Background knowledge as a reflection of the national specificity of the linguocultural community. Linguistic and cultural community as an object of linguistic and cultural studies

Background knowledge and its forms (verbal and non-verbal). Background knowledge content: a) historical and cultural background; b) sociocultural background; c) ethnocultural background; d) semiotic background. The influence of background knowledge on the understanding of a foreign language message.

Key terms: background knowledge, historical and cultural background, sociocultural background, ethnocultural background, semiotic background

Additional questions and tasks for discussion

What is background knowledge? What cultural information is conveyed by a) historical and cultural background; b) sociocultural background; c) semiotic background?

Give examples of background knowledge related to the historical-cultural, socio-cultural, ethno-cultural and semiotic backgrounds from the English-speaking (British / American) and Russian-speaking linguocultures.

Select the realities from the Russian-speaking linguoculture that reflect specific background knowledge, convey their content in English and say in what situations they occur.

Explain how the following selection illustrates the process of changing the amount of background knowledge from generation to generation within the same culture. How can generational differences in background knowledge affect the communication process?

Background Knowledge of Young Americans - 1999

Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together a list to try to give the faculty a sense of mindset of that year’s incoming freshmen. Included here is part of the 1999 list:

The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were bom in 1981.

They had no meaningful recollection of the Reagan era and did not know he had ever been shot.

They were prepubescent when the Persian Gulf War was waged.

Black Monday 1987 is as significant to them as the Great Depression.

They can only remember really one president.

They were 11 when the Soviet Union broke apart and do not remember the Cold War.

Their lifetime has always included AIDS.

They have never owned a record player.

The Compact Disc was introduced when they were 1 year old.

As far as they know, stamps have always cost about 32 cents.

They have always had an answering machine.

Popcorn has always been cooked in a microwave.

They never heard the terms: “Where’s beef?”, “I’d walk a mile for a Camel”, or “de plane, de plane!”.

Michael Jackson has always been white.

They never took a swim and thought about “Jaws”.

The Vietnam War is an ancient history to them as WWI, WWII, or even the Civil War. (O.A. Leontovich)

Make a similar list of background knowledge of representatives of the Russian / Belarusian linguoculture and compare them.

What background knowledge do the following realities refer to? Give examples of situations in which they can be used. Describe the objects and objects given in paragraphs b ) And d); identify the differences in the cultural representations of these objects and objects:

folkrock, folkweave

chalet, igloo, wigwam, yurt, bungalow, abode, bay window

Boxing Day, Boat Race, banns, Bath Festival

anorak, parka, boilersuit, flannels, cardigan, fleece, vest, trunks

freelance, fringe benefits, shift work, part-time work, to be fired

“Excuse me. Could I get off?” or “Excuse me, I’m getting off.”

All phenomena observed in the language are directly dependent on the processes taking place in culture and the surrounding reality, therefore any changes in historical development, in the social image of a person and society are instantly reflected in the language. This dialectic of the relationship between language and society, language and culture, language and history, language and time cannot but be present in studies of a linguoculturological nature. Naturally, among the topical areas of modern linguo-culturology are the study of specific language situation, prevailing in society in a given period, at a certain stage of the cultural development of the country, as well as the study of the language of an ethnic group or a separate social group in some important historical and cultural period of time for the nation. It is no coincidence that Yu. S. Stepanov wrote about the “cultural concept” that its value is irrelevant, lies in itself, but in certain social periods, depending on the social situation, it can “highlight” or remain in the shadows. This judgment is relevant to any phenomenon of language or culture.

Development theories of the linguocultural situation V. M. Shaklein was the first to undertake it, and even in the initial period of the formation of domestic linguoculturology as a science, he introduced this concept into scientific use. In the monograph "Linguocultural Situation and Text Research", the scientist developed the basic theoretical principles of the phenomenon of the linguocultural situation, substantiated the idea of ​​a linguocultural universe - a reality within which a person creates various pictures of the world (ethnic, speech, text), and created a unique and promising methodology for linguocultural text research - such an analysis, on the basis of which it would be possible to give adequate characteristics of the linguocultural situation that generated the text. And today the concept of LKS is one of the basic ones in Russian linguoculturology.

It should be said that although in our days this or that particular language situation sometimes becomes the object of linguocultural analysis, scientists have not advanced beyond the research of V. M. Shaklein, and the theory of the linguocultural situation remains insufficiently developed to this day. It could be based on the material of the study of specific linguocultural situations, but such works, firstly, are not so few, and secondly, they are quite fragmented, not forming a single the doctrine of the linguocultural situation. In addition, the studies available on this topic have their own applied, narrowly focused tasks, or aspects of the study, and therefore do not reach the level of broad, theoretical generalizations.

Another problem: despite the fact that the linguocultural situation is one of the important and relevant objects of study in Russian linguoculturology, modern researchers are more interested in cultural and historical periods that are far from today. V. M. Shaklein in his work also presented us with a historical cross-section, demonstrating the study of LKS in a diachronic aspect, through the analysis of individual historical and cultural periods. However, the peculiarities of the ethno- and socio-cultural life of modern Russia, being directly reflected in the language, determine the urgent need to study the linguo-cultural situation that has developed in our country today. Therefore, it is the modern linguocultural situation that has become the object of our study, although it is much more difficult to study it, as it is not yet settled, but no less important.

So, V. M. Shaklein gives the following definition of the linguo-cultural situation: “LCS is a dynamic and undulating process of interaction between languages ​​and cultures in historically established cultural regions and social environments” [Shaklein 1997: 19]. As you can see, V. M. Shaklein characterizes the concept of LCS by two main factors. Firstly, temporary(of course, the category of time is the leading one in the analysis of LCS). “The temporal aspect of the LCS,” writes V. M. Shaklein, “is presented, on the one hand, as a permanently and undulating process, and on the other hand, as a static time “slice” prepared by this process, serving as a preparatory stage for the next emerging slice” [ Shaklein 1997: 17]. This means that the scientist proposes to consider the linguocultural situation in diachrony and synchrony, presenting it in dynamics and statics, as a line and as a point on the path of movement, i.e. in the process of the linguocultural development of the nation. The temporal aspect in this interpretation has also become key in our study of a specific linguocultural situation.

V. M. Shaklein believes that the second factor in this dynamic process is “the entry into its composition, as a rule, of not one, but several social formations, several languages ​​and cultures, which in themselves are already complex systems, since one language usually serves several cultures and subcultures, having, in turn, their own (national, sub-ethnic) languages, which are often not spoken by representatives of other cultures and subcultures” [Shaklein 1997: 17]. The content side of LKS, according to the scientist, is characterized by the unification of these social formations, languages ​​and cultures, into complex systems, where the language will acquire regional and sub-ethnic features in phonetics, morphology, vocabulary and syntax. Such a heterogeneity of the composition and the complexity of its components themselves determine a differentiated approach to the study of individual language groups, subcultures, including youth ones - we will add on our own. As a result, the language of the youth subculture, as the most mobile and responsive to the historical and cultural innovations of the time, has become the focus of our research attention. Thus, when characterizing the modern linguistic and cultural situation, the main parameters for us will also be a specific historical moment and a certain social environment, or group.

Since the LCS is a specific implementer of the entire linguistic and cultural system, V. M. Shaklein understands a specific LCS as a static time slice of the linguistic culture. This determines the need to study both socio-economic, national-historical and cultural factors that affect the language situation of a certain period, as well as the study of language and speech material in its systemic development (historical past, modern present and future trends), i.e. in the unity of external factors and intralinguistic processes.

The development of individual components of the LCS, the scientist notes, is carried out mainly in ethnolinguistics, communicative linguistics and sociolinguistics [Shaklein 1997: 35]. Linguoculturological issues one way or another arise in works devoted to the interaction regional cultures - we are talking about the cultures of the western, Russian, eastern. Thus, V. A. Maslova considers the constructive role of language in the formation of the spiritual culture of the people on the example of a small region - the Belarusian Poozerie (its Vitebsk part) [Maslova 2004]. In particular, she notes that the stylistic stratification in Russian, for example, is much stronger than in Belarusian, and this should be taken into account when describing the linguocultural situation, since, in her opinion, the stylistic structure of different languages ​​is also the subject of research in linguoculturology, then, in what forms of existence this or that language is presented. There are languages ​​in which stylistic differentiation is just beginning, and, on the contrary, languages ​​where this differentiation is deep and multifaceted [Maslova 2004: 74]. This is also one of the interesting aspects of studying a particular linguistic and cultural situation.

Naming the components of the LCS (language situation, cultural situation, social situation, ethnic situation), V. M. Shaklein notes that this is far from a complete coverage of the LCS, since this concept concisely absorbs almost the entire life of a particular society. Taking on the most difficult task, in his works the scientist develops "the idea of ​​modeling reality in language by structuring linguocultural correspondences in speech models." We are trying to present a fragment of such a linguocultural picture of society in our work, based on the results of a study of the linguistic features and speech culture of modern Ivanovo students. Such a picture reflects the mentioned linguistic, cultural, social, ethnic situation of a certain stage, period of the country's cultural and historical development.

So the factor temporal. LCS is a period of time on the line of historical and cultural development (“time slice”), where the past, present and future meet and interact at one point. If we turn to dictionaries and the interpretation of the word "time" itself, we can see that this concept is associated primarily with chronology, measuring procedures (duration, length of time, moment), history. But time as a metric category also has topological or qualitative properties that are universal and form the basis of the structure of time. They are more fundamental, since they do not depend on the methods of measuring time and remain unchanged when these methods change. If the quantitative side of the category is associated with a temporal sequence (one-pointedness and irreversibility of time) and can be expressed specifically, by the temporal relationship later / earlier or more / less, then the qualitative side takes into account the difference in moments in terms of their relationship to the process of becoming and is expressed in types of time: past - present - future. From the problem of measurement (metric properties of physical time) to topological properties - such is the evolution in the study of the properties of time.

In general, science has developed a generalized idea of ​​time as a duration (you can divide time, measure it); about the concepts of temporal sequence, general temporal order (sequence of events) and simultaneity; about the direction of movement (flow) of time from the past to the future, associated with the linear perception of time; about its irreversibility, hence the division into past, present, future relative to the reference point (earlier / later; then, now, then). The continuity of time, its infinite divisibility are reflected in the concept of continuum, the discontinuity of time, its infinite divisibility in the concept of a point. At the same time, time is one and all its antinomic characteristics are in the closest relationship, which speaks of the integrity of the temporal structure. The ideas of a Russian person about time as a measure of being (time as a cycle, period, segment, point on a line, interval, duration, interval, moment) represent in dynamics the evolution of the language units of time as linguocultural-containing (for more details, see the works of Mikheeva L. N.: in the monograph "Time in the Russian language picture of the world" [Mikheeva, 2003], as well as in articles on this topic [Mikheeva 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012]).

We fully agree with V. M. Shaklein that the understanding of the term "language of time" is the starting point when considering the issue of the complexity of the approach to the definition of a linguistic and cultural situation, to determining the aesthetic significance of a particular stage of language development, as well as when solving the problem of ways of possible interpretation texts studied time. Moreover, in this case, we would expand the concept of text as a speech work to discourse - a set of texts of different genres and formats, as, for example, in youth discourse, where slogans, anecdotes, sayings and phraseological units act as their own creative texts.

In the study of linguistic cultures, they usually rely on the definition of the “language of the time” given by V. V. Vinogradov - this is a set of language units selected by the authors of texts from a national, constantly evolving language to express thoughts and feelings characteristic of a particular era [Vinogradov 1980: 18]. V. M. Shaklein believes that this combination of the national, group, individual in the language of a certain time is the essence of the LKS, i.e. set of texts created at the same time and in the same geographic space [Shaklein 1997: 42], i.e. in the same place - the same unity of time and space in the linguistic picture of the world. And LKS in this case acts as a complex differentiated by types of texts, while integrity remains the most important principle of linguoculturological analysis.

