The phenomenon of cultural environment

The paper raises the issue of the need for further research of cultural environment as a phenomenon which possesses huge culture-developing potential. The study reviews different approaches to defining the essence and structure of the cultural environment and provides a brief analysis of the components of this phenomenon. Besides, it highlights the characteristics of the cultural environment. In the author’s opinion, the structure of the cultural environment includes the communicative, functional, and regulative elements. A language, verbal and non-verbal forms of communication are the contents of the communicative element. The culture-generating activity, its material and non-material results represent the functional element. The core of the regulative element is values which reveal themselves in human behavior, activity, and communication. Furthermore, the author indicates several topical areas of research on the category of cultural environment.