? back of the head. What is between the forehead and the back of the head? In reply: head. No, the head is everything as a whole, but what is the name of this part of the head, between the forehead and the back of the head? Few remember the name crown, most often the answer will be the same shrug ... Yes, something should not have a name.

And another consequence follows from what has been said. In order for an object to receive a name, it is necessary for it to enter into public use, to step over a certain “threshold of significance”. Until some time, it was still possible to get by with a random or descriptive name, but from now on it is no longer possible - a separate name is needed.

In this light, it is interesting, for example, to observe the development of the means (tools) of writing. Word history pen, pen, fountain pen, pencil etc. reflects the development of a "piece" of human culture, the formation of relevant concepts in the minds of a native speaker of the Russian language. I remember how the first felt-tip pens appeared in the USSR in the 1960s. Then they were still a rarity, they were brought from abroad, and the possibilities of their use were not yet entirely clear. Gradually, these objects began to be generalized into a special concept, but for a long time they did not receive their clear name. (There were names “plakar”, “fibrous pencil”, and there were variants in writing: felt-tip pen or felt-tip pen?) Today, a felt-tip pen is already a “settled” concept, firmly entrenched in the corresponding name. But quite recently, in the late 80s, new, somewhat excellent writing tools appeared. This, in particular, is an automatic pencil with an ultra-thin (0.5 mm) stylus, retractable by clicks to a certain length, then a ballpoint pen (again with an ultra-thin tip), which writes not with paste, but with ink, etc. What are their names? Yes, so far - in Russian - nothing. They can be characterized only descriptively: approximately as it is done in this text. They have not yet entered widely into everyday life, have not become a fact of mass consciousness, which means that for the time being it is possible to do without a special name.

The attitude of a person to a name is generally not easy.

On the one hand, over time, the name becomes attached, “sticks” to its subject, and in the head of a native speaker there is an illusion of the origin, “naturalness” of the name. The name becomes the representative, even the substitute, of the subject. (Even ancient people believed that the name of a person is internally connected with himself, is part of it. If, say, the name is harmed, then the person himself will suffer. Hence the prohibition, the so-called taboo, on the use of the names of close relatives.)

On the other hand, the participation of the name in the process of cognition leads to another illusion: "if you know the name, you know the subject." Suppose I know the word succulent– therefore, I know what it is. The same J.Vandries wrote well about this peculiar magic of the term: “To know the names of things means to have power over them ... To know the name of a disease is already half to cure it. We should not laugh at this primitive belief. It lives even in our time, since we attach importance to the form of diagnosis. "My head hurts, doctor." "It's cephalalgia." "My stomach is not working well." – “This is dyspepsia”... And the patients already feel better just because the representative of science knows the name of their secret enemy.”

Indeed, often in scientific discussions you become a witness of how disputes on the essence of the subject are replaced by a war of names, a confrontation of terminologies. The dialogue follows the principle: tell me what terms you use, and I will tell you which school (scientific direction) you belong to.

Generally speaking, the belief in the existence of a single correct name is more widespread than we realize. Here is what the poet said:

When we refine the language
And we will name the stone as it should,
He himself will tell you how it came to be,
What is its purpose and where is the reward.

When we find a star
Her only name is
She, with her planets,
Stepping out of silence and darkness...

(A.Aronov)

Isn't it true, it reminds the words of an old eccentric from a joke: “I can imagine everything, I can understand everything. I even understand how people discovered planets so far from us. I just can’t figure it out: how did they know their names?

Of course, do not overestimate the power of the name. And even more so, you can not put an equal sign between a thing and its name. Otherwise, it won’t take long to come to the conclusion that all our troubles stem from the wrong names, and as soon as we change the names, everything will immediately get better. Such a delusion, alas, also does not bypass a person. The desire for wholesale renaming is especially noticeable during periods of social upheaval. Cities and streets are renamed, instead of some military ranks others are introduced, the police become the police (or, in other countries, vice versa!), technical schools and institutes in the blink of an eye intersect into colleges and academies ... This is what the nominative function of language means, this is faith person in the title!