Second factor, factor places, in turn, is closely related to the concept of ethnolinguistics, which, according to N. I. Tolstoy, as a direction in linguistics, orients the researcher to consider the relationship and connection of language and spiritual culture (folk mentality, folk art), their interdependence and different types of their correspondence where the tongue is in the dominant position. S. M. Tolstaya, developing this idea, emphasizes that the object of study in ethnolinguistics is not only language, but also other forms and substances in which the collective consciousness expresses itself, the folk mentality, the “picture of the world” that has developed in one or another ethnic group, i.e. - the entire folk culture, all its types, genres and forms - verbal (lexicon and phraseology, paremiology, folklore texts), actional (rites), mental (beliefs). The subject of ethnolinguistics is the content plan of culture, its semantic (symbolic) language, its categories and mechanisms [Tolstaya URL: http//www.ruthenia.ru].

According to another scholar, ethnolinguistics shows how language in different forms of its existence, at different stages of its history, has influenced and still influences the history of a people, the position of a particular ethnic group in modern society [Gerd 1995]. A. D. Shmelev, who considers linguistic analysis as the basis for studying various cultural models, considers it promising to compare the “Russian language picture of the world”, emerging as a result of the semantic analysis of Russian lexemes, with the data of ethnopsychology.

Reflecting on the tasks of ethnolinguistics, N. I. Tolstoy wrote that they are aimed at analyzing the use of the language in various language situations, in different ethnosocial strata And groups[Tolstoy 1995: 27]. And the study of the features of the development and functioning of an ethnic group, according to the scientist, can only go in regional aspect, since it is precisely by the language picture of the region that one can study the national one. Today they are already talking about regional linguistics as a direction in ethnolinguistics. The above once again confirms the continuity of the factors of time and place in the analysis of LCS.

As already noted, each cultural and historical era has its own language, fully understandable only to people who lived in this era. One cannot but agree with V. N. Telia that there are no models reflecting the modern mentality of a particular linguistic and cultural community, and the only stable source for such models is the national common language, being a repository, translator and symbolic embodiment of culture [Telia 1996: 235]. Folk culture - folk language and elite culture - literary language - these are two peacefully coexisting linguistic cultures that influence each other and feed each other. Naturally, researchers of the problem of "language and culture," says SM. Tolstaya, first of all, she is attracted by the so-called cultural vocabulary, i.e., the names of cultural realities (these can be ritual terms, names of mythological characters, cultural concepts - "holiness", "fate", "sin", etc.). It is also understandable to pay attention to special ritual terminology, for example, wedding, funeral, calendar. Another and much more difficult task is the study of the cultural semantics and function of "ordinary" words, commonly used words. It is more difficult to open it, and it is far from always fixed by dictionaries [Thick URL: http//www.ruthenia.ru]. On the other hand, this is why it is more interesting to explore this common vocabulary from the standpoint of linguoculturology.

The everyday language is characterized, on the one hand, by relative stability in the sense of maintaining the inviolability of the grammatical laws of language construction, and, from this point of view, the language retains the tradition of a given culture, and on the other hand, the ability to quickly respond to changes taking place in society with the emergence of new words, or the meanings of the old ones, as well as the oblivion of words that do not correspond to the time, have lost their relevance. And from the second point of view, the language is open to innovation and modernization. However, the speed of innovation processes, as well as the levels of these processes, writes SI. Levikov, in different cultural and historical eras, they depend primarily on what kind of societies we are dealing with (static or dynamic), and secondly, what is the structure of a particular society (what layers, strata, subcultures are present in a given society) [Levikova 2004 ]. Modern industrialized societies are dynamic, rapidly changing and are a mobile system that includes many subcultural formations, and the language used by a particular social group reflects its idea of ​​the world.

For us, the importance and relevance of describing the modern linguistic and cultural situation in a particular region (in one of the regions of central Russia) is due to strategic research tasks linguocultural character, which cover both the field of pure linguistics, and the sphere of language policy, and ethno-, socio-cultural plans. Their decision is intended to help promote the study of modern Russian linguistic consciousness, modern Russian linguistic personality, modern Russian linguocultural picture of the world.

The study of the problem of the existence of a special component in the meaning of a word, which at least to some extent contained information about the socio-historical reality in which this or that language exists and functions, has been carried out by linguists for many years.

In domestic linguistics, the issue of background knowledge was first considered in detail in the book by E.M. Vereshchagin and V.G. Kostomarov "Language and Culture". In her background knowledge are defined as “knowledge common to the participants in the communicative act”. In addition, there are a number of other definitions of background knowledge. So, for example, in the Dictionary of Linguistic Terms, background knowledge is defined as knowledge of realities by the speaker and listener, which is the basis of linguistic communication. A more detailed definition is offered by A.A. Nikitina, describing background knowledge as “a set of knowledge of a cultural, material-historical and pragmatic nature that is assumed by a native speaker” . In an even broader interpretation of G.D. Tomakhin, background knowledge is “practically all the knowledge that communicants have at the time of speech” . In a word, this is the information common to communicants that ensures mutual understanding during communication. Let's give a simple example: everyone in the family knows that the son has left to take the exam, and they are worried about him. Returning home from the exam, he can just say one word: “Great!” - and everything will be very clear to everyone. Or, for example, passing by an old mansion, you can say to your companion: "Eighteenth century" - and it will become clear that we are talking about an architectural monument of the 18th century. Also, only preliminary knowledge of N. Nekrasov’s poem “There are women in Russian villages ...” helps to fully understand a number of phrases and their meaning of N.M. Korzhavin’s poems:

The century has passed. And again,

As in that immemorial year,

Stop a galloping horse

He will enter the burning hut.

She would like to live differently

Wear precious clothes

But the horses keep jumping and jumping,

And the huts are burning and burning.

And finally, let's compare the phrase "garage sale" and its translation into Russian: literally "garage sale". But this isn't a garage sale, it's a second hand sale at the lowest prices; which is usually held for charitable purposes - a phenomenon typical of the cultural life of America.

In subsequent philological works, the definition of background knowledge changed, but the essence remained the same - background knowledge is heterogeneous. They can be classified, first, with respect to the scale of the social structure (social education) to which they belong. Secondly, regarding their relevance for a particular social group in a particular period of time. So, V.Ya.Shabes gives the following classification of background knowledge:

• 1. social (those that are known to all participants in the speech act even before the start of the message);
• 2. individual (those that are known only to two participants in the dialogue before the start of their communication);
• 3. collective (known to members of a certain team, related by profession, social relations, etc.)

V.Ya.Shabes emphasizes the fact that background knowledge can move from one type to another. For example, the death of a particular woman is a fact of individual knowledge, while the death of Princess Diana was a national, even world event, and thus this particular fact entered social knowledge. Or: the everyday fact of the appearance of mice in the house, in the kitchen is an individual knowledge concerning the life of a separate family (or one person). But the appearance of mice in the kitchen in the castle of Queen Elizabeth of England has become a fact of social knowledge.

E.M. Vereshchagin and V.G. Kostomarov also distinguish three types of background knowledge:

• 1. universal;
• 2. regional;
• 3. regional studies;

This classification, as the authors themselves note, is not entirely complete. It omits the social group knowledge inherent in certain social communities of people, doctors, teachers, drivers, etc. However, this omission is not significant, since the focus of their book is on the analysis of regional background knowledge, which is the main subject of research. Regional knowledge- this is "the information that all members of a certain ethnic or linguistic community have." Such knowledge is part of the national culture, the result of "the historical development of a given ethnic or state community in equal measure." They “form part of what sociologists call mass culture, that is, they represent information known to absolutely all members of the linguocultural community. Many writers are aware of the existence of geographic background knowledge, and this means that they are guided by them in their work not only intuitively, but also quite consciously. So, for example, the writer V. Soloukhin writes: “... there are concepts, phenomena and problems that are obligatory for every Russian person. You can study starfish, river mollusks, Ural minerals, the properties of rare metals, you can be an engineer, chemist, combine operator, football player, writer, ... but if you are a Russian person, you must know what Pushkin is, what is " A word about Igor's regiment, what is Dostoevsky, what is Field Kulikovo, Pokrov-on-Nerl, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Rublevskaya Trinity, the Mother of God of Vladimir.

Background knowledge as an element of culture, subject to its general pattern, is divided into topical background knowledge and background knowledge cultural heritage.

Actual background knowledge, reflecting various aspects of modern society, is observed, in particular, in the following cases:

One of the highlights of the holiday will be the summit of heads of state European Union and Russia;

The country has come era of privatization;

The market is crowded petrodollars;

Perestroika; consensus; Belovezhskaya agreement;

supermarket; small business; Show Business; i-phone; internet; PR; George Bush; Gwen Stephanie, Linking Park, etc.

From actual background knowledge of this type, it is necessary to distinguish actualized, reproduced, revived background knowledge that belongs to different time periods, but is transferred to the present and thus updated. Such revived background knowledge lies in linguistic expressions: the Northern Capital, St. Petersburg, St. Andrew's Flag, Sparrow Hills, Trafalgar square, Westminster Abbey, Capitol, White House, Liberty Statue, Palm Beach, etc.

As for the background knowledge of cultural heritage, they are rather “unstable”, since what was known to everyone yesterday often ceases to be relevant today. Here V.N. Visheratina proposes to draw an analogy with the development of the language: the language as a set of means of expression is constantly changing in the field of lexical composition, therefore the synchronous sections of the Russian literary language, reflected in the descriptions made every fifty years, differ from each other. The same thing, according to the linguist, can be observed in current culture: if we compare the totality of background knowledge characteristic of an educated Russian person in the middle of the 19th century with the regional knowledge of the beginning of the 20th century and our time, then all three synchronous slices will reveal considerable differences from each other. friend. V.N. Visheratina notes that especially great changes, both in the language and in the actual mass culture, take place during periods of great social transformations. I.S.Kon, who studied the issue of the relationship between current culture and cultural heritage, writes: “Modern youth knows immeasurably more about the physical structure of the world than graduates of the old “classical” gymnasium, but they do not know ancient languages, many biblical and mythological associations and images remain dead to her, incomprehensible. This interferes with the perception not only of ancient art, but even the understanding of art and literature of the 19th century. A similar phenomenon can be illustrated by the example of an excerpt from a poem by A.S. Pushkin: “The Kastalsky key with a wave of inspiration / In the steppe of a worldly exile waters”. Today, even to a quite intelligent person, if he is not a classical philologist by education, this image of the Castal Key may most likely seem obscure, and in order to understand it, one will have to turn to a mythological dictionary. Researchers argue that this state of affairs is absolutely normal, since the volume of actual culture has always changed, new knowledge, concepts and images have always replaced some part of the old ones, making them the property of museums and scholars. Now this process is going much faster than before.

Among the regional background knowledge, that part of them is also distinguished, which has the property of universal (for a given ethnic group or nationality) prevalence and is called weighted background knowledge. It is the weighted regional background knowledge that is of particular importance in the process of teaching foreign languages, as it is the source of selection and the necessary minimization of regional regional material for the purposes of teaching. Finally, scientists distinguish macro background, as a set of regional background knowledge of a given language community, and mini background- "the amount of background knowledge that the teacher models in the classroom for the reception of a particular work of art."

“Country background knowledge,” concludes E.M. Vereshchagin and V.G. Kostomarov, are exceptionally important for the so-called mass communication: a writer or journalist writing for a certain average audience intuitively takes into account weighted regional background knowledge and appeals to it.

Many linguists, such as A.A. Zalevskaya and L.A. Kuritsyna, consider the proposed definitions and classifications of background knowledge to be quite convincing, but they argue that other terminology may also correspond to them. It is associated with computer science, in which they operate with the term "thesaurus"- a set of data about any field of knowledge, which allows you to correctly navigate in it. Therefore, the thesaurus can be understood as different volumes of knowledge in general. It can be: global, international, regional, national, group, individual.

