Linguistic consciousness has nothing to do with mentality. Ilyina E.V

Language consciousness: articles and publications

Zalevskaya A.A. Linguistic consciousness: questions of theory// Questions of psycholinguistics. 2003. No. 1.
... when operating with the term “linguistic consciousness”, we continually fall into the trap of the magic of words: if something is linguistic, then it must be adequately transmitted by linguistic means, which seem self-sufficient, completely amenable to analysis and description from the standpoint of the corresponding science - linguistics; if we are talking about consciousness, it seems to be self-evident that nothing unconscious (and not verbalized, moreover!) is initially allowed...

For an individual, the word plays the role of a kind of "anchor", a guideline through which different levels awareness or "highlights" some fragment of the previous (verbal and non-verbal) experience of the individual, which makes sense according to the principle "for me - here - and now", updated in a certain perspective and with certain "corrections" that take into account the specifics of cash pragmatic factors. This perspective can vary, causing the depth of the scan, as well as the brightness, distinctness of highlighting multiple objects, qualities, signs, connections, relationships, experiences, in fact, a variety of multi-stage inferential knowledge, one way or another connected with the word. From these positions, the belief of some researchers that it is supposedly possible to describe the content of a certain linguistic unit in the form in which it is present in the minds of native speakers seems very naive.

LANGUAGE CONSCIOUSNESS: THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ASPECTS. - M.-Barnaul, Institute of Linguistics RAS, 2004. - 344 p. (psycholing.narod.ru)
Research carried out in Moscow psycholinguistic school in the last ten years on the material Russian associative dictionary(Karaulov et al., 1994-1998) and The Associative Thesaurus of English (Kiss G. & all., 1972) have shown that associative thesaurus is a model of human consciousness.

Linguistic consciousness and features of its manifestation among representatives of the Russian and Kazakh ethnic groups (sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects) (vevivi.ru/)
- graduate work (2012)
On the territory of Kazakhstan, Russians currently represent a third of the population. The functioning of the Russian language in the Republic of Kazakhstan is regulated by the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the law "On Languages ​​in the Republic of Kazakhstan", State program development and functioning of the languages ​​of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2001-2010. Social features Russian language is much wider than prescribed by the language legislation

The problem of consciousness in philosophy is one of the main and most difficult to solve. The point is that consciousness does not exist separately from the person as a foreign object for study, it cannot be taken out of a person in order to better examine. Therefore, to know human consciousness man has to with the help of the same consciousness that he cognizes. In fact, a person must know himself, and do it with maximum objectivity, which in itself is a difficult task, since apart from rational knowledge consciousness, a person always uses and irrational factors (guesses, intuition, emotions, mystical insights and insights), the objectivity of which cannot be verified

The problem of consciousness includes two questions . The first one consists in an attempt to determine how exactly the objects and phenomena of the surrounding world penetrate the consciousness and become stronger in it. How do we make sense of the world? Second, how does consciousness work? How images are formed in it, abstract concepts which we cannot see or touch. For example, the concept of time, space, causality, good, evil, justice, beauty.

To answer both of these questions means to solve the problem of consciousness, to understand the mechanism of its work. But so far the answers to these questions are only hypotheses, assumptions.

In philosophy new time (17th - 19th centuries) a tradition was established to determine consciousness through the process and result of cognition , i.e. to represent consciousness as a set of knowledge about the surrounding world, received by the person himself and by previous generations, held in memory. Knowledge about the simple and everyday, as well as knowledge about the complex, i.e. about what is theoretically deduced by inference. Simply put, consciousness is defined as thinking and memory , his brain activity directed towards the environment.

However, it is obvious that consciousness is not limited to thinking , is not only a collection of knowledge accumulated by man. Some other mental states which are not directly related to any knowledge. For example, emotions, willpower, premonitions, anxiety. Faith occupies a significant layer of consciousness. Moreover, not only religious, but, for example, faith in oneself, faith in justice.

In the first half of the century, the works of the outstanding Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist Sigmund Freud in the mind of a person a huge and still not amenable to unambiguous explanation was discovered unconscious . It turned out that fear, suppressed emotions and desires are also part of consciousness.

Finally, it is quite obvious that consciousness guides not only the rational actions of a person based on his knowledge and experience, but also irrational actions, actions that we call reckless. A person in any, even the most ordinary situation, has a choice - how to act - good or bad, selfish or disinterested, fair or unfair. Those. his own consciousness always puts a moral choice in front of a person, and therefore in front of himself (in front of consciousness). A person says to himself: "I did this because ...".