15. REGULATORY FUNCTION

Regulatory the function combines those cases of using the language when the speaker aims to directly influence the addressee: to induce him to some action or forbid him to do something, to force him to answer a question, etc. Wed statements such as: What time is it now? Do you want some milk? Please call me tomorrow. Everyone to the rally! I don't want to hear it again! You take my bag with you. No extra words needed. As can be seen from the above examples, the regulatory function has at its disposal a variety of lexical means and morphological forms ( special role the mood category plays here), as well as intonation, word order, syntactic constructions, etc.

I note that various kinds of motives - such as a request, an order, a warning, a ban, advice, persuasion, etc. - are not always formalized as such, expressed with the help of "own" language tools. Sometimes they act in someone else's guise, using language units that usually serve other purposes. Thus, a mother’s request to her son not to come home late can be expressed directly, using the form of the imperative (“Don’t come late today, please!”), Or she can disguise it as a question (“What time are you going to return?”), And also under reproach, warning, statement of fact, etc.; let's compare such statements as: “Yesterday you came late again...” (with a special intonation), “Look, now it gets dark early”, “Metro works until one, do not forget”, “I will be very worried”, etc. .

Ultimately, the regulatory function is aimed at creating, maintaining and regulating relationships in human microcollectives, that is, in the real environment in which a native speaker lives. Targeting the addressee makes it related to the communicative function (see § 11). Sometimes, together with the regulatory function, they also consider the function phatic*, or contact-setting. This means that a person always needs to enter into a conversation in a certain way (call out to the interlocutor, greet him, remind him of himself, etc.) and exit the conversation (say goodbye, thank you, etc.). But does establishing contact come down to an exchange of phrases like “Hello” - “Goodbye”? The phatic function is much wider in its scope, and therefore it is not surprising that it is difficult to distinguish it from the regulatory function.

Let's try to remember: what do we talk about during the day with others? What, is all this information vital for our well-being or directly affecting the behavior of the interlocutor? No, for the most part, these are conversations, it would seem, “about nothing”, about trifles, about what the interlocutor already knows: about the weather and about mutual acquaintances, about politics and football among men, about clothes and children women; now they have been supplemented with comments on television series ... There is no need to treat such monologues and dialogues ironically and arrogantly. In fact, these are not talks about the weather and not about “rags”, but about each other, about us, about people. In order to occupy and then maintain a certain place in the micro-collective (and such is the family, circle of friends, production team, housemates, even companions in the compartment, etc.), a person must necessarily talk with other members of this group.

Even if you happen to be together with someone in a moving elevator, you may feel some embarrassment and turn your back: the distance between you and your companion is too small to pretend that you do not notice each other, and start a conversation too in general, it doesn’t make sense - there’s nothing to talk about, and it’s too short to go ... Here is a subtle observation in the story of the modern Russian prose writer V. Popov: “In the mornings, we all went up in the elevator together ... The elevator creaked, went up, and everyone was silent. Everyone understood that it was impossible to stand like that, that they had to say something, say something faster, in order to defuse this silence. But it was too early to talk about work, and no one knew what to talk about. And there was such silence in this elevator, even jump out on the go.

In collectives, on the other hand, the establishment and maintenance of speech contacts is the most important means of regulating relations. Here, for example, you meet your neighbor Maria Ivanovna on the landing and tell her: “Good morning, Marya Ivanna, something is early today ...”. This phrase has a double bottom. Behind its “external” meaning is read: “I remind you, Maria Ivanovna, I am your neighbor and would like to continue to remain on good terms with you.” There is nothing hypocritical, deceitful in such greetings, these are the rules of communication. And all these are very important, simply necessary phrases. Figuratively, we can say this: if today you don’t praise the new beads on your girlfriend, and she, in turn, tomorrow doesn’t take an interest in how your relationship with a certain mutual acquaintance is developing, then in a couple of days a slight chill will run between you, and in a month you may lose your girlfriend altogether... Do you want to experiment? Take my word for it.