Global includes all the knowledge acquired and mastered by man in the process of his historical development; it is the greatest treasury of world culture. Regional And national thesauri are determined by the historically established volume of knowledge that is characteristic of a given geosocial zone or a given nation (batyr, madam, hut, baba-yaga, Robin Hood, castle, witch, cowboy, wigwam). Group and individual occupy the lowest rung in this division. Their volumes are negligible compared to the rest. In all these thesauri, a certain amount of knowledge is found, which is mastered in all regions and all developed nations. That's what it is universal (international) thesaurus. Each individual owns some part of it. In regional and national thesauri, there is a certain amount of purely national knowledge, which was not co-owned by other national groups.

Before continuing the consideration of linguistic and cultural problems, it seems more appropriate to use the term "background information", which corresponds to a purely national thesaurus and the concept of background knowledge, but is narrower in comparison with it. background information- this is socio-cultural information characteristic only for a certain nation or nationality, mastered by the mass of their representatives and reflected in the language of this national community. In this case, it is fundamentally important that this is not just knowledge, for example, the habits of animals that live in only one geographical area, or the musical rhythms of a given ethnic group, or recipes for preparing national dishes, although all this, in principle, also forms part of background knowledge, it is important that this is only the knowledge (information) that is reflected in the national language, in its words and combinations.

The content of background information covers, first of all, the specific facts of the history and state structure of the national community, the features of its geographical environment, the characteristic objects of material culture of the past and present, ethnographic and folklore concepts, and so on - that is, everything that is usually called in translation theory realities. Thus, realities are understood not only as facts, phenomena and objects, but also their names, words and phrases. Linguists do not consider this fact to be accidental, because knowledge is fixed in concepts that have one form of existence - verbal. Most of the concepts are universal, although they are embodied in a different verbal form. However, those concepts that reflect realities are national in nature and materialize in the so-called non-equivalent vocabulary. Along with this, the Russian linguist V.S. Vinogradov considers this term not very successful, since in translation such words find certain equivalents.

In addition to ordinary realities, marked by non-equivalent vocabulary, background information contains realities of a special kind, which can be called associative - realities associated with a variety of national historical and cultural phenomena and very peculiarly embodied in the language. Associative realities were not reflected in special words, in non-equivalent vocabulary, but were "entrenched" in the most common words. They find their materialized expression in the components of the meanings of words, in the shades of words and in the internal verbal form, revealing informational mismatches of conceptually similar words in the compared languages. Thus, it turns out that the words sun, moon, sea, red, etc. in the literary texts of a particular language are accompanied by regional background knowledge, background information. So, for example, the title of the novel by the Panamanian writer Joaquin Beleno "Luna verde" is translated into Russian literally "Green Moon". For a Russian reader, such an image is likely to cause only bewilderment or false associations. For a resident of Panama or Chile, this is a symbol of hope, a good omen, an image of the coming morning, because for many Latin Americans, green represents everything young and beautiful, symbolizes the joy of being, and the concept of the moon is associated with the spiritual state of a person, his mood, his fate (cf. the use of the word moon in phraseological units estar de buena (mala) luna - to be in a good (bad) mood; darle (a alguien) la luna - he is not himself, he has become clouded; quedarse a la luna (de Valencia) - to remain with what, to be deceived in one's hopes; dejar a la luna (de Valencia) - to leave with nothing, to deceive, etc.).

The concept of background information is closely related to the broader and more ambiguous concept of implicit or implied information. Researchers include in it both the pragmatic preconditions of the text, and the situation of verbal communication, and presuppositions based on knowledge of the world, which are components of the statement that make it meaningful, and implications, and subtext, and the so-called vertical context and allusions, symbols, puns, and other implicit, hidden, additional content deliberately incorporated by the author in the text (cf. old man, old man, old man, old man, old man).

According to V.A. Zvegintsev, the most obvious in various linguistic concepts is the ambiguity of interpretations presuppositions And background knowledge, which are usually pointed out when discussing hidden, implied meanings. And since the concepts of presupposition and background knowledge occupy a central place in the coverage of issues of implicit categories, the insufficient development of these issues generally makes it difficult to differentiate between these concepts and see in them not only a terminological or generic, but also a qualitative and functional difference.

According to A.A. Kryukov, the allocation of implicit meanings as not explicitly expressed by linguistic means, however, implied mental content, has its own historical and linguistic prerequisites. In the linguistic literature, B. L. Whorf’s “hidden categories” are considered as such prerequisites: hidden categories(English covert categories) - a special type of linguistic meanings that do not have "open" (that is, formally distinguished, morphological) means of expression in the language, but, nevertheless, are included in the grammatical system of the language on the basis of "indirect" (for example, syntactic) features that allow us to talk about their presence. And, in addition, the "conceptual categories" of O. Jespersen and I.I. Meshchaninov: "conceptual categories"- closed systems of meanings of some universal semantic features or individual meanings of these features, regardless of the degree of their grammaticalization and the way of expression in a particular language.

In connection with the historical and linguistic prerequisites for highlighting implicit meanings, in many linguistic works, attention is drawn to the concept of "ellipticity" of G. Paul's speech, and the doctrine of the "nearest" (an internal form that makes it possible for the speaker and listener to understand each other) and "further" (at the level of individual perception) meaning of the word A.A. Potebnya. We also consider it necessary to point to an earlier anticipation of the categories of implicit meanings, found in the linguistic concept of W. Humboldt and contained in his following statement: “In each expression, as if something overflows the edge of the word, which has not found its final and complete embodiment in it. .. Many things are not contained directly in the language ... The human being has a premonition of some sphere that goes beyond the limits of the language and which the language, in fact, to some extent limits, but that, nevertheless, it is he who is the only means to penetrate into this sphere... The language, as it were, acquires transparency and gives a glimpse into the inner train of thought.

From the point of view of A.N. Kryukov, this statement prompts reflection on the status of the implied content behind linguistic expressions, that is, on the status of implicit meanings in terms of their linguistic or non-linguistic reference. In modern linguistic literature, there are many different statements that draw attention to the fact that implicit content, to one degree or another, is a constant companion of linguistic expressions. Based on this, it can be argued that implicit meanings and, in particular, background knowledge exist in a non-linguistic form.

As a result of the analysis of the concepts of implicit meanings presented in the linguistic literature, it can be assumed that the area of ​​implied content is an insufficiently clearly divided mental space covered by intersecting and overlapping concepts and, accordingly, terms. Often what is defined as presupposition is otherwise defined as background knowledge and vice versa. Apparently, this is due to the extensive use of the concept of "presupposition" in linguistic science due to the widespread distribution of the conceptual apparatus of logic. So, relatively few works are devoted to the actual linguistic study of background knowledge, in this terminological definition, while various interpretations of presupposition are contained in many works devoted to the study of the functional aspect of language. For example, New in foreign linguistics. -Issue. XVI, 1985;-Vol. ХХШ, 1988 and other works.

E. Sapir considers it unlawful to consider the predominant distribution of the concept of "presupposition" as only a terminological preference in relation to the designated phenomenon. According to him, the very scope of everything implied behind linguistic expressions provides a basis for distinctions within it, and, above all, a distinction between background knowledge and presupposition.

According to linguists, the fact that in various interpretations of implicit categories there is ambiguity in their interpretation has its own objective reason, among other things, also in the fact that the nomenclature of implicit meanings is not just a series, a list, a list of relevant terms or terminological concepts, but a certain a system of categories reflecting the complex interweaving and interaction of implicit meanings of different nature. This interaction greatly complicates the task of their differentiation. At the same time, however, two directions in the linguistic coverage of the problem of background knowledge attract attention:

• 1) one direction is characterized by an emphasis on the sociocultural realities of the idioethnic plan. Its representatives E.M. Vereshchagin, V.G. Kostomarov, G.D. Tomakhin;
• 2) another direction is focused on linguistic communication and a broad interpretation of the concept of "background knowledge", in the light of which "background knowledge ... exists in the form of numerous logical implications and presuppositions" . A broad interpretation of background knowledge and its assignment to a non-linguistic sphere, on the other hand, is accompanied by the recognition that the question of the nature of the relation of background knowledge to linguistic forms remains open.

Simultaneously with the broad interpretation of the concept of "background knowledge", there is an equally wide interpretation of the concept of "presupposition" in terms of scope of the implied area. This concept, as it were, absorbs all types of implied content, including background knowledge.

As a result of various interpretations of background knowledge and presupposition, it turns out that either presupposition is a kind of background knowledge, or background knowledge is part of presupposition.

Following the onomasiological principle, that is, the direction of the analysis from real facts to their categorization, it seems possible to single out the following types of implicit meanings: first of all, this is the implied content, due to everyday experience, current events, various circumstances of everyday life - economic, political, scientific and technical, cultural and educational, environmental, purely informational, everyday, etc. Such implied content depends solely on the context of the situation and is observed mainly in elliptical, as well as in full statements (microtexts). For example: - And where was a big piece of ham? - I cut it (that is, "that big piece no longer exists"). Yes! I "ve finally got it! (The speaker got a job, but this statement is clear only to those people who are aware of his affairs).

Such implicit meanings are present in everyday communication in live speech, as well as in textual communication, especially in the media - in newspaper texts, often in newspaper headlines. These implicit meanings are included in the communicative process through the corresponding linguistic expressions with which they are situationally related. Accompanying elliptical as well as full statements, such implicit meanings are prerequisites And consequences in relation to the explicit content of the corresponding linguistic expressions. An example is the expression: Furniture center - seven days a week.

Implicit meanings, which are self-evident prerequisites due to everyday social experience and current events of everyday life, most of all, in our opinion, correspond to the concept "presupposition". Consider a few examples: “Ippolit Matveyevich looked askance at the old woman” (Ilf I.A., Petrov E.P. Twelve chairs); presupposition = he does not trust the old woman. Or: “Relationships were thus restored, and all three sat down on the bench again” (M. Bulgakov. Master and Margarita) = people in a quarrel try not to communicate and not be around. Also: “He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent” (J. D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye) = to be older means to be more intelligent.

The inferential meanings that follow from the entire content of the statement as consequences can obviously be defined as implications. For example, Elevator for office use. The use of implicit information of this type is especially typical for advertising texts. So, the advertising headline "What will replace the vacuum cleaner?" contains the implicit information "Something will replace the vacuum cleaner." "Why is 'Magical' especially useful?" (yogurt commercial) = "Magical is especially healthy." The slogan of the online company AOL: “So easy to use, no wonder it "s number one" - AOL = "AOL number 1 in the world." The slogan of the GENERAL ELECTRIC HR department: “There are no Whites working at G.E. No Blacks either. Just people. And we need more". Human Resources GENERAL ELECTRIC = Recruitment to competing firms based on discriminatory factors. And finally, "Quicker than Rudolf, bigger than Santa, more sensual than mistletoe, warmer than socks, miles better than charades and the biggest surprise of all” - Interflora flowers = Christmas is a great occasion to present flowers from Interflora flowers as a gift to your loved ones.

