Culture is a complex, multilevel and multifaceted phenomenon. Understanding culture, its codes and symbols requires people to have a certain conceptual base, it is called the language of culture. This is a specific system of signs that people develop in the course of communication and understanding of reality. Let's talk about what the essence of this phenomenon is, what languages of culture distinguish and how they are formed.
The concept of culture
The word "culture" in its first meaning is the cultivation of plants. Then the semantics changed, and this term began to be understood as "cultivation of the spirit." Gradually, they began to call everything that was done by man, including the transformation of people themselves. At the present stage of development of human thought, there are more than 1000 definitions of the concept of "culture". The main semantic components included in these definitions are:
- Culture is what distinguishes the human world from the natural world.
- This is whatformed in the course of socialization and human development. Culture is not transmitted with genes, it is not inherited, but acquired as a result of training and education. To master it, one must learn to understand the languages of culture. This is a certain system of codes that are formed in the process of understanding reality.
- This is what is the hallmark of human society. Together with society, culture develops, modifies, changes in time and space.
The essence of the concept of "language of culture"
As is usually the case in the characterization of complex phenomena, the language of culture can be interpreted in a broad and narrow sense. In a broad sense, the concept of the language of culture implies a system of various signs, codes, symbols that allow people to communicate, help to navigate in the cultural space. In fact, this is a universal sign system created by people. In a narrow sense, this is the understanding of culture through the decoding of signs. The language of culture is the sum of all the ideas and thoughts of mankind, dressed in any signs, i.e., these are various carriers of meaning. Since meaning is always a subjective phenomenon, a conventional system of signs must be created to decode it, otherwise it will be impossible for different people to comprehend the meanings formulated by other subjects. Therefore, the problem of cultural languages is always associated with the problem of understanding culture as a text.
Types of cultural languages
Due to the great diversity of culture, its languages can be classifiedaccording to different criteria.
Classical typology distinguishes such varieties as natural, artificial and secondary languages. This division is built on the goals and origin of the sign system. This classification is based on linguistic and semiotic aspects, it takes into account the peculiarities of the functioning of the word. Within the framework of this approach, one can talk about the culture of speech, the culture of a foreign language, speech norms, etc.
There are also classifications according to many other criteria:
- According to the sphere of human activity in which the language is used. In this case, they distinguish, for example, the language of doctors, marketers, designers, etc.
- To serve a certain subculture. In this version, we can talk about youth, ethnic, professional language.
- According to the leading type of characters used. In this typology, verbal, sign, iconic, graphic languages are distinguished.
- According to the cultural order or application situation. In such a classification, one can speak of the existence of a costume language, hairstyles, bouquets, etc.
- By focusing on a certain type of perception. There are languages aimed at rational, emotional, associative, intuitive ways of mastering reality.
Natural languages
The concept of natural language is applied to the language that emerges during the formation of nations. These are means of communication that are used by different peoples. Languages of culture are formed together with national traditions and norms. natural language inbased on the word. On average, the vocabulary of an adult is 10-15 thousand words. A person's active vocabulary is an indicator of his level of education and culture. For example, the lexical dictionary of Shakespeare's works is about 30 thousand units.
A feature of natural language is that it is an open system that can independently develop and enrich itself. In principle, this system cannot have an author, and in its development it does not obey the will of man. All attempts to reform the language or interfere with its evolution had a negative impact on it. The language is characterized by constant processes of assimilation, renewal, borrowing, and the death of lexemes.
Natural language as an element of culture has the following characteristics:
- Unlimited semantic power. With the help of language, you can describe or comprehend any phenomenon of reality, if there are not enough words, then the system creates them.
- Evolution. Language has endless potential for development and change.
- Ethnicity. The language is in constant, inextricable connection with the ethnic group that speaks it.
- Duality. Language is both stable and changeable, subjective and objective, ideal and material, individual and collective.
Constructed languages
Unlike natural languages, which develop spontaneously in use, artificial ones are created specially by people to perform certain functions. On theToday there are more than a thousand artificial languages, and their main characteristic is purposefulness. They are created for a specific purpose. For example, to facilitate human communication, for an additional expressive effect in fiction (for example, the abstruse language of V. Khlebnikov), as a linguistic experiment.
The most famous artificial language is Esperanto. It is the only human-made language that has become a means of communication. But as soon as its carriers appeared, it began to live according to its own laws and began to approach natural languages in its properties. With the development of computer technology, there is a new round of interest in artificial means of communication. It is believed that artificial languages facilitate communication between people and even improve the processes of thinking. Thus, according to E. Sapir and B. Whorf, human thinking, cognitive categories are influenced by the resources and means of language used. The culture of speech is formed in thinking and itself affects the thought processes and potential of a person.
Secondary languages
Additional structures can be built on top of natural languages. Since human consciousness is linguistic in nature, everything created by consciousness is referred to as secondary modeling systems. These include art, mythology, religion, politics, fashion, etc. For example, literature as processed text is secondary to natural language. Secondary modeling systems are complex semiotic systems, inwhich are based on the language and norms of culture, the laws of natural language, but at the same time, these languages have other tasks. They are necessary for a person in order to create his own models of the world based on his worldview and attitude. Therefore, secondary languages are often called superlinguistic or cultural codes. They are characteristic of such forms of culture as sports, religion, philosophy, fashion, science, advertising, etc.