Let me emphasize: communication with relatives, friends, neighbors, companions, colleagues is necessary not only to maintain certain relationships in micro-collectives. It is also important for the person himself - for his self-affirmation, for the realization of him as a person. The fact is that the individual plays in society not only a certain permanent social role (for example, "housewife", "student", "scientist", "miner", etc.), but all the time trying on different social " masks”, for example: “guest”, “passenger”, “sick”, “advisor”, etc. And all this "theater" exists mainly thanks to the language: for each role, for each mask, there are speech means.

Of course, the regulative and phatic functions of language are aimed not only at improving relations between members of the microcollective. Sometimes a person, on the contrary, resorts to them for "repressive" purposes - in order to alienate, alienate the interlocutor from himself. In other words, the tongue is used not only for mutual “strokes” (this is the term accepted in psychology), but also for “pricks” and “blows”. In the latter case, we are dealing with expressions of threat, insults, curses, curses, etc. And again: the social convention - that's who establishes what is considered rude, insulting, humiliating for the interlocutor. In the Russian-speaking criminal world, one of the most powerful, deadly insults is “goat!”. And in the aristocratic society of the century before last, words scoundrel was enough to challenge the offender to a duel. Today, the language norm is “softening” and the level of the repressive function is raised quite high. This means that a person perceives as offensive only very strong means ...

In addition to the language functions discussed above - communicative, mental, cognitive, nominative and regulatory (to which we "added" phatic), one can single out other socially significant roles of language. In particular, ethnic the function means that the language unites the ethnos (people), it helps to form national self-consciousness. aesthetic function turns text into a work of art: this is the scope of creativity, fiction- It has already been discussed before. Emotionally expressive function allows a person to express in language his feelings, sensations, experiences ... magical(or incantation) function is realized in special situations when the language is endowed with a kind of superhuman, "otherworldly" power. Examples are incantations, deifications, oaths, curses, and some other types of ritual texts.

And all this is not yet the full “terms of duty” of the language in human society.

Tasks and exercises

1. Determine which language functions are implemented in the following statements.

a) Kryzhovka (sign on the building of the railway station).
b) Accounting (placard on the shop door).
c) Hello. My name is Sergey Alexandrovich (teacher entering class).
d) An equilateral rectangle is called a square. (from textbook).
e) “I won’t come to training on Wednesday, I won’t be able to.” - "You must Fedya, you must" (from a conversation on the street).
f) May you fail, you damned drunkard! (From apartment squabble).
g) I learned the science of parting In the simple-haired complaints of the night (O. Mandelstam).

2. In one film "from foreign life" the hero asks the maid:

Is Mrs. Mayons at home?
And gets the answer:
Your mother is in the living room.

Why does the questioner call his mother so formally, "Mrs. Mayons"? And why does the maid choose a different name in her answer? What language functions are implemented in this dialog?

3. What language functions are implemented in the following dialogue from V. Voinovich's story "The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of a Soldier Ivan Chonkin"?

They were silent. Then Chonkin looked at the clear sky and said:
– Today, you can see everything, there will be a bucket.
“There will be a bucket if it doesn’t rain,” Lesha said.
“It doesn’t rain without clouds,” Chonkin remarked. - And it happens that there are clouds, but there is still no rain.
“It happens that way,” Lesha agreed.
On this they parted.

4. Comment on the following dialogue between two characters in M. Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

- ...But if a person comes up to you and asks: "Parlet vu français?" – what do you think?
- I won’t think anything, I’ll take it and crack it on the head ...

Which language features "do not work" in this case?

5. Very often a person starts a conversation with words like listen (you), you know (you know) or by addressing the interlocutor by name, although there is no one next to him, so this appeal also does not make much sense. Why is the speaker doing this?