Another type of inferential implicit meanings are implicit meanings of a connotative plan, that is, connotations. Linguists E. M. Vereshchagin and V. G. Kostomarov define connotations as stylistic, emotional and semantic shades accompanying words that do not exist on their own, they are usually “grouped” in a word that has its own material-semantic content, superimposed on one of its meanings. For example, in many European languages, the word for fox has the connotation of "cunning" or "cunning". It is clear that these signs are not essential for this class of animals, since in order to call some animal a fox, we do not need to check whether it is cunning. Consequently, the sign of cunning is not included in the definition of this word, but nevertheless it is steadily associated with it in the language, as evidenced by the figurative use of the word fox (a) in relation to a cunning person. Connotations embody the assessment of the object or fact of reality denoted by the word, accepted in a given language community and fixed in the culture of a given society, and reflect cultural traditions. So, cunning and deceit are constant characteristics of the fox as a character in animal tales in the folklore of many peoples. Other examples of connotations are signs of "stubbornness" and "stupidity" in the word donkey, "monotonity" in the word saw, "quickness" and "inconstancy" in the word wind. In addition, in the same language, words with similar meanings can also have very different connotations - this is demonstrated by the example of the difference in connotations of the word donkey (“stubbornness”, “stupidity”) belonging to the Russian specialist in lexical semantics Y.D. Apresyan from the connotations of the word donkey (“willingness to work hard and meekly”). The following example illustrates the connotations that arose on the basis of cultural and historical development: “We fought Lexington to free ourselves / We fought Gettysburg to free others.” So, speaking of important historical events, they only indirectly name the place where they occurred: Lexington - a city in the United States, where in 1778 the first battle took place during the War of Independence of the North American colonies. Gettysburg - the place where from June 1 to June 3, 1863, the northerners won a decisive victory over the slave owners of the South.

Many connotations that reflect the specificity of the culture of a particular linguocultural community are quite peculiar. Along with this, connotations can situationally arise both on the basis of presuppositions and also on the basis of various kinds of implications. For example, Brevity is not always a sister, and sometimes a mother-in-law.

A qualitatively different type of implicit meanings, in comparison with those described above, linguists call implicit sense-knowledge relating to the field of socio-cultural and historical heritage of different time periods, including modernity. Such implicit sense-knowledge lies behind the proper names of prominent personalities or characters of various works, behind remarkable geographical designations and names of various historical events, cultural monuments, etc. Implicit meanings-knowledge, therefore, stand behind the linguistic expressions, names and designations of everything that has left some kind of mark on the life of society and is stored, precisely due to linguistic fixation, in the social memory of generations. Such implicit meanings-knowledge can have both universal and idio-ethnic significance. According to W. Humboldt, the implicit meanings-knowledge, which we are talking about in this case, most of all correspond to the concept of "background knowledge". processes.

And, finally, any kind of implied content, all kinds of implicit meanings, everything that is not explicitly expressed, standing behind an explicit text, can be defined, according to E. Sapir, by the concept "subtext". The subtext is revealed with the help of material language indicators contained in the text; They are the ones that give access to hidden information. Indicators can refer to different language levels:

• a) words and phrases, when by these indicators the receptor guesses about the hidden content, about the meaning of the subtext;
• b) sentences or parts of the text, when the expressed message causes the reader or listener to perceive implicit information;
• c) the work as a whole, when the entire text is associated with a secondary implicit meaning or text.

Types and types of subtext are very diverse. Subtextual content can be correlated with the sphere of language, literature, folklore, mythology (this is all philological subtext), with reality itself, the social environment (historical and modern), with event, everyday facts, etc.

Thus, the distinction between background knowledge and presupposition, based on the study of specific linguistic material in text communication, we consider it possible to present in the following comparative characteristics:

1. Language and speech relatedness these types of implicit meanings. Background knowledge is characterized by a transposition from the system of language into the sphere of communication. In the field of communication, background knowledge is, as it were, reproduced, that is, reproduced. And the interaction of background knowledge with the context of the situation is such that these implicit meanings-knowledge transferred from the language system to the sphere of communication have a certain autonomy in relation to the context of the situation in which they are used. Interacting with the context of the situation, background knowledge does not entirely depend on it, in other words, it is not created by it. For example, the Augean stables; Tower of Babel; Ivan Susanin; Plushkin; Don Juan of the 20th century; Raskolnikov's heir; Cyrillic, Robin Hood and so on.

In contrast, presuppositions are predominantly produced, that is, they are generated, created by the context of the situation and are entirely conditioned by it. Thus, it seems possible to distinguish between background knowledge and presupposition to a certain extent, taking into account the dichotomy of language and speech.

2. The next important, in our opinion, basis for distinguishing between background knowledge and presupposition is time factor. Background knowledge as such, as a type of implicit meanings, is distinguished by a wide time range, which is a temporary space from the cultural and historical heritage of antiquity to the present, inclusive.

In contrast, presupposition is a rather synchronous phenomenon. Although certain temporal characteristics mediated by background knowledge may be characteristic of presupposition as a factor accompanying background knowledge of different times.

3. The difference between background knowledge and presupposition is also manifested in the sphere of their functional interaction. In the language system, there are constant presuppositions accompanying background knowledge, and in communication with background knowledge, variable contextual presuppositions interact. Thus, background knowledge is inevitably connected and interacts with presupposition.

In contrast, presuppositions can act independently, without connection with background knowledge. It is precisely such cases of presuppositions not burdened with background knowledge that are found in various everyday situations of communication. This is just the most typical manifestation of presupposition as a phenomenon in its "pure" form, which can be observed in numerous examples from the media. Thus, in an advertising message from the telecommunications company Vodafone: "Find out why more business people prefer Vodafone", the subordinate clause "why more business people prefer Vodafone" carries an explicit presupposition "most business people use Vodafone".

Doctor of Philology, Professor E.V.Vladimirova developed a temporary typology of background knowledge based on the temporal criterion. According to her, “the proposed delimitation is conceived as one of the possible options. The difference between the possible variants of the temporal typology of background knowledge is seen only in the details of delimiting one of the identified types from the other. The general principle remains the same.

The temporal typology of background knowledge in the proposed version has the following characteristics:

1. Diachronic background knowledge - F.zn.D1(where Ph.zn. = background knowledge, and D = a certain stage of historical space). In this case, we mean the time period from antiquity to modern times (in accordance with the definition of modern times in historical science) without special detailed distinctions in this period. Examples:

At confucius birthday. He is 2550 years old.

earth and sky Hellas.

"...during King Phillip"s War" (N.Hawthorne) - "... during the war with King Philip».

From their peasant resistance roots, the Ninja at some stage became organized into families.

Although Leonardo produced a relatively small number of paintings, many of which remained unfinished, he was nevertheless an extraordinarily innovative and influential artist.

2. Diachronic background knowledge - F.zn.D2. Time period New time, mainly 18th and 19th centuries.

There are 109 characters on the grandiose composition - from Rurik before Peter the Great(F.zn.D1 and F.zn.D2).

The French sold the last shirt under the hammer Napoleon... Cards and other "trinkets" with an autograph used a lot of excitement Bonaparte.

3. Diachronic background knowledge - F.zn.D3. The time period is mainly the 20th century in its first and early second half.

beatlemania began in Britain.

Poetry Silver Age; Hunt for archives Lubyanka; The Hudson River school- Hudson School.

4. Synchronous background knowledge - F.zn.S1(where C = different time relatedness in synchrony). The time period is mainly the second half of the 20th century, which in this typology is the beginning of the synchronous period. According to the author of the classification, “between diachronic background knowledge of the D3 type and synchronous background knowledge of the C1 type, in some cases it is difficult to draw any definite boundaries, since both one and the other of the selected types essentially belong to the recent past. Therefore, this distinction can be accepted with a large degree of convention.

Allan S. Konigsberg changed his name to Woody Allen. He was sixteen and starting to write jokes which he sent to several of the major New York newspapers hoping them to be used by some of the gossip columnists.

Security Council; UN; NATO; Generation sixties; Base jumping, etc.

Be our Zheglov private detective.

5. Synchronous background knowledge - F.zn.S2. The time period is the near present, current events. In a generalized view, this is the end of the 20th - the beginning of the 21st century.

As Gabriel Garcia Marquez once wrote of her, Shakira's music has a personal stamp that doesn't look like anyone else's and no one can sing or dance like her, at whatever age, with such an innocent sensuality, one that seems to be of her own invention".

Miss Universe; New Russians; "Euro"; Green Party; Perestroika; Epoch privatization; International Tribunal in The Hague, September 11, Silicon Valley, Harry Potter etc.

Therefore, the types of background knowledge identified depending on the time factor can be symbolically represented as follows: F.zn.D1, F.zn.D2, F.zn.D3, F.zn.С1, F.zn.С2.

Thus, background knowledge is placed in temporal space in diachrony and synchrony. In communication, multitemporal background knowledge interacts not only with other types of implicit meanings, but also with each other. The presented temporal typology of background knowledge is thus based on the most general temporal characteristics. Concerning this issue, E.V. Vladimirova considers it necessary to take into account not only a certain blurring of the boundaries between the distinguished temporal types of background knowledge, but also the mobility of such boundaries. This is due to the fact that one type of background knowledge can eventually act as another. Thus, the redistribution of boundaries is carried out over time constantly in the direction from synchrony to diachrony - from F.zn.S2 to F.zn.C1 and F.zn.D3 and beyond.

A special type of actualization of diachronic background knowledge in synchrony is the functioning of such background knowledge, which, once having arisen, did not interrupt its synchronous significance. It's kind of achronic, background knowledge that has not lost its synchronous significance. Such background knowledge is behind expressions: the Green Museum, the Aivazovsky Gallery, as well as the Dresden Gallery, the Tretyakov Gallery, Christmas, Shrovetide, Easter, the Bible, the Koran, the Constitution, Red-brick University, Thanksgiving Day, Halloween, etc.

As evidenced by numerous examples, the actualization of diachronic background knowledge is a fairly common phenomenon in the synchronous (modern) functioning of the language. E.V.Vladimirova adds that actualization is often accompanied by a synchronous transformation of the corresponding language expressions, behind which one or another diachronic background knowledge is hidden. Along with the transformation of linguistic expressions, at the same time, diachronic background knowledge is also transformed in terms of adaptation to synchrony. And thus, the diachronic and synchronous factors seem to be combined.

The following cases can serve as examples of updated diachronic background knowledge with various modifications:

There is only one problem in Russia: fools on the road

Generals in politics are as popular as they are at a wedding

Serve? Always! Serve? Same

Did you pray at night, Desdemona?

Romeo and Juliet scammed

Raskolnikov's heir

Oleg Tabakov - the best Molière of the 20th century

Long years domestic Holmes entrance to literature was categorically ordered

In the vast expanses of our country, a million ... Akaki Akakieviches work

Casanova of the 20th century

A distinctive feature of such updated background knowledge is their characterizing function in various communicative situations. If other types of background knowledge - actually diachronic of different historical periods, revived and achronic background knowledge, acting as relevant along with newly emerged ones - relate to the purpose of the message, then these updated background knowledge function as a basis for comparing and characterizing other objects, phenomena, events, personalities related to the modern life of society. Such updated background knowledge, unlike other types of background knowledge, which mainly performs nominative (denotative) function, perform evaluative (significative) function. Compare:

Secret testament Mao Zedong and Russian Mao Zedong

Hunt for archives Lubyanka and the truck was seized local Lubyanka.

Since we consider background knowledge as a specific semantic category, the question arises of whether this category is related to linguistic semantics, that is, to the content side of linguistic expressions, to their meanings. The question of the status of implicit meanings and, in particular, background knowledge in terms of their linguistic relevance is solved in various linguistic concepts, mainly in such a way that implicit meanings, including background knowledge, are brought out of the language into an extralinguistic area of ​​mental content. It turns out that, on the one hand, background knowledge is, as it were, outside the language, on the other hand, they do not have their own status as such, their independent existence as background knowledge without language. According to S. D. Katsnelson, background knowledge appears as a kind of two sides of the same coin, since in one respect they belong to the sphere of thinking, in another respect they also belong to the language. And in connection with the latter, he expresses the opinion that background knowledge is not correlated as something external with linguistic expressions, as non-linguistic with linguistic, namely, it belongs to the language, as if from the inside, permeate linguistic expressions, thus justifying the understanding and definition of them. as an implicit phenomenon based on its explicit design.