In connection with this approach, in the philosophy of the 20th century, the question began to be discussed that consciousness is not a body of knowledge, but a phenomenon of a moral (moral order) giving a person permissions and prohibitions for various actions.

Recent Successes quantum physics demonstrated that the existence and behavior elementary particles directly depends on whether the researcher observes them. This incredible discovery means that consciousness and surrounding a person the world (being) are not in opposition to each other. Consciousness is part of being . It not only reflects and comprehends the world around a person, but also constructs it. And in this connection, the assertion that until recently only in mystical literature that thought is material cannot be considered heretical.

A person is not only a biological organism, but also a social being, which means that he needs a means of coordinating his activities with other people, in transmitting and receiving information, i.e. in a special system of signs that he would understand himself and that others would understand. Language is the main sign system that serves as a means of human communication. . He is specific means storage and transmission of information, management of human behavior.

Language is the second and no less important code for transmitting information. The first code is biological. This is the human genome, thanks to which hereditary information is transmitted, i.e. congenital traits. Language is non-biological, i.e. social code through which knowledge is transmitted.

Language, unlike the biological code, is a purely social phenomenon. . There can be no language outside the collective existence. Linguistic signs - expressed orally or in writing - allow you to fix a thought and express it. In this sense, language is an intermediary between consciousnesses. various people, as well as an intermediary between consciousness and human actions. Thanks to language, human consciousness becomes a reality. A person with his thoughts, clothed in a verbal form, informs himself that he is conscious, and informs everyone else about it.

The main functions of the language are :

a) communicative and informative - thanks to the language, communication occurs and people transmit different information to each other. The pragmatic function can also be included here - i.e. control of some people by others with the help of language commands;

b) cognitive - our knowledge about the world is clothed in verbal form and exists precisely in the form of words and sentences.

Apart from natural language, i.e. oral and writing people, there are artificial languages ​​- sign language, mathematical language formulas and signs.

The question of the relationship between language and consciousness (thinking) is solved differently in philosophy.

Verbalists - supporters of the existence of thinking only on the basis of language - they believe that a person thinks only in words, speech turns, spoken aloud or originated in the brain and unspoken.

However, the existence of nonverbal thought is evident. Thinking without words is also possible. For example, in extreme situations a person thinks very quickly and without building his thoughts into words and sentences. In a dream, a person thinks without words, but in the images of dreams.

AT modern philosophy in the question of the relationship between thinking and language, consciousness and language, thinking is believed to be decisive. Language and thought form a unity. For a person, one is not possible without the other, but still, thought does not always have a verbal expression, therefore it is wrong to reduce thinking and consciousness only to language.

In the 20th century, the question was also raised about the relationship between language and reality, about how accurately our language is able to describe reality. Representatives neopositivism and postmodernism believe that the very idea that through language we express real content the world around us is meaningless. Language was created by people for their own needs. And the way we talk about reality does not at all reflect its true properties and qualities. Moreover, language distorts thought, since language has its own patterns and limitations - grammatical, lexical. The task of knowing the truth in this case is to find ways of expressing a thought before giving it a linguistic form, and only such a thought should be recognized as correct. This task - if it exists - is extremely complex and has not yet been solved by anyone. Therefore, in his knowledge of the world, a person must start from what he has - from consciousness, thinking and language that formulates and transmits thoughts. The experience of the development of human civilization shows that this is enough for a correct understanding of reality and knowledge of the truth.

Similar information.

<Возникшее в московской психолингвистической школе понятие «языковое сознание» можно, по мнению А.А. Леонтьева, сопоставить с понятием «образ мира», которое существует в отечественной психологии, поскольку «образ мира» представляет собой отображение в психике индивида предметного мира, опосредованное предметными значениями и соответствующими когнитивными схемами и поддающееся сознательной рефлексии (А.А. Леонтьев 1988). Языковое же сознание понимается как совокупность структур сознания, в формировании которых были использованы социальные знания, связанные с языковыми знаками (Тарасов 1988) или как образы сознания, овнешняемые языковыми средствами: отдельными лексемами, словосочетаниями, фразеологизмами, текстами, ассоциативными полями и ассоциативными тезаурусами как совокупностью этих полей. Образы языкового сознания интегрируют в себе умственные знания, формируемые самим субъектом преимущественно в ходе speech communication, and sensory knowledge arising in the mind as a result of the processing of perceptual data received from the senses in objective activity. (Tarasov, 2000, 3)>