6. Physics teaches: the primary colors of the solar spectrum seven: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, purple. Meanwhile, the simplest sets of paints or pencils include six colors, and these are other components: black, brown, red, yellow, green, blue. (With the "expansion" of the set, blue, orange, purple, lemon and even white appear ...) Which of these pictures of the world is more reflected in the language - "physical" or "everyday"? What linguistic facts can confirm this?

7. List the names of the fingers on the hand. Do all names come to your mind equally quickly? What is it connected with? Now list the names of the toes. What is the conclusion from this? How does this fit in with the nominative function of language?

8. Show on yourself where the person's lower leg, ankle, ankle, wrist are located. Was this task easy for you? What conclusion follows from this about the relationship between the world of words and the world of things?

9. The following law operates in the language: the more often a word is used in speech, the wider its meaning in principle (or, in other words, the more meanings it has). How can this rule be justified? Show its effect on the example of the following Russian nouns denoting parts of the body.

Head, forehead, heel, shoulder, wrist, cheek, collarbone, hand, foot, leg, waist, temple.

10. A tall and large person in Russian can be called something like this: atlas, giant, giant, bogatyr, giant, colossus, Gulliver, Hercules, Antey, big man, tall, ambal, elephant, closet... Imagine being tasked with coming up with a name for a new ready-to-wear store large sizes(from the 52nd and above). What name(s) would you choose and why?

11. Try to determine what concepts historically underlie the meanings of the following Russian words: guarantee, antediluvian, literally, proclaim, disgusting, restrained, liberated, collate, distribution, inaccessible, patronage, confirmation. What pattern can be seen in the semantic evolution of these words?

12. Below is a number of Belarusian nouns that do not have one-word matches in Russian (according to I. Shkraba's dictionary “Imaginary words”). Translate these words into Russian. How to explain their "originality"? To what function of the language (or to what functions) does the presence of such - non-equivalent - words correspond?

Vyray, paint, glue, gruz, kaliva, vyaselnik, garbarnya.

13. Can you accurately determine the meaning of such words in Russian as brother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law? If not, why not?

14. In the book “Wild Useful Plants of the USSR” (M., 1976), one can find many examples of how the scientific (botanical) classification does not coincide with the household (“naive”) classification. So, chestnut and oak belong to the beech family. Blueberries and apricots belong to the same family, the Rosaceae. Walnut (hazel) belongs to the birch family. The fruits of pear, mountain ash, hawthorn belong to the same class and are called an apple.
How to explain these discrepancies?

15. Why does a person, in addition to his own name, have a variety of "second names": nicknames, nicknames, pseudonyms? Why should a person, when he becomes a monk, give up his worldly name and take on a new, spiritual one? What language functions are implemented in all these cases?

16. There is such an unwritten rule that students adhere to when preparing for exams: “If you don’t know yourself, explain to a friend.” How can one explain the operation of this rule in relation to the main functions of the language?

* In ancient Greek a-tomos literally meant "indivisible".

(To be continued)

Language functions - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Language functions" 2014, 2015.

Language is usually defined in two aspects: the first is a system of phonetic, lexical, grammatical means that are a tool for expressing thoughts, feelings, expressions of will, serving the most important means communication between people, i.e. language is a social phenomenon associated in its origin and development with the human collective; the second is a kind of speech characterized by certain stylistic features ( Kazakh language, colloquial).

Language as the main means of human communication is arranged in such a way as to adequately perform various functions to the intentions and desires of an individual linguistic personality and the tasks of the human community. In the very general view language functions are understood as the use of potential properties of language means in speech for various purposes.

Language is not a natural phenomenon, and, therefore, does not obey biological laws. Language is not inherited, not passed on from older to younger. It originates in society. Arises spontaneously, gradually turns into a self-organizing system, which is designed to fulfill certain functions.

The first main function of language is cognitive(i.e. cognitive), meaning that language is the most important means of obtaining new knowledge about reality. The cognitive function relates language to mental activity person.

Without language, human communication is impossible, and without communication there can be no society, there cannot be a full-fledged personality (for example, Mowgli).