We believe that such an approach to the category of background knowledge leads to the recognition of their linguistic status. But then it becomes unclear how to correlate the language status of background knowledge with the language status of the semantics of language units. After all, the semantics of linguistic expressions, according to the majority of linguists, is axiomatically recognized as linguistic belonging and is defined in the formulations: explicit content, explicit meaning.

Along with explicit meanings, linguistic expressions also contain something internal (implicit), that is, certain meanings. We are talking about constant meanings-knowledge, assigned to linguistic units in the language system, accompanying explicit meanings. Thus, the semantics of language units that have background knowledge splits, as it were, and, therefore, appears as a unity of explicit (meaning) and implicit (background knowledge). And then background knowledge gets the status of implicit semantics of language expressions.

From the foregoing, we can bring the following concept of background knowledge, the main provisions of which are as follows:

• - Background knowledge can be defined as a specific implicit category, which is not a current, self-evident implied content, as is typical for presupposition, but implicit sense-knowledge, assigned to linguistic expressions in the language system and reproduced in the field of communication.
• - Background knowledge, being realized in the sphere of communication, is in constant interaction with other types of implicit meanings, represented by presuppositions, implications and connotations. The concept of subtext is generic in relation to all types of implicit meanings, including in relation to background knowledge. At the same time, background knowledge, like presuppositions, are basic, while implications and connotations are inferential meanings.

Background knowledge can be distinguished from presupposition on the following grounds:

• - Background knowledge is characterized by fixedness in the language system, the property of reproduction in communication and such interaction with the context of the situation in which background knowledge has its own specific weight.
• - Presuppositions are created by the context of the situation and are entirely conditioned by it. Linguistic expressions act only as stimulators of presupposition.
• - As a basis for distinguishing background knowledge from presupposition, one can also consider the presence of implicit sense-knowledge of a time range, on the basis of which there is a temporal typology of background knowledge. In accordance with this, background knowledge is considered in the temporary historical space and is determined as it moves away from antiquity and approaches the present as types of diachronic background knowledge - D1, D2 and D3. There are also types of synchronous background knowledge - C1 and C2.
• - Unlike presupposition, when updating background knowledge in communicative processes, they can act as a basis for comparison and as a means of evaluating characteristics of synchronously significant designated objects.
• - Background knowledge is in constant interaction with presuppositions, implications and connotations. In contrast, presuppositions can also appear without any connection with background knowledge, which is observed in their mass presence in various situations of communication with elliptical sentences characteristic of such situations.
• - The definition of background knowledge as a specific implicit category does not imply the removal of this category outside the language. The property of implicitness in application to background knowledge is understood as something constantly standing as implied behind linguistic expressions. And this constant fixation of the implied (implicit) meanings-knowledge determines their specific linguistic status.

Recognition of the language status behind the background knowledge allows a broader interpretation of the content of words, phrases and various expressions, behind which there are certain background knowledge. In the semantics of such expressions, explicit meanings and implicit semantic knowledge, that is, background knowledge, interact. And thus, background knowledge can be defined as an implicit aspect of the semantics of linguistic expressions.

Based on the analysis of various linguo-cultural literature, and summing up all of the above, we can conclude the following: the specifics of a linguo-cultural community is a set of background knowledge - that is, all information known to all members of the national community. There are many different approaches to the definition of the concept of "background knowledge" and to their classification. In the semantic structure of the word, background knowledge is present both explicitly and implicitly. Verbalization of background knowledge is a separate cognitive task and does not occur in everyday communication. A huge role in the formation of background knowledge is played by modern mass media. In this regard, modern linguoculturologists note that the abundance of incoming information forms a surface layer of knowledge, only fleeting impressions and fragments of knowledge and ideas remain in memory, which leads to the formation of the so-called "mosaic culture". The practical meaning of the concept of "background knowledge" lies in the fact that the study of a foreign language should be based on the assimilation of regional knowledge.

In the next chapter, we will consider in more detail the functions, structure and content of background knowledge as the basis of a linguocultural community.

It should be said that the problem of the relationship between language and behavior is interesting not only in terms of their mutual influence, but also from the point of view of the national specifics of the speech and non-speech behavior of speakers of different cultures. One of the possible ways to study the national-specific features of the relationship between thinking, culture, behavior and language are intercultural (interlingual) comparisons of various aspects of culture, verbal and non-verbal behavior of native speakers.

Considering speech situations, E. M. Vereshchagin and V. G. Kostomarov subdivide them into standard and variable [Vereshchagin, Kostomarov 1976, 139]. Both types of speech situations are closely related to non-verbal behavior. Description of speech situations of all kinds, including those in which non-verbal languages ​​are used, provides rich material for comparing cultures, taking into account their national specifics, which is necessary for the proper organization of communication between speakers of different cultures and ensuring their understanding of each other.

So, for example, the gesture of farewell accepted in Russian culture does not coincide with the English and Italian gestures of this meaning. In our country and abroad, they stop a taxi or a passing car in different ways, receive guests in different ways, celebrate holidays, smile in different ways and in different situations, etc. Gestures of one culture that have no equivalent in another culture are interpreted by the carriers of the latter , is generally false and is often the opposite of their meaning. A foreigner who speaks a foreign language well can be recognized by the “accent” in his sign language, if he does not know both gestures-symbols that carry a certain semantic load, and non-communicative gestures that also have specifics in different cultures [Vereshchagin, Kostomarov 1976, 148, 150]. Interest in the national specifics of sign language and the so-called everyday (routine) behavior, correlated with the culture of a linguistic and cultural community, with its customs, habits, ethical, moral norms, found expression in various descriptions and intercultural comparisons of the non-verbal aspect of culture [Bgazhnokov 1978; National and cultural specificity of speech behavior 1977; Ovchinnikov 1971; Papp 1964; Jacobson 1970].

Of course, the forms and norms of behavior not only do not coincide in different cultures, but also change within one local culture in the process of its development. It is not difficult to imagine a situation when the bearer of a certain linguocultural community is unable to understand not only words, realities, but also behavioral norms related to the previous stage of the historical development of his people.

Literature and art provide rich material for studying the national and cultural specifics of verbal and non-verbal behavior of a certain linguocultural community.

Forms of behavior, its rhythm, tone and general character find a peculiar but obligatory reflection in the stage behavior typical of the given epoch. Theater critics note that the Hamlets of our time are alien to the pathetic elation of speech and affectation of gesture, inherent in the theater of the past. According to V. G. Belinsky, the famous Russian actor P. Mochalov played one of the scenes of Shakespeare's play in this way: laughter…”. Hamlet Mochalova laughed wildly, moaned wildly and ran around the stage, “like a lion escaping from a cage” [Belinsky 1948, 47]. The drawing of the roles of modern actors playing Hamlet is marked by restraint and psychological nuances, close to us, but not familiar either to the era of W. Shakespeare, or the first half of the 19th century, when Mochalov played [Khalizev 1979, 55]. In this case, apparently, a process similar to literary translation takes place, where the achievement of an aesthetic impact equal to or close to the impact of the original text (text in FL) can be considered as the criterion of adequacy. The theater, striving to create the effect that the author of the play was counting on, "translates" the language of behavior in accordance with the modern style of behavior and behavioral norms. There is an opinion that the farther in historical time and cultural “space” a performance is from a play, the more artistic and moral grounds the director has for various restructurings [Khalizev 1979, 55-56].

The presence of a cultural "space" between the translated play and the performance often becomes a prerequisite for very significant changes in the original in the process of stage editing and staging. The purpose of such changes may be the desire to reduce the distance between cultural fields, as well as the desire to achieve the same moral and aesthetic (emotional and aesthetic) impression that is inherent in the text in a foreign language. The culturological distance in this case is due to two reasons: firstly, the national-cultural background in which the characters act, who have a certain originality compared to the culturological skills of the audience; secondly, the national specifics of the construction of the play and the theatrical tradition in which it was written. It is known, for example, that the Kazakh spectator traditionally refers to the theater as a performance-action, while perceiving psychological dramas built on “zones of silence”, on subtext, such a spectator experiences certain difficulties. It is difficult for the majority of the Kazakh audience to adequately perceive, for example, the plays of A.P. Chekhov [Bokeev, 1979]. Lithuanian dramaturgy is characterized by a penchant for intellectuality, philosophical debate, and frankly conventional theatrical manner [Grushas 1979]. In such a situation, it is more difficult to perceive plays of another culture, saturated with national realities, depicting life in detail, exploring the problems of everyday life. There are cases when a playwright, working with translators of his play into other languages, creates different versions of the same play, taking into account the national and cultural specifics corresponding to the linguistic and cultural community. The Kyrgyz play "Duel" by M. Baydzhiyev has two versions: one for the Kyrgyz audience, the other for the viewer, whose perception is shaped by the broad context of the Russian language and culture. Depending on the orientation towards one or another recipient, the play provides for equivalent substitutions and cultural options, ranging from everyday details to two different endings of the play [Ganiev 1979].

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Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus

educational institution

"Gomel State University named after Francysk Skaryna"

Faculty of Foreign Languages

Department of Theory and Practice of the English Language

Graduate work

Performer: student Varenikova M.V.

Supervisor: Ph.D., Associate Professor Bogatikova L.I.

Reviewer: art. teacher of the department of German language Narchuk A.P.

Gomel 2008

ABSTRACT

Object: the phenomenon of background knowledge as the basis of a linguistic and cultural community.

Purpose: a comprehensive analysis of background knowledge as the basis of a linguistic and cultural community; determination of their structure and content.

Tasks: to consider various scientific approaches to solving the problem of the relationship between language, culture and society; to analyze the specifics of the linguocultural community and the phenomenon of background knowledge; determine the place of reproducible verbal complexes in the system of language units as part of background knowledge, establish their communicative functions; analyze and summarize information about the structure and content of background knowledge; conduct a linguistic experiment with the aim of practical research of background knowledge of students.

Research methods: study of literature on linguistics, cultural studies and linguistic and regional studies in relation to the phenomenon of background knowledge, linguistic and cultural community, as well as related concepts and phenomena; interpretive analysis of the functions, structure and content of background knowledge; sociological survey.

Conclusion: in modern society, international contacts are becoming increasingly important, often only language is not enough for successful intercultural communication, and, as a result, there is an urgent need to master background knowledge, that is, a set of knowledge of a cultural, material-historical and pragmatic nature, which are assumed representatives of a certain linguistic and cultural community.

Application: linguoculturology, intercultural communication, methods of teaching foreign languages.

INTRODUCTION

1. THE PROBLEM OF INTERRELATION OF LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SOCIETY

2. BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE AS A REFLECTION OF THE NATIONAL SPECIFICITY OF A LINGUO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY

3. STRUCTURE, CONTENT AND FUNCTIONS OF BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE AS THE BASIS OF A LINGUO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY

3.1 Functions of background knowledge

3.2 Structure of background knowledge

CONCLUSION

LIST OF USED SOURCES

APPLICATION

INTRODUCTION

In the era of integration of various humanities and social sciences for the multilateral study of a single object - a person, his culture, his being in society, mentality - new directions and disciplines are born at the junction of different sciences, at the intersection of their objects and research methods. Linguistic and regional studies considers language as a cultural code of a nation, as an instrument for creating, developing and storing culture, and linguistic signs are studied as signs of a certain linguocultural community.

Each person belongs to a certain culture, including national traditions, language, history, literature. Economic, cultural and scientific contacts of countries and their peoples make relevant topics related to the study of intercultural communications, the relationship of languages ​​and cultures, the study of linguistic personality. At the same time, an indispensable condition for the implementation of any communicative act should be bilateral knowledge of realities, which is the basis of communication, which has received the name "background knowledge" in linguistics. E.M. Vereshchagin and V.G. Kostomarov were the first scientists who scientifically substantiated the objectivity of the existence of background knowledge, their linguistic nature, and showed that the semantics of a word is not limited to one lexical concept.