<По мнению Т.Н. Ушаковой, ставший модным и широко используемым в психолингвистическом сообществе термин «языковое сознание» нуждается в уточнении. Для нее понятие языковое сознание представляется интересным: во-первых, потому, что «оно укореняет связь лингвистического явления (языка) с психологическим феноменом (сознанием). Это важно на фоне попыток разделения и установления искусственных границ между психологическими процессами, семантикой с одной стороны, и языковыми средствами выражения мысли человека, с другой, т.е. в более общем плане - между психологией и лингвистикой. Одновременно оно выхватывает как бы центральное звено всей психолингвистики, обнаруживает её средоточие. Во-вторых, понятие языкового сознания важно для уточнения психологического определения самого сознания, поскольку выделяется близкая, но особая область, обладающая своими чертами и спецификой» (Ушакова 2003).>(http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf/jaz-soz2004.htm)

<Социальная психология и социология интересуются в этом плане тремя основными проблемами. Это: а) то, что обычно называется национальной психологией и сводится, как правило, к описательной характеристике некоторых стереотипов самооценки этноса или оценки его представителями других этносов: французы считаются легкомысленными, немцы – аккуратисты, русские – агрессивны или подчёркнуто гостеприимны; б) то, что связано с социальной дифференциацией форм общения в том или ином национальном коллективе и различием этой дифференциации в разных национально-культурных общностях; в) круг вопросов, связанных с устойчивыми национальными традициями, обычаями и т.д., рассматриваемыми как часть национальной культуры.>(http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf/jaz-soz2004.htm)

<Всё большее место занимают вопросы национально-культурной специфики общения в работах по теории и методике обучения иностранным языкам, в частности русскому как иностранному. Таким образом, интересующая нас проблематика как бы разорвана на отдельные фрагменты, изучаемые разными науками. В нашем представлении национально-культурная специфика речевого общения складывается из системы факторов, действующих на разных уровнях организации процессов общения и имеющих разную природу. Попытаемся дать их наиболее общую классификацию.>(http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf/jaz-soz2004.htm)

<1. Факторы, связанные с культурной традицией.

They are correlated primarily with a) types and varieties of communication allowed and prohibited in a given community (a taboo on any communication for a particular time, a taboo on communication with a certain person or on addressing him - a daughter-in-law among some peoples of the North Caucasus does not have the right first turn to the father-in-law); b) with stereotypical, reproducible acts of communication that are part of the fund of the national culture of a given ethnic group or a subculture of some group within it. Moreover, this act can be, so to speak, functionally justified (say, it can be given a magical meaning), or it can be purely traditional; c) with certain etiquette characteristics of "universal" acts of communication. In all these cases, it is not a separate statement that acts as a reproducible whole, but a complex of verbal and non-verbal behavior, correlated with a particular situation and normative for it. Etiquette (in the broad sense) does not exist outside of mutual communication in a group: the “one-sidedness” of etiquette behavior only means that etiquette in a given situation provides for a “zero reaction” of other participants in communication.> (http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf /jaz-soz2004.htm)

<Особую проблему составляют г) ролевые и социально-символические особенности общения, связанные со специфичной для данной общности системой ролевых и статусных отношений. Далее, культурная традиция отражается в д) номенклатуре и функциях языковых и текстовых стереотипов, используемых в общении, а также е) в организации текстов.>(http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf/jaz-soz2004.htm)

<Факторы, связанные с социальной ситуацией и социальными функциями общения. Они соотнесены с функциональными «подъязыками» и функциональными особенностями, а также с этикетными формами.>(http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf/jaz-soz2004.htm)

<Факторы, связанные с этнопсихологией в узком смысле, т.е. с особенностями протекания и опосредования психических процессов и различных видов деятельности. Они соотнесены преимущественно с психолингвистической организацией speech activity and other activities mediated by language (perceptual, mnemonic, etc.). In addition, these factors are reflected in the nomenclature, functions and features of the flow of proxemic, paralinguistic (non-linguistic features of speech - loudness, pauses, etc.) and kinesic (gesticulation) phenomena.> (http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf /jaz-soz2004.htm)

< Факторы, определяемые спецификой языка данной общности.