The second main function of language is communicative, which means that language is the most important means of human communication, i.e. communication, or the transmission from one person to another of a message for one purpose or another. Communicating with each other, people convey their thoughts, feelings, influence each other, achieve mutual understanding. The language gives them the opportunity to understand each other and to work together in all spheres of human activity.

The third main function is emotional and motivating. It is designed not only to express the attitude of the author of the speech to its content, but also to influence the listener, reader, interlocutor. It is realized in the means of evaluation, intonation, exclamation, interjections.

Other language features:

– thought-forming, since language not only conveys thought, but also forms it;

– accumulative is a function of storing and transmitting knowledge about reality. In written monuments, oral folk art, the life of a people, nation, the history of native speakers is recorded;

– phatic (contact-setting) function-
tion - the function of creating and maintaining contact between interlocutors (greeting formulas at a meeting and parting, exchange of remarks about the weather, etc.). The content and form of phatic communication depend on gender, age, social status, interlocutor relationships, but in general they are standard and minimally informative. Phatic communication helps to overcome lack of communication skills, disunity;

– conative function - the function of assimilation of information by the addressee, associated with empathy (the magical power of spells or curses in an archaic society or advertising texts in a modern one);

– appellative function - the function of an appeal, an inducement to certain actions (forms of the imperative mood, incentive sentences, etc.);

– aesthetic function - a function of aesthetic impact, manifested in the fact that the reader or listener begins to notice the text itself, its sound and verbal texture. A single word, turn, phrase begins to like or dislike. Speech can be perceived as something beautiful or ugly, i.e. as an aesthetic object;

– metalinguistic function (speech commentary) - the function of interpreting linguistic facts. Using a language in a metalanguage function is usually difficult speech communication, for example, when talking with a child, a foreigner or another person who does not fully know the given language, style, professional variety of the language. The metalinguistic function is realized in all oral and written statements about the language - in lessons and lectures, in dictionaries, educational and scientific literature about language.

LANGUAGE - social processed, historically changeable sign system serving as the main means of communication and representation different forms existence, each of which has at least one of the forms of implementation - oral or written.

SPEECH is one of the types communication activities person i.e. using language to communicate with others

Types of speech activity:

speaking

listening

The main functions of the language are:

communicative (function of communication);

thought-forming (function of embodiment and expression of thought);

expressive (function of expressing the internal state of the speaker);

aesthetic (the function of creating beauty by means of language).

Communicative function lies in the ability of language to serve as a means of communication between people. The language has the units necessary for constructing messages, the rules for their organization, and ensures the emergence of similar images in the minds of the participants in communication. Language also has special means of establishing and maintaining contact between the participants in communication.

From the point of view of the culture of speech, the communicative function involves the installation of participants in speech communication on the fruitfulness and mutual usefulness of communication, as well as a general focus on the adequacy of speech understanding.

Thought-forming function lies in the fact that language serves as a means of designing and expressing thoughts. The structure of the language is organically connected with the categories of thinking. "The word, which alone is able to make a concept an independent unit in the world of thoughts, adds to it a lot of itself," wrote the founder of linguistics Wilhelm von Humboldt (Humboldt V. Selected Works on Linguistics. - M., 1984. P. 318).

This means that the word singles out and shapes the concept, and at the same time, a relationship is established between the units of thinking and the sign units of the language. That is why W. Humboldt believed that “language should accompany thought. Thought, not lagging behind language, should follow from one of its elements to another and find in language a designation for everything that makes it coherent” (Ibid., p. 345) . According to Humboldt, “in order to correspond to thinking, language, as far as possible, must correspond with its structure to the internal organization of thinking” (Ibid.).

The speech of an educated person is distinguished by clarity of presentation own thought, accuracy of retelling other people's thoughts, consistency and informativeness.

Expressive the function allows the language to serve as a means of expressing the internal state of the speaker, not only to communicate some information, but also to express the speaker's attitude to the content of the message, to the interlocutor, to the situation of communication. Language expresses not only thoughts, but also emotions of a person. The expressive function involves the emotional brightness of speech within the framework of etiquette accepted in society.