Currently, the problems associated with the phenomenon of background knowledge are being actively developed in modern linguistics. The multidimensionality of this phenomenon leads to the emergence of various approaches to its study.

Not so long ago, the study of background knowledge was considered the prerogative of only linguistic and regional studies (G.D. Tomakhin, E.S. Bragina, E.M. Vereshchagin, V.G. Kostomarov, V.P. Furmanova, etc.). The main attention here is paid to the word as a concentration of background information. There are also a number of works on lexicography, the authors of which point out the need for a lexicographic description of language units based on background knowledge (Yu.D. Apresyan, O.S. Akhmanova, A.S. Gerd, L.P. Kalutskaya, F.A. Litvin and others).

At this stage, the concept of precedent phenomena is also successfully developing (N.N. Mikhailov, Yu.S. Sorokin, Yu.N. Karaulov, D.B. Gudkov, V.V. Krasnykh, I.M. Mikhaleva, D.V. Bagaeva and others). Precedent phenomena are heterogeneous in composition, but they all reflect one or another cultural reality.

The problem of background knowledge in the period from 1982 to 2003. in various aspects was studied in such dissertations in linguistics as: I.Yu.Markovina (1982), "The influence of linguistic and extralinguistic factors on the understanding of the text"; L.P. Dyadechko (1989), “Linguistic characteristics of citations-reminiscences in the modern Russian language”; U.A. Uvarova (1998), “Reflection of background knowledge in lexicography”; GG Slyshkin (1999), "Linguistic and cultural concepts of precedent texts"; E.V. Vladimirova (2002), “Background knowledge as a semantic category in the communicative-pragmatic aspect”; S.I. Kuzminskaya (2003), "Background knowledge in mass culture".

However, despite the existing articles and defended dissertations devoted to the study of the phenomenon of background knowledge, there are quite a lot of unsolved problems that require further reflection. Some of them are covered in the present study. In particular, issues such as:

Background knowledge in the structure of a linguistic personality;

Functional and communicative aspect of background knowledge;

Structure and content of background knowledge;

In a word, we see the relevance of this study in the fact that at present the question of the functions, structure and content of background knowledge is open. At the same time, the role of background knowledge in the process of intercultural communication is very important. The modern development of the methodology of teaching foreign languages ​​involves the combination of learning a foreign language with the simultaneous study of the culture of the country of the language being studied. The task of the teacher is to introduce the student to a different culture, a different civilization, to draw his attention to the nationally marked vocabulary, to indicate that it carries certain background regional knowledge, causes certain associations in the recipient. Elucidation of nationally marked vocabulary and phraseology, those units, the semantic content of which is difficult to convey by means of another language, expands and enriches the existing knowledge about the language and the reality of the country of the language being studied.

The object of this study is the phenomenon of background knowledge as the basis of a linguistic and cultural community.

The subject is the functions, structure and content of background knowledge.

The purpose of this study is a comprehensive analysis of background knowledge as the basis of a linguocultural community; determining their functions, structure and content.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks are supposed to be solved:

1) consider various scientific approaches to solving the problem of the relationship of language, culture and society; analyze the specifics of the linguocultural community;

2) consider the most significant approaches in modern language science to describing the phenomenon of background knowledge, clarify the content of such concepts as "precedent phenomenon", "presupposition", "implication", "connotation", "realities", "terms", "reproducible verbal complexes";

3) determine the place of reproducible verbal complexes in the system of language units, establish their communicative functions, describe possible types of transformation in the course of their use;

4) analyze and summarize information about the structure and content of background knowledge;

5) to conduct a linguistic experiment for the purpose of practical research of background knowledge of students.

The theoretical basis of the study was the ideas of domestic and foreign scientists in the field of linguistic semantics, as well as culturologists and linguistic and regional studies.

The following methods were used during the study:

Consideration of the main concepts and theories of linguistics and cultural studies, in relation to the phenomenon of background knowledge and linguistic and cultural community;

Interpretive analysis of the functions, structure and content of background knowledge;

Sociological survey;

The provisions and conclusions of the study can be used in cultural linguistics, methodology and intercultural communication.

This work includes an introduction, the main part, consisting of three chapters, revealing the theoretical and practical components of this work; conclusion, list of references and appendix.

The introduction provides a justification for the relevance of the work, defines the goals, objectives, object and subject of research, reveals the methodological basis of the thesis, its theoretical and practical values.

The first chapter deals with the problem of the interaction of language, culture and society, as well as the specifics of the linguocultural community.

The second chapter contains an analysis of various theories and concepts of the phenomenon of background knowledge, in addition, the specifics of background knowledge in their delimitation from presupposition are substantiated; a classification of background knowledge based on a time criterion is presented.

The third chapter is devoted to the analysis and generalization of the functions, structure and content of background knowledge.

Conclusions are provided at the end of each chapter.

In conclusion, the main results of the study are summarized.

The appendix presents the tasks, implementation methodology and results of the linguistic experiment, the purpose of which was a practical study of students' background knowledge.

1 . THE PROBLEM OF INTERRELATION OF LANGUAGE, CULTURE ANDGENERALTVA

In recent years, due to the increasing integration of European countries and the globalization of the world economy, the issues of interethnic contacts, intercultural relations, the development of which is stimulated by both political and economic factors, as well as the ever-expanding Internet, have become particularly acute. The Internet easily destroys the barriers that for centuries divided people not only ideologically but also ethnically. Linguists were the first to feel the situation that had changed in the world, for whom the close, inseparable connection between language and culture has always been obvious and indisputable.

The fact is that a special knowledge of the world by one or another human community, the customs that are reflected in culture, are transmitted in the language and can become an obstacle in communication between representatives of different peoples. More K.D. Ushinsky wrote that "the best and even the only way to penetrate the character of the people is to master its language, and the deeper we entered into the language of the people, the deeper we entered into its character."

The idea of ​​a connection between culture and language was first explicitly expressed in the 17th century as a result of the active interest of Europeans in "foreign" peoples. Many scientists, such as A.Ya. Flier, give the following definition to the concept of "culture" - the cement of the building of social life. And not only because it is transmitted from one person to another in the process of socialization and contact with other cultures, but also because it forms in people a sense of belonging to a certain group. Apparently, members of the same cultural group are more likely to understand each other, trust and sympathize with each other than with outsiders. Their shared feelings are reflected in slang and jargon, favorite foods, fashion, and other aspects of culture.

Currently, the following criteria are generally recognized in the content of the concept of "culture":

Culture is understood as a product of human social activity;

Culture accumulates, accumulates values: each generation contributes to the culture of a certain community of people;

Culture is very important for the development of the human personality, since a person always feels like such only in a certain community of people, appropriating the material and spiritual values ​​that are characteristic of the culture of this community.

Consequently, the formation of a person is always socialization, that is, the formation of his inner world under the influence of norms and values ​​characteristic of a particular social group. According to E.M. Vereshchagin, V.G. Kostomarov “wishing to understand the inner world of a Russian or a German, a Pole or a Frenchman, one should study Russian or, respectively, German, Polish, French culture” .

In the modern world, the problem of interethnic understanding is of particular importance. In this regard, the dialogue of cultures becomes very important as a means of harmonizing relations between people of different nationalities, recognizing the spiritual wealth of a particular nation. The dialogue of cultures allows not only to learn about a foreign culture, but also to understand one’s own more deeply, since the awareness of the native picture of the world that exists in the minds of native speakers is manifested in comparison with the picture of the world of another people. This was also pointed out by L.V. Shcherba, who wrote that “knowledge of a non-native language helps to better understand the structure of the native language, as if to look at the familiar language from the other side, with different eyes.” The dialogue of cultures helps the socialization of the individual as a carrier of a particular language with its ethnic characteristics, helps to realize one's mentality, which reflects the worldview in the categories and forms of the native language, combining in the process of cognition the intellectual, spiritual and volitional qualities of the national character in its typical manifestations.

Researchers also pay attention to the fact that culture not only strengthens solidarity between people, but also causes conflicts within and between groups, or the so-called "Clash of Cultures". This can be illustrated by the example of language, the main element of culture. On the one hand, the possibility of communication contributes to the rallying of the members of the social group. A common language supports the cohesion of society, contributes to the formation of a sense of group unity, group identity. It helps people coordinate their actions by persuading or judging each other. In addition, between people who speak the same language, mutual understanding and sympathy almost automatically arise. The leaders of developing countries where there are tribal dialects are striving to ensure that a single national language is adopted, so that it spreads among groups that do not speak it, understanding the importance of this factor for uniting the entire nation and combating tribal disunity. But on the other hand, the common language excludes those who do not speak this language or speak it in a slightly different way. For example, in the UK, members of different social classes use slightly different forms of English. Although everyone speaks "English", some groups use "more correct" English than others. There are also many varieties of English in America.

In this situation, we consider it appropriate to talk about a linguocultural community. G.D. Tomakhin gives the following definition of the concept "lingvoculbtour community"- people united by language and culture; the unity of the people, their language and culture. He also notes that the linguistic and cultural community is heterogeneous, since within it fluctuations are possible in certain parameters of linguistic culture: regional, social, professional, etc.

In turn, O.L. Leontovich uses the term " social stratification of linguistic culture" and identifies the following types of social identity of the individual in relation to the US linguistic culture, which, according to him, with minor clarifications are applicable to other linguistic cultures:

gender;

age;

Racial and ethnic;

Geographic;

class;

property;

status;

O.L.Leontovich believes that the belonging of a person to any linguocultural community is determined by the linguocultural competence of the person within the framework of this culture, while the operational criterion is the language in which communication is most natural for this person, since many other aspects of linguoculture, such as values , representations, attitude to the surrounding world, are hidden from observation. The carriers of the national linguistic culture, as a rule, speak different versions of the national language, so the language norm plays an important role in determining the boundaries of the linguistic and cultural community.

Thus, culture and language exist in dialogue with each other. Culture influences language, and language, in turn, influences culture. It is in linguistic forms that the whole set of ideas, beliefs, customs, traditions and habits, which is part of the spiritual culture of a particular society, is fixed and fixed. Language is a form of social memory; socially developed norms and prescriptions are concentrated in it, following which ensures the normal functioning of society. It should be noted that language is not a simple sum of words, phrases or grammatical units. Language is an integral system of means that reproduce the infinitely complex world of human consciousness. Language is also not something abstract from the speech practice of specific individuals who speak it, it is always a means of expressing the common culture of a people, an instrument of a certain type of civilization, a verbal form of expression of organizing tendencies of general cultural and social development. So, for example, the "marine" idioms of the English language stem from island thinking, from a past life entirely dependent on the maritime space surrounding the island of Great Britain, from the most common profession of a nation of seafarers.

In general, from the 19th century to the present day, the problem of interconnection, interaction of language and culture is one of the central ones in linguistics. The first attempts to solve this problem can be found in the works of W. Humboldt, the main provisions of the concept of which can be reduced to the following:

1) material and spiritual culture are embodied in the language;

2) every culture is national, its national character is expressed in the language through a special vision of the world; the language has an internal form specific to each people;

3) the internal form of the language is an expression of the "folk spirit", its culture;

4) language is a mediating link between a person and the world around him. The concept of W.Humboldt received a peculiar interpretation in the works of A.A. Potebnya, S.Bally, J.Vandries, I.A.Baudouin de Courtenay, R.O.Yakobson and other researchers.

The idea that language and reality are structurally similar was also expressed by L. Elmslev, who noted that "the structure of language can be equated with the structure of reality or taken as a more or less deformed reflection of it." In his opinion, language and culture are interconnected:

1) in communication processes;

2) in ontogenesis (the formation of human language abilities);

3) in phylogeny (the formation of a generic social person).

According to A.F. Losev, these two entities differ as follows:

1) in language as a phenomenon, the focus on the mass addressee prevails, while in culture elitism is valued;

2) although culture is a sign system (like a language), it is not capable of self-organizing.