Signs and symbols of culture
Features of the languages of culture are that they are built on a variety of multi-valued systems of signs and symbols. These two concepts are closely related. A sign is an object that can be perceived through the senses, it replaces or represents other phenomena, objects or objects. For example, a word is a sign in relation to the designated object, in each language the same object has different sign designations. Cultural languages are a system of symbolic means of communication that convey culturally significant information.
A symbol is an identification mark of something. Unlike a sign, symbols have less stable semantics. For example, the word "rose" as a sign is decoded by all native speakers in approximately the same way. But the rose flower can be a symbol of love, jealousy, betrayal, etc. The spiritual culture of the language, the attitude of people to various phenomena of reality are encoded in signs and symbols. All signs can be divided into sign-signs, or index signs; copy signs, or iconic signs; signs-symbols.
Sign systems inculture
Cultural languages are sign systems that people use to communicate and convey information. Traditionally, there are 5 types of sign systems in culture:
- Verbal. This is the most common and most understandable system. We communicate primarily with the help of words, and this sign system is one of the most complex, multi-level and branched.
- Natural. This system is based on causal relationships between objects and phenomena. For example, smoke is a sign of fire, puddles are the result of rain, etc.
- Conventional. It is a system of signs about the semantics of which people have an unspoken agreement. For example, people agreed that red is a danger, and you can cross the road on green. There are no clear reasons for such agreements.
- Functional. These are signs that indicate the function of an object or phenomenon.
- The system of signs for recording. These are the most significant sign systems for culture. The fixation of oral speech, music, dances made it possible to transfer the accumulated knowledge from generation to generation and thereby ensure cultural progress. The appearance of writing was a major event for world culture; with its appearance, temporal and spatial boundaries were removed for people to communicate, for cultural exchange.
Learning and understanding the language of culture
The problem of understanding the language of culture was first formulated by G. Gadamer, the founder of hermeneutics. To master and cognize the patterns of development of the language of culture, it is necessary to master cultural codes. Yes, it's impossibleto fully comprehend the ideas of ancient Greek culture, if you do not know the mythology of this ethnic group, its history, cultural context. The main question of the language of culture is the question of the effectiveness of cultural dialogue. It can be carried out both vertically, that is, through time and epochs, and horizontally, that is, a dialogue between cultures of different ethnic groups coexisting in time. In order to understand the language of culture, of course, preparation is needed. Elementary education allows people to understand, for example, the meaning of Krylov's fables, but to understand the texts of I. Kant or Joyce's novels, deeper preparation is needed, knowledge of various cultural codes.
Art as the language of culture
The main structural element of culture is art. It is a specific sign system that is designed to convey special information. In it, in an artistic form, people's knowledge of the world is fixed, it is a means of communication between generations. On the other hand, art is a means of comprehending the surrounding world, it expresses the ideas of artists about being and about being in a secondary, artistic language. As a universal language of culture, art operates with signs, but they have specific characteristics:
- They have a meaning, for example, a melody has a certain semantics;
- are used to convey special information - emotionally colored, aesthetic.
- They function in a sign situation (as long as a person does not perceive a work of art as such, it does notbears artistic value).
- They are informative.
However, in addition to these properties, which are inherent not only to signs of art, artistic signs also have absolutely specific characteristics. So, they are:
- Polysemy, and polysemy can occur even against the will of the author of the work of art.
- Cannot be taken out of context and applied to another situation with the same meaning.
- Independent in terms of form. The artistic form can be arbitrarily correlated with the content of the sign, and sometimes a person who perceives a work of art may not comprehend the semantics laid down by the author, but at the same time receive aesthetic information and pleasure. For example, the language of modern culture is not always clear to viewers or readers, but they still can receive emotions and aesthetic feelings from it. The form has a significant impact on the content of the artistic sign. For example, poetry cannot be retold in one's own words, because with the loss of form, the content of a work of art will also disappear.
Linguistic culture
For many specialists, the term "language of culture" has a literal meaning. Indeed, the culture of speech, the norms of the language are the most important components of the culture of society and man. The way a person speaks shows how familiar he is with the rules and traditions of this society. In addition, the culture of speech is the most important condition for successful communication. High knowledge of national and foreign languages expands people's ability to penetrate the meanings and languages of culture.
Characteristics of the language of culture
Despite the great diversity, the languages of culture have universal features. The first of these is that culture is a collection of texts. Therefore, we can talk about the common language of culture for people of different social or national groups. For example, when a European looks at the works of art of the natives of Australia, he may not fully penetrate their meaning, but at the same time, the emotions and worldview of the authors are transmitted to him. On the other hand, the languages of culture are characterized by specific regional and historical features. For example, today it is difficult for us to understand the full depth of the meaning of Dante's Divine Comedy without special training or the help of specialists, since we do not fully own the context in which this work was written. But this does not prevent readers from getting aesthetic pleasure and reading the emotional message of the author.