Artificial languages ​​do not have an expressive function.

aesthetic the function is to ensure that the message in its form, in unity with the content, satisfies the aesthetic sense of the addressee. aesthetic function It is characteristic primarily for poetic speech (works of folklore, fiction), but not only for it - journalistic, scientific speech, and everyday colloquial speech can be aesthetically perfect.

The aesthetic function presupposes the richness and expressiveness of speech, its correspondence to the aesthetic tastes of the educated part of society.

language is system(from Greek. systema - something made up of parts). And if this is so, then all its constituent parts should not be a random set of elements, but some sort of ordered set of them.

What is the systemic nature of the language? First of all, the fact that the language has a hierarchical organization, in other words, it distinguishes various levels(from lowest to highest), each of which corresponds to a certain linguistic unit.

Usually there are the following levels of the language system: phonemic, morphemic, lexical and syntactic. Let us name and characterize the language units corresponding to them.

Phoneme- the simplest unit, indivisible and insignificant, serving to distinguish between minimal meaningful units (morphemes and words). For example: P ort - b ort, st about l - st at l.

Morpheme– minimum significant unit, not used independently (prefix, root, suffix, ending).

Word (lexeme)- a unit that serves to name objects, processes, phenomena, signs or points to them. This is the minimum nominative(named) unit language, consisting of morphemes.

The syntactic level corresponds to two language units: a phrase and a sentence.

phrase is a combination of two or more words between which there is a semantic and / or grammatical connection. A phrase, like a word, is a nominative unit.

Sentence– main syntactic unit, which contains a message about something, a question, or a prompt. This unit is characterized by semantic formality and completeness. In contrast to the word - the nominative unit - it is communicative unit, as it serves to convey information in the process of communication.

Between the units of the language system, certain relations. Let's talk about them in more detail. The "mechanism" of the language is based on the fact that each language unit is included in two intersecting rows. One row, linear, horizontal, we directly observe in the text: this syntagmatic line, where units of the same level are combined (from the Greek. syntagma - something connected). At the same time, lower-level units serve as building material for higher-level units.

An example of syntagmatic relations is the compatibility of sounds: [high Moscow]; grammatical compatibility of words and morphemes: play football, play the violin; blue ball, blue notebook, under+windows+nickname; lexical compatibility: desk, work at the table, mahogany table -"piece of furniture" plentiful table, dietary table - food, food, passport office, information desk"department in the institution" and other types of relations of language units.

The second row is non-linear, vertical, not given in direct observation. it paradigmatic series, i.e. a given unit and other units of the same level associated with it by one or another association - formal, meaningful similarity, opposition and other relationships (from the Greek. paradeigma - example, sample).

The simplest example of paradigmatic relations is the paradigm (sample) of the declension or conjugation of a word: house, ~ a, ~ at ...; I'm coming, ~eat, ~et... Paradigms form interrelated meanings of the same polysemantic word ( table– 1. piece of furniture; 2. food, nutrition; 3. department in the institution); synonymous rows (cold-blooded, restrained, imperturbable, balanced, calm); antonymic pairs (wide - narrow, open - close); units of the same class (verbs of movement, kinship designations, tree names, etc.), etc.

It follows from the foregoing that linguistic units are stored in our linguistic consciousness not in isolation, but as interconnected elements of a kind of "blocks" - paradigms. The use of these units in speech is determined by their internal properties, by the place this or that unit occupies among other units of this class. Such storage of "linguistic material" is convenient and economical. AT Everyday life we usually don't notice any paradigms. Nevertheless, they are one of the foundations of knowledge of the language. After all, it is no coincidence that when a student makes a mistake, the teacher asks him to decline or conjugate this or that word, to form desired shape, clarify the meaning, choose the most appropriate word from the synonymous series, in other words, refer to the paradigm.

So, the consistency of the language is manifested in its level organization, the existence of various language units that are in certain relationships with each other.