Here we also want to take a closer look at the well-known Sapir-Whorf conjecture. This hypothesis is based on the belief that people see the world differently - through the prism of their native language. For its supporters, a person sees the world as he speaks, so people who speak different languages ​​see the world differently. The more complex and diverse the set of concepts for one phenomenon, the more significant and weighty it is in a given culture. And the less significant the phenomenon, the coarser the linguistic differentiation. Thus, the following main provisions are distinguished in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:

1) Language determines the way of thinking of the people speaking it.

2) The way of cognition of the real world depends on the languages ​​in which the cognizing subjects think. “We dissect nature in the direction suggested by our language. We single out certain categories and types in the world of phenomena not at all because they are self-evident, on the contrary, the world is presented to us as a kaleidoscopic stream of impressions that must be organized by our consciousness, which means basically - the language system stored in our consciousness . We dismember the world, organize it into concepts, and distribute meanings in one way and not another, largely because we are parties to an agreement that prescribes such a systematization. This agreement is valid for a certain language community and is fixed in the system of models of our language.

This hypothesis was supported and further developed in the works of I.L. Weisgerber, in his concept of language as an “intermediate world” standing between objective reality and consciousness.

The opponents of this hypothesis have proved that, although differences in the perception of the world undoubtedly exist, they are not so significant, otherwise people simply would not be able to communicate with each other. Among the studies in this area, a special place belongs to the works of the Russian scientist A.A. Leontiev.

Thus, thinking stands between the real world and language, the word does not reflect the object or phenomenon of the surrounding world itself, but how a person sees it, through the prism of the picture of the world that exists in his mind and which is determined by his culture. After all, the consciousness of each person is formed both under the influence of his individual experience, and as a result of enculturation, in the course of which he masters the experience of previous generations. The world around a person can be represented in three forms:

1) the real world;

2) cultural (conceptual) picture of the world;

3) linguistic picture of the world.

Real world is an objective reality that exists independently of a person, the world that surrounds him.

Cultural (conceptual) picture of the world-- a reflection of the real world through the prism of concepts formed in the process of human cognition of the world on the basis of both collective and individual experience. This picture is specific to each culture, arising in certain natural and social conditions that distinguish it from other cultures.

Language picture of the world reflects reality through the cultural picture of the world. Language subjugates, organizes the perception of the world by its speakers. This picture of the world is closely connected with the cultural picture of the world, is in continuous interaction with it and goes back to the real world that surrounds a person.

As we can see, the pictures of the world created and reflected by national languages ​​differ significantly. On the one hand, this is connected with the real conditions of life of the ethnic group, on the other hand, with the peculiarities of the national character. In the first case, this is the culture described by the language, in the second, the culture in the language. Such concepts as "mentality", "linguistic personality", "linguistic mentality" are closely connected with the concept of "picture of the world". In modern scientific literature mentality is defined as the presence of common mental tools among people belonging to the same culture. This gives them the opportunity to perceive and realize their natural and social environment and themselves in their own way. According to V.A. Maslova, “mentality is a category that reflects the internal organization and differentiation of mentality, mentality, the nature of the soul of the people; mentality is the psycho-linguo-intelligence of multi-scale linguo-cultural communities” . An important channel for the translation of the mentality is the language of society, since the structures of the language are not indifferent to the content of the information transmitted on it.

In a word, language serves as a means of storing cultural and historical information. Collection and informativeness are those essential properties of a linguistic sign that underlie its most important function, along with the communicative one: the cumulative function. Language in this function acts as a link between generations, serves as a "repository" and a means of transferring non-linguistic collective experience. The cumulative function is inherent in all linguistic units, but it is most clearly manifested in the field of vocabulary. According to this point of view, the semantic structure of the nominative units of the language contains extralinguistic content, which directly and directly reflects the national culture served by the language. This part of the meaning of the word is called national cultural component, and the nominative language units containing such a component are usually called vocabulary with the national-cultural component of the sementics.

An example of how cultural information is stored in a language is the terms of university management. Both the Russian and English names of the higher positions of the university leadership - rector, dean - store information that in many European countries education as a social institution originated in monasteries and was originally purely church. Then education was divided into spiritual and secular, and the latter spread much more widely than the former. There was almost no church education in Soviet Russia, so now neither teachers, nor students, nor their parents remember that many centuries ago education belonged exclusively to the clergy. In England, this is reminiscent of architecture. The oldest universities are still located in their old monastic buildings of various centuries, with their cells for monks and galleries (cloisters) for walks, meditations and prayers. And even later, "red brick" university buildings were often built with elements of monastic architecture. However, in English, and especially in Russian, there is a cultural layer that reveals the historical roots of university education:

Dean - through him. Dekan from lat. decanus, original "rector of the cathedral chapter", as well as "senior over ten monks" (1483).

Dean - 1) a priest of high rank in the Christian church who is in charge of several priests or churches; 2) someone in a university who is responsible for a particular area of ​​work.

Dean - 1. Head, head or commander of a department of ten people. 2. Head of ten monks in the monastery. 3. Head of the chapter meeting in a university or cathedral church. Wed - English. 1. A presbyter invested with authority or superiority (subordinate to a bishop - in the Church of England his vicar - or archdeacon) over a part of the bishopric. 2. An official or officials at Oxford or Cambridge colleges appointed to watch over the conduct of juniors. 3. President (head) of a faculty or study department at a university; in the USA, an archivist or faculty secretary. 4. President, chief, or senior of any institution.

According to domestic and foreign researchers, the connection between language and culture is most clearly manifested precisely at the lexico-semantic level, that is, in the meaning of words. Usually in the meaning of the word allocate at least two aWithpecta:

1) Denotative(subject-logical, cognitive, descriptive-oriented, informational), constituting the semantic center of the word;

2) connotative(pragmatic), constituting the modal frame of consciousness.

Such a division is to some extent explained by the specifics of human consciousness: “logical, rational is complemented by emotions, sensory experience”.

As mentioned earlier, to a greater extent the lexical system of any language is determined by the categories of the material world, social factors. Words- these are not just the names of objects or phenomena, but a piece of reality, passed through the prism of the cultural picture of the world and therefore acquiring specific features inherent only to this people. The word can tell both about the time and about the environment in which it exists. The existence of certain lexical units is explained, as it were, by practical needs. For example, for North Americans, snow is just a weather phenomenon, snow (snow) and slush (slush). At the same time, there are more than twenty words in the Eskimo language that describe snow in different states - the most important part of nature, on which most elements of their culture are based. In Russian there is a blizzard, and a blizzard, and a snowstorm, and a snow storm, and a blizzard, and a blowing snow, and all this is associated with snow and winter, and in English this diversity is expressed by the word snowstorm, which is quite enough to describe all the problems with snow in the English speaking world. Arabs use numerous names for different breeds of horses, representatives of the black tribes of Liberia distinguish various varieties of rice, each of which has its own name, there are also many names for a certain type of nuts in the Hindi language. The traditions of color designation are not the same for different peoples. An African from the Shona tribe distinguishes only three colors. The same number of color names exist in the Navajo language, while there are two words for black: darkness black and charcoal black. And, finally, where a Russian person sees two colors: blue and light blue, an American sees one color - blue.

The symbolic meaning of the names of flowers in various languages ​​is also peculiar. So, for example, gray color is associated in Russian with mediocrity, everyday life. We say "gray everyday life" or "such dullness", characterizing limited people. In England, gray is the color of nobility, elegance, that is, it has completely different connotations. In addition, white color in different cultures is traditionally perceived as a symbol of hope, kindness, purity, love. In Georgian culture, white is a symbol of kindness, mercy, and love. In Kyrgyz it is the color of fragility, insecurity, the color of goodness and hope, tenderness and love, spring flowering. In the countries of the East, on the contrary, white is perceived as a symbol of death, mourning, and so on. Colors represent a certain physical phenomenon of the real world. The sociocultural conditionality of the phrase white man is manifested in its specific semantics, white man is not just “a person with white skin, a representative of the white race”. The English language is generally characterized by the traditional correlation of black with something bad, and white with something good, and under the influence of American English, it received additional actualization in British. Therefore, compound nominative groups with the adjective black have negative connotations, and the adjective white, as a rule, is part of nominative groups that have positive shades of meaning. Indeed, blackguard (scoundrel, mean), blackleg (swindler, swindler), black bag (illegal (about FBI actions related to unauthorized entry into a home)), black bottle (poison), black death (“black death”, plague) , black knight (a company that is trying to buy another company against its will), black money (dirty money, shadow capital), black spot (unpleasant place, time, situation, etc.; section of the road of increased danger), black-hearted (bad, evil), black magic (black magic) - in all these cases, black is associated with evil; besides, it is the color of mourning, the color of death; black dress (black dress), black cap (in the English court, a black cap worn by a judge when pronouncing a death sentence). On the contrary, white is the color of the world (white dove is a white dove, a symbol of peace), white wedding (a wedding ceremony, all the attributes of which emphasize the purity of the bride), white-handed (an honest person). Even when white is combined with a noun that clearly denotes something bad, white softens, ennobles the negative meaning of the latter: white lie is a white lie, a morally justified lie (cf. Russian: black envy - white envy), white magic - (white) magic, which is used with good intentions.

In addition, in different cultures, even the same physical thing can correspond to completely different semantic descriptions, depending on which civilization this thing is considered within. Therefore, we consider A.A. Leontiev’s statement about the existence of "national meanings" - linguistic phenomena, when two words in two different languages, denoting the same object in the culture of two peoples and being translation equivalents, are associated with non-identical contents. . A good example is the understanding of such a word as "dog".

Dog 1 / draft animal / Eskimo

2 / sacred animal / among the Persians

3 / despised as a pariah / in the Hindu language

In some languages, the emergence of a number of words denoting certain concepts was dictated by some social reasons. For example, in the last century in Victorian England it was forbidden to pronounce words such as "breast", "leg", even when talking about chicken, so the phrases "white meat" and "black meat" appeared, instead of "to go to bed" was used " to retire to bed".

A certain national connotation is also acquired in the language by proper names. Their specific content is determined by the persons bearing these names, however, they tend to perform not only nominal functions, but also denote some quality, property, characteristic personality traits in general. So, for example, in a book that addresses issues of sociology and child psychology / M.James D.Jonderword “Born to win” 1981 / the authors, pointing out how diverse character traits of an individual can be, give an example:

Miserable like the little match girl

Alike with women and fast with guns like James Bond

Not knowing that a little girl selling matches on the street (an image that has developed in English literature of the 19th century) personifies hardship and suffering, and with James Bond, super agent 007, the hero of Fleming's novel, the idea of ​​​​Superman, a favorite of women, is associated - it is difficult to understand the full meaning that the authors tried to put into these lines. Here we are dealing with precedent names- individual names associated with well-known texts (Oblomov, Taras Bulba, Ivanhoe, Uncle Tom, Rip van Winkle), with situations that are known to most representatives of this nation (Ivan Susanin, grandfather Talash, King Alfred the Great, King Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Tristram). A precedent name can be fully understood only by a representative of a given nation, since he knows with what situation or with what text it is associated. Among the precedent phenomena, precedent texts, precedent statements and precedent situations are also distinguished. All of the above varieties of precedent phenomena are characterized, first of all, by wide popularity among a certain circle of people and cultural significance. The fund of precedent phenomena is open and constantly replenished. Thus, recently the status of precedents is acquired not only by texts of a textbook nature, but also by those whose source is mass culture. It should be borne in mind that precedent phenomena can be used in contexts that are unusual for them, as a result, their original meaning may change.