What is ethnonsycholinguistics? This is an area of ​​psycholinguistics that studies national-cultural variance (i.e., the effect of the listed factors) in: a) speech operations, speech actions and integral acts of speech activity; b) linguistic sense of smell, i.e. cognitive use of language and other functionally equivalents sign systems:, c) organization (external and internal) of the processes of verbal communication.> (http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf/jaz-soz2004.htm)

<Культура фиксируется в слове, в словосочетании, в понятии. Существуют две точки зрения по вопросу о том, как в слове проявляется культура. Согласно лингвистическим представлениям, культурный компонент значения слова – это его экстралингвистическое содержание. В лингвистике предполагается, что оно прямо и непосредственно отражает обслуживаемую языком национальную культуру. При этом семантические доли, в которых фиксируется лексический фон – ореол всевозможных непонятийных представлений носителей культуры – якобы, входят в значение слова.>(http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf/jaz-soz2004.htm)

<В отечественной психолингвистике несколько иное представление о фоновых знаниях. Тут предполагается, что фоновые знания существуют не в форме семантических долей слов и словосочетаний (которые описываются лингвистом), а в форме многочисленных логических импликаций и пресуппозиций.Фоновое знание не является языковым, оно – пресуппозициональное (то, которое лежит за словом). Фоновое знание – это принадлежность глубинного уровня сознания, это внутренняя идеальная модель внешнего материального мира или его фрагмента. Тем самым в психолингвистике разводятся два уровня сознания: языковое и неязыковое. Языковое – это вербальное, логически осознаваемое и эксплицитное (внешне выраженное). Неязыковое – невербальное, смысловое, неосознаваемое и имплицитное (внешне невыраженное).>(http://psycholing.narod.ru/monograf/jaz-soz2004.htm)

Speech is a specifically human way of forming and formulating thoughts with the help of language tools. The complexity of mastering speech lies in the most complete and perfect mastery of the signs of the linguistic structure.

Language is a system of verbal signs, relatively independent of the individual, serving for the purposes of communication, the formation and formulation of thoughts, the consolidation and transmission of socio-historical experience. A language is some maximum possible system of signs, of which each user of this system uses for himself, by virtue of his capabilities, a specific share.

Language is layered system with its own requirements and restrictions on all levels - from phonetic and graphic to grammatical and semantic. All these requirements and restrictions constitute norms, rules for the use of verbal signs, which are learned by those using signs (informants) both in natural conditions - with the help of parents, in the family, and in special learning environment- at school, in courses, according to reference books, dictionaries.

Difficulties of transition from general language norms to their specific use led to the fact that speech processes reach their maximum possible peaks very late. According to B.G. Ananiev Ananiev b. D. Human psychology. Favorites. -SPb., 1998. -p.119, the best speech results are recorded at the age of 35-40 years. Prior to this, speech skills develop and improve, passing certain periods mastery of functions and forms. Compare, for example, the speech of a preschooler and elementary school student, the speech of a teenager and the speech of an adult with enough high level education. Comparison can go along the lines of the correct use of verbal signs, their diversity, expressiveness, accuracy, logical correlation, relevance in different situations, understanding even destroyed texts, as well as understanding subtext, ease of construction from separate verbal elements various designs etc.

Language as a system, as a norm that regulates people's behavior, and speech as specific process use linguistic signs in their joint manifestation reflect the features of the reflection of the objective world of a given ethnic community. Indeed, the grid of linguistic coordinates by which objects are named real world can take a variety of, sometimes contradictory, forms. For example, the abundance of cases in the languages ​​of the Finno-Ugric group (up to 16 cases) makes one think about the advantages of certain language systems and, even more broadly, about the connection of systems of linguistic consciousness in general.

In the 30s of the XX century. American ethnographers B. Whorf and E. Sapir put forward a theory about the direct connection of languages ​​with the thinking and way of life of entire peoples. Based on rich factual material obtained as a result of observations of the language, speech and behavior of the Indians North America, it was concluded that languages ​​form an idea of ​​the world, an image of the world and an image of adequate actions. If, suppose, in the language Indian tribe The Navajo have a very large number of verbs and verb formations and very few nouns denoting specific objects, this tribe can be classified as very mobile, leading a vagrant lifestyle, changing stable conditions. This is indeed the case, and numerous linguistic proofs enabled the authors to create a theory of linguistic relativity, which is still widely discussed at ongoing scientific meetings.

