Linguistic consciousness as a problem of linguoculturology

The question of the legality of the allocation of linguistic consciousness into a separate category remains open in science. It is believed that any consciousness is necessarily objectified by a linguo-semiotic code. However, another point of view is not without meaning, according to which cognitive processes, of course, rely on sign mediators, but they can be not only language signs, but also other semiotic means of transmitting information. As already noted, any semiotic system serves as a kind of "language" or, more precisely, a code for storing information in our memory and decoding it in the process of speech communication, i.e. information transmission [1].

Further study of the sign isomorphism between the natural language system and the thinking system promises to expand our knowledge of the patterns of accumulation, storage and processing of information related to thinking. Thinking and language emerged, according to modern science, as a result of a single evolutionary process. The sound language appeared together with the emergence of man. It was formed on the basis of already existing voice and hearing aids capable of producing and perceiving acoustic signals (property and animals), respectively. In the process of human evolution, sound signals turned into a complex system of symbols, signs, the most perfect of which are language. Obviously, initially these signs had direct connections with objects of the surrounding world. Then there was a substitution and complete displacement of real connections by conditional ones, as a result of which the signs became reproducible. This property is necessary for the language not only to store and transmit information, like the genetic code, but also to perform social functions. Since the property of isomorphism of genetic and linguistic codes is conditioned, presumably, by the unity of the global evolutionary process, it serves as a deep mechanism for transcoding information from cognitive structures (frames, concepts, gestalts, etc.) into linguistic structures – a natural basis for the synergetics of cognitive and linguistic consciousness [6].

The ways and means of such recoding generally depend on understanding the typology of cognitive structures and their relationship. There are two points of view. According to the first, all the diversity of specific thought structures can be summed up under one generic cognitive formation - concept; according to the second, all types of thought structures are built in one plane - concept, frame, script, script, gestalt, etc. In our view, cognitive structures are in hierarchical relationships, the highest level in which forms a holistic mental image - gestalt, then by dividing the whole into its constituent parts, three event structures are distinguished - a frame, a script and a script. An elementary cognitive unit of event structures is a concept - an operational unit of mental or mental resources of our consciousness, "a meaningful unit of memory, mental lexicon, conceptual system and language of the brain". Linguistic consciousness is in some way a derivative of ethno-cultural consciousness.

Ethno-cultural consciousness is the result of reflection and perception of the image of the world in accordance with a special grid of value-semantic coordinates representing the meaningful contours of a particular national culture [3]. The specificity of each ethnoculture is determined by a structured set of basic spiritual values, traditions and customs encoded in oral-poetic and written works. First of all, idioms, paroemias, linguistic metaphors and stable stylistic figures are marked by ethno-cultural significance. These linguistic structures represent in our consciousness in a vivid figurative form the most important objects for this ethnoculture - objects, events, facts. Ideas about culturally significant objects, events, facts recorded in concepts are associated with the concept of a prototype, or, more