Along with this, phraseological units are the most popular material illustrating the peculiarities of the worldview of native speakers. The problem of phraseology turned towards the person and his place in culture. Phraseology has been retained in the language for centuries, representing the culture of the native people. According to V.N.Telia, "the phraseological composition of the language is a mirror in which the linguocultural community identifies its national self-consciousness" . By exploring phraseological units, one can trace the entire history of the development of human society - from the origin of traditions and customs to the achievements of science and technology, as well as compare the originality of the evolution of two (or more) individual communities.

Compare, for example, the following Russian and English sayings:

Christmas comes but once a year - not everything is a carnival for a cat.

To have one's cake and eat it - both the wolves are full and the sheep are safe.

A cat may look at a king - not the gods burn the pots.

A cat in gloves catches no mice - you can't even pull fish out of the pond without difficulty.

Before one can say Jack Robinson - not have time to blink an eye.

Curiosity killed a cat - curious Varvara's nose was torn off at the market.

That be born with a silver spoon in one "s mouth - be born in a shirt.

Fish and company stink in three days - and the best song gets boring.

Then carry coals to Newcastle - go to Tula with your samovar.

What is done by night appears by day - you can't hide an awl in a bag.

If you dance, you must pay the fiddler - love to ride, love to carry sleds.

The English language has a large number of phraseological units of literary origin, many of which are widely used in everyday colloquial speech. Any Englishman from childhood knows such phraseological phrases from the books of L. Carroll "Alice in Wonderland", "Alice Through the Looking-Glass", such as:

To smile like a Cheshire cat - smile from ear to ear

Mad as a hatter - go crazy, go crazy.

Undoubtedly, it is rather difficult to determine to what extent all figurativeness, the national coloring of a given phraseological phrase is preserved when translated into another language.

The foregoing allows us to conclude that some layers of vocabulary are more obviously determined by social factors, while others are less obvious. If the national-cultural content is the core of phraseological units, then in proper names it is a kind of connotation.

Phraseology is passed down from generation to generation practically unchanged, which cannot be said about any other layer of the language. Phraseologism - microtext, microhistory, micromyth - is a "culture code": often it encodes a whole plot, a situation of communication. The phraseological unit reveals in its semantic and syntactic structure the specific and unique properties of a particular language. The description of the properties of phraseological units-idioms as the “language of culture” confirms the idea expressed in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that the language, at least its phraseological composition, “imposes” a cultural-national worldview on its speakers.

At the same time, linguists E.N. Vereshchagin and V.G. Kostomarov, developing both general theoretical and methodological aspects of the problem of "language and culture", classified words that have a cultural component into 3 main groups :

1. non-equivalent

2. connotative

3. background

Non-equivalent- words that serve to express concepts that are absent in another culture, and do not have direct equivalents outside the language to which they belong.

connotative- words that not only indicate the subject, but also carry the designation of its distinctive properties.

A necessary condition for a successful dialogue between speakers of the same language, and, moreover, speakers of different languages, is the mutual knowledge by the communicants of the realities associated with the global theme of communication. This knowledge, present in the minds of communicants, is usually called background knowledge; that is fnew vocabulary- these are words or expressions that have additional content and accompanying semantic or stylistic shades that are superimposed on its main meaning, known to speakers and listeners belonging to a given language culture.

Summing up this chapter, and having studied the problems of the relationship between language, culture and society, we came to the following conclusions: culture is a set of material and spiritual values ​​accumulated and accumulated by a certain community of people, and those values ​​of one national community that are completely absent from another or significantly differ from them, constitute a national socio-cultural fund, one way or another reflected in the language, therefore, language and culture are in a complex relationship of mutual influence and interdependence. Every natural language reflects a certain way of perceiving and organizing (or conceptualizing) the world. The meanings expressed in it add up to a certain unified system of views, a kind of collective philosophy, which in most cases is considered mandatory for all native speakers. The way of conceptualizing reality peculiar to a given language is partly universal, partly nationally specific, so that speakers of different languages ​​can see the world a little differently, through the prism of their languages.

Thus, the meanings of the language can be reduced to the following figurative statements:

A mirror of culture, which reflects not only the real world surrounding a person, but also the mentality of the people, their national character, traditions, customs, morality, the system of norms and values, the picture of the world;

A pantry, a treasury of culture, since all the knowledge, skills, material and spiritual values ​​accumulated by one or another people are stored in the language system: in folklore, books, in oral and written speech;

The bearer of culture, since it is with the help of language that it is transmitted from generation to generation. A person in the process of inculturation, mastering his native language, along with it learns the generalized experience of previous generations;

An instrument of culture that forms the personality of a person who, through language, perceives the mentality, traditions and customs of his people, as well as a specific cultural image of the world.

In the next chapter, we will take a closer look at units that have a pronounced national-cultural semantics.

2 . BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE AS A REFLECTION OF NATIONAL SPECANDFIKI OF LINGUO-CULTURAL COMMONITY

The study of the problem of the existence of a special component in the meaning of a word, which at least to some extent contained information about the socio-historical reality in which this or that language exists and functions, has been carried out by linguists for many years.

In domestic linguistics, the issue of background knowledge was first considered in detail in the book by E.M. Vereshchagin and V.G. Kostomarov "Language and Culture". In her background knowledge are defined as “knowledge common to the participants in the communicative act”. In addition, there are a number of other definitions of background knowledge. So, for example, in the Dictionary of Linguistic Terms, background knowledge is defined as knowledge of realities by the speaker and listener, which is the basis of linguistic communication. A more detailed definition is offered by A.A. Nikitina, describing background knowledge as “a set of knowledge of a cultural, material-historical and pragmatic nature that is assumed by a native speaker” . In an even broader interpretation of G.D. Tomakhin, background knowledge is “practically all the knowledge that communicants have at the time of speech” . In a word, this is the information common to communicants that ensures mutual understanding during communication. Let's give a simple example: everyone in the family knows that the son has left to take the exam, and they are worried about him. Returning home from the exam, he can just say one word: “Great!” - and everything will be very clear to everyone. Or, for example, passing by an old mansion, you can say to your companion: "Eighteenth century" - and it will become clear that we are talking about an architectural monument of the 18th century. Also, only preliminary knowledge of N. Nekrasov’s poem “There are women in Russian villages ...” helps to fully understand a number of phrases and their meaning of N.M. Korzhavin’s poems:

The century has passed. And again,

As in that immemorial year,

Stop a galloping horse

He will enter the burning hut.

She would like to live differently

Wear precious clothes

But the horses keep jumping and jumping,

And the huts are burning and burning.

And finally, let's compare the phrase "garage sale" and its translation into Russian: literally "garage sale". But this isn't a garage sale, it's a second hand sale at the lowest prices; which is usually held for charitable purposes - a phenomenon typical of the cultural life of America.

In subsequent philological works, the definition of background knowledge changed, but the essence remained the same - background knowledge is heterogeneous. They can be classified, first, with respect to the scale of the social structure (social education) to which they belong. Secondly, regarding their relevance for a particular social group in a particular period of time. So, V.Ya.Shabes gives the following classification of background knowledge:

1. social(those that are known to all participants in the speech act even before the start of the message);

2. individual(those that are known only to two participants in the dialogue before the start of their communication);

3. collective(known to members of a certain team, related by profession, social relations, etc.)

V.Ya.Shabes emphasizes the fact that background knowledge can move from one type to another. For example, the death of a particular woman is a fact of individual knowledge, while the death of Princess Diana was a national, even world event, and thus this particular fact entered social knowledge. Or: the everyday fact of the appearance of mice in the house, in the kitchen is an individual knowledge concerning the life of a separate family (or one person). But the appearance of mice in the kitchen in the castle of Queen Elizabeth of England has become a fact of social knowledge.

E.M. Vereshchagin and V.G. Kostomarov also distinguish three types of background knowledge:

1. universal;

2. regional;

3. country studies;

This classification, as the authors themselves note, is not entirely complete. It omits the social group knowledge inherent in certain social communities of people, doctors, teachers, drivers, etc. However, this omission is not significant, since the focus of their book is on the analysis of regional background knowledge, which is the main subject of research. Regional knowledge- this is "the information that all members of a certain ethnic or linguistic community have." Such knowledge is part of the national culture, the result of "the historical development of a given ethnic or state community in equal measure." They “form part of what sociologists call mass culture, that is, they represent information known to absolutely all members of the linguocultural community. Many writers are aware of the existence of geographic background knowledge, and this means that they are guided by them in their work not only intuitively, but also quite consciously. So, for example, the writer V. Soloukhin writes: “... there are concepts, phenomena and problems that are obligatory for every Russian person. You can study starfish, river mollusks, Ural minerals, the properties of rare metals, you can be an engineer, chemist, combine operator, football player, writer, ... but if you are a Russian person, you must know what Pushkin is, what is " A word about Igor's regiment, what is Dostoevsky, what is Field Kulikovo, Pokrov-on-Nerl, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Rublevskaya Trinity, the Mother of God of Vladimir.

Background knowledge as an element of culture, subject to its general pattern, is divided into topical background knowledge and background knowledge coolbtour heritage.

Actual background knowledge, reflecting various aspects of modern society, is observed, in particular, in the following cases:

One of the highlights of the holiday will be the summit of heads of state EUROunion and Russia;

The country has come era of privatization;

The market is crowded petrodollars;

Perestroika; consensus; Belovezhskaya agreement;

supermarket; small business; Show Business; i-phone; internet; PR; George Bush; Gwen Stephanie, Linking Park, etc.

From actual background knowledge of this type, it is necessary to distinguish actualized, reproduced, revived background knowledge that belongs to different time periods, but is transferred to the present and thus updated. Such revived background knowledge lies in linguistic expressions: the Northern Capital, St. Petersburg, St. Andrew's Flag, Sparrow Hills, Trafalgar square, Westminster Abbey, Capitol, White House, Liberty Statue, Palm Beach, etc.

As for the background knowledge of cultural heritage, they are rather “unstable”, since what was known to everyone yesterday often ceases to be relevant today. Here V.N. Visheratina proposes to draw an analogy with the development of the language: the language as a set of means of expression is constantly changing in the field of lexical composition, therefore the synchronous sections of the Russian literary language, reflected in the descriptions made every fifty years, differ from each other. The same thing, according to the linguist, can be observed in current culture: if we compare the totality of background knowledge characteristic of an educated Russian person in the middle of the 19th century with the regional knowledge of the beginning of the 20th century and our time, then all three synchronous slices will reveal considerable differences from each other. friend. V.N. Visheratina notes that especially great changes, both in the language and in the actual mass culture, take place during periods of great social transformations. I.S.Kon, who studied the issue of the relationship between current culture and cultural heritage, writes: “Modern youth knows immeasurably more about the physical structure of the world than graduates of the old “classical” gymnasium, but they do not know ancient languages, many biblical and mythological associations and images remain dead to her, incomprehensible. This interferes with the perception not only of ancient art, but even the understanding of art and literature of the 19th century. A similar phenomenon can be illustrated by the example of an excerpt from a poem by A.S. Pushkin: “The Kastalsky key with a wave of inspiration / In the steppe of a worldly exile waters”. Today, even to a quite intelligent person, if he is not a classical philologist by education, this image of the Castal Key may most likely seem obscure, and in order to understand it, one will have to turn to a mythological dictionary. Researchers argue that this state of affairs is absolutely normal, since the volume of actual culture has always changed, new knowledge, concepts and images have always replaced some part of the old ones, making them the property of museums and scholars. Now this process is going much faster than before.

Among the regional background knowledge, that part of them is also distinguished, which has the property of universal (for a given ethnic group or nationality) prevalence and is called weighted backgroundOyour knowledge. It is the weighted regional background knowledge that is of particular importance in the process of teaching foreign languages, as it is the source of selection and the necessary minimization of regional regional material for the purposes of teaching. Finally, scientists distinguish macro background, as a set of regional background knowledge of a given language community, and mini background- "the amount of background knowledge that the teacher models in the classroom for the reception of a particular work of art."

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