Undoubtedly, language categories - temporary, case, generic, mortgage, imposed on the child in his speech development adults, determine his sensory idea of ​​the world, make him choose corresponding forms behavior. But life itself, ever-increasing contacts with speakers of other language structures, non-verbal ways of reflecting reality significantly affect language structures, especially mobile lexical ones.

The search for a common language for humanity with unified system essential features continue to this day. Each country has its own informal associations of supporters of the Esperanto language, which, according to its founder L. Zamenhof, should serve to communicate and understand peoples. Comparison of phrases in the Esperanto language with their Russian translation shows that the basis of Esperanto is the dead Latin language with very significant Romano-Germanic overtones. For example: Homo eso socialus zoa - Man is a social being; Kvi volo edere eus debeto laborere - He who wants to eat must work.

A.N. Leontiev showed in the book: Leontiev D.A. Essays on the psychology of personality. -M., 1997. -p.229 that human consciousness is inextricably linked with activity and is, as it were, a reflection of reality refracted through the prism of linguistic meanings. The criteria for choosing linguistic meanings can be very diverse: brevity or completeness, importance or complementarity, own point of view or universality, frequency or singularity. How can one give the same definition of the word "air" for chemistry, physics, painting, meteorology, medicine? It's like requiring only one map to describe the area. Numerous clinical speech pathologies, different levels of mastering the language system, situational options up to altered states of consciousness, for example, delusional, hallucinatory, convincingly prove the reality of multiple criteria. But they also prove the reality of some universal characteristics which make possible the very process of human interaction and its final effect - understanding. Universal, universal signs of a linguistic sign can be distinguished only by systematically comparing them in different languages and fixing the results in semantic types (from the Greek Semantikos - denoting) or semantic factors, i.e. elementary semantic units used to describe the meaning of words. Semantic types are nothing more than a set of the most important, private and essential features that distinguish, differentiate objects and phenomena of the real world. Gradually, with the knowledge of more subtle and diverse features, including one's own subjective preferences, a deeper and more diverse reflection of reality occurs. Compare: Pushkin is a great Russian poet. But he is a poet, killed in a duel by Dantes. He is also a graduate of the famous Royal Lyceum. He is also a friend of Pushchin and Delvig, he is also the father of four children and the husband of the first beauty of St. Petersburg. The diversity and hierarchy of signs of a semantic nature make up those zones of meaning of signs that the classic of Russian psychology L.S. Vygotsky called the united two mental processes: thinking and speaking. Each informant - the user of this system of verbal signs chooses those signs that are important for him in a particular situation. Information completeness, satisfaction with interaction, understanding are possible only when the necessary signs are found. So, only a close adult can understand the very distorted signs chosen by the child, but other participants in communication will no longer be able to do this. We need a translation into a commonly understood system of signs, i.e. a system of signs of these signs, at least the most elementary ones. We all find ourselves in a situation where we are trying to exchange information with speakers of other language systems. Most often, we call on the help of a rich sphere of non-verbal interaction, non-verbal signs: we draw, gesticulate, use a variety of facial expressions, act out scenes. Sometimes it helps if the situation is simple enough and involves some kind of choice. But in difficult situations it is very easy to take wishful thinking. History has preserved in memory the tragic episode from the war of the Persian king Darius with the ancient Scythians, when, on the outskirts of the enemies, Darius received a message from them, on which a mouse, a frog and 7 arrows were drawn. After a moment's thought, Darius solemnly announced victory to his army without a fight. He read a message in his favor like "The Scythians give us their land (mouse) and their water (frog) and lay down their weapons (quiver with arrows) in front of us." The Persians celebrated their victory noisily and were defeated the same night. It turns out that the text of the message should have been understood as a warning: "Persians, if you are not able to bury yourself in the ground like mice or like frogs put on frog skin and gallop into the swamp, you will be hit by our arrows."

L.S. Vygotsky constantly emphasized in the book: Rean A. A., Rozum S. I., Bordovskaya N. V. Pedagogy and psychology. -SPb., 2000. -p.72 the connection of language (speech) processes with thinking in the general zones of the meaning of linguistic signs, as well as the constant development and improvement of these zones from a child to an adult, from a professional to a non-professional, from a monolingual who speaks the same language , to a multilinguist, freely switching from one sign system to another.

Being the direct embodiment of thinking, language contains all the cognitive wealth of a person in an individual and social aspect and fixes in a material form his individual and public consciousness. With this approach, the language can be understood as a system in which the perception of the world is encoded, as the culture of a given people.

The concept of consciousness is used by all the humanities and a significant part of the natural sciences, although this concept is one of the most difficult to define concepts of modern science.

Note that in science there is still no clear distinction between the terms thinking and consciousness. These concepts are interpreted in different ways, sometimes they are opposed to each other, sometimes they are used as synonyms. In our understanding, the term consciousness, in principle, emphasizes the static aspect of the phenomenon, and thinking - the dynamic one. Consciousness is a property of the brain, thinking is the activity of the brain endowed with consciousness (that is, mental activity). It is in this aspect that it seems possible for us to distinguish between thinking and consciousness, since these two terms exist. In this paper, we will focus on the study of consciousness.

In philosophical and psychological literature, consciousness is defined as a property (function) of highly organized matter - the brain, which consists in the ability of a person to reflect external existence in the form of sensory and mental images. At the same time, it is noted that the mental images of consciousness determine the purposeful activity of a person, consciousness regulates the relationship of the individual with the surrounding natural and social reality, enables the individual to comprehend his own being, the inner spiritual world and allows him to improve reality in the process of social and practical activity. Consciousness exists in various forms.

"Big Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language" ed. S. A. Kuznetsova (St. Petersburg, 1998) defines consciousness as follows:

1. The human ability to reproduce reality in thinking.

2. Perception and understanding of the surrounding reality, characteristic of man; mental activity, mind, reason. // Ability to meaningfully perceive reality (loss of consciousness)

3. Understanding, awareness by a person, a group of people public life; views, views of people as representatives of social classes, strata.

4. Clear understanding, awareness of something, thought, feeling, sensation of something (consciousness of duty).

5. open Consciousness (Where is your consciousness?)

It is easy to see that all values, including the fifth, in equally relate to consciousness as a reflection of reality and simply reveal its different sides.

Modern ideas about consciousness come from the multiplicity of types and forms of consciousness.

Can be distinguished the following types consciousness:

by subject mental activity(the sphere of application of consciousness) distinguish political, scientific, religious, ecological, domestic, class, aesthetic, economic, etc.;

according to belonging to the subject of consciousness, gender, age, social (professional, humanitarian, technical), personal, public, group, etc. consciousness are distinguished;

according to the degree of formation, developed and undeveloped consciousness are distinguished;

according to the principle underlying consciousness, they distinguish between global, democratic, conservative, progressive, reactionary, etc. consciousness;

by provided skill, type intellectual activity provided by consciousness - creative, technical, heuristic, artistic, etc.

Further classification is also possible, which, however, is not included in this moment to our tasks. All these types of consciousness are specific varieties of consciousness “in general”, or “simply consciousness”, considered globally, in a complex way. Consciousness "in general" is proposed to be called cognitive, emphasizing its leading "cognizing" side - consciousness is formed as a result of the subject's cognition of the surrounding reality, and the content of consciousness is knowledge about the world obtained as a result of the cognitive activity of consciousness.

Recently, the concept of "linguistic consciousness" has become more and more widespread. What is the relationship between this concept and the concept of cognitive consciousness?

The concept of "linguistic consciousness" is currently widely used in the titles of collections and conferences - Ethno-cultural specificity of linguistic consciousness. M., 1996; Linguistic consciousness: formation and functioning. M., 1998: Linguistic consciousness and the image of the world. M., 2000, etc., it is used by linguists, psychologists, culturologists, ethnographers, etc. Linguistic consciousness is described as a new object of psycholinguistics, which has been formed in the last 15 years [Linguistic consciousness and image of the world 2000: 24]. Note that the concepts of consciousness and linguistic consciousness in linguistics and psycholinguistics, as well as in cultural studies, are often still used undifferentiated, often as synonyms.

So, in one of the first special works on the Problem of Linguistic Consciousness (collective monograph "Language and Consciousness: Paradoxical Rationality" edited by E. F. Tarasov, published at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1993), scientific editor states: “in the monograph “linguistic consciousness” and simply “consciousness” are used to describe the same phenomenon – human consciousness” (p.7).

At present, this approach has already become a thing of the past, and many researchers point out that it is impossible to put an equal sign between consciousness and linguistic consciousness. We can say that the concept of linguistic consciousness has undergone a certain evolution over the past decades. However, there is still no clarity in the distinction between these two concepts and there is a very broad interpretation of linguistic consciousness, which makes this concept scientifically meaningless. T. N. Ushakova quite rightly notes that the concept of linguistic consciousness is useful and promising for studying the relationship between the psyche and speech, but at present it has a fairly wide and indefinite "referential field", emphasizing that this "contains a danger to scientific thought : with the enormity of the problem of the connection between the psyche and matter, there is a temptation to present the transition from one to the other as simple and direct” [Linguistic consciousness and image of the world 2000: 22].

In the same edition, E. F. Tarasov differentiates consciousness and linguistic consciousness, defining the latter as “a set of images of consciousness formed and externalized with the help of linguistic means - words, free and stable phrases, sentences, texts and associative fields [Linguistic consciousness and the image of the world 2000: 26].

Note, however, that in this definition two aspects are combined - the formation of consciousness and its externalization, which is far from the same thing. Consciousness in ontogenesis and phylogenesis is formed with the participation of language, the signs of which serve as material supports for generalization in the process of concept formation in consciousness, but consciousness itself, as mentioned above, does not need language for functioning. As for the externalization of consciousness by language, this indisputable fact, which makes consciousness accessible to observation and provides the very possibility of exchanging information in society, cannot indicate the presence of some special linguistic consciousness - simply “consciousness” is externalized, which does not acquire any special "linguistic" status.

A. A. Leontiev draws attention to the failure of the expression “linguistic consciousness”: “the epithet “linguistic” in the phrase “linguistic consciousness” should not mislead us. This epithet has no direct relation to language as a traditional subject of linguistics. To portray language (in its traditional linguistic interpretation) as something that mediates a person's attitude to the world means to fall into vicious circle» [Language and Consciousness: Paradoxical Rationality 1993: 17].

The term "linguistic consciousness" to denote the general connection between language and consciousness (which does not cause and never caused any doubts in anyone) or to denote the fact of the externalization of consciousness by language cannot be recognized as meaningful. It does not provide any new understanding of the problem.

At the same time, in linguistics and psycholinguistics, the mental mechanisms of speech that ensure human speech activity have not yet been terminology. It seems that it is these mechanisms that represent the linguistic consciousness of a person. Let us also quote E. F. Tarasov: “Linguistics, having linguistic consciousness as an object of analysis, studied most often on the basis of its verbal fixations, has created sophisticated analytical procedures, the psychological reality of which is not always obvious” [Language and consciousness: paradoxical rationality 1993: 15 ].

One should fully agree with this statement: traditional linguistics studies precisely linguistic consciousness - the rules for the use of language, norms, the ordering of language in the mind, etc., without being aware of the psychological reality of the descriptions being performed. At some stage this was enough, but at present stage It was the communicative, anthropocentric direction in linguistics that became dominant, and precisely because there was a natural interest in a language that functions in real communication, and not a dead language abstracted from the native speaker. This led to the development of research in the field of mental communication mechanisms - associative-verbal networks (Sentry), associative fields, etc.

Under linguistic consciousness (in other terminology - linguistic thinking, verbal thinking) - it is proposed to understand the totality of mental mechanisms of generation, understanding of speech and storage of language in the mind, that is, mental mechanisms that ensure the process of human speech activity. These problems are dealt with in different aspects psychology, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, ontolinguistics, developmental linguistics (cf. [Tarasov 2000: 24]). This is “knowledge used by communicants in the production and perception of speech messages” [Ethnocultural specificity of linguistic consciousness 1996: 11].

Linguistic consciousness is studied experimentally, in particular, with the help of a free associative experiment - it allows you to reconstruct various connections language units in the mind and reveal the nature of their interaction in various processes of understanding, storage and generation of speech works, as well as other experimental methods.

Thus, linguistic consciousness is a part of consciousness that provides the mechanisms of linguistic (speech) activity: the generation of speech, the perception of speech and the storage of language in the mind. It is psycholinguistics that is the science, the subject of which is the linguistic consciousness of a person.

Linguistic consciousness is a component of cognitive consciousness, "managing" the mechanisms of human speech activity, it is one of the types of cognitive consciousness that provides such an activity as operating with speech. It is formed in a person in the process of acquiring a language and is improved all his life, as he replenishes his knowledge of the rules and norms of the language, new words, meanings, as communication skills improve in various fields as you learn new languages.

However, human speech activity itself is a component of a broader concept - human communicative activity. In this regard, the problem of distinguishing between linguistic and communicative consciousness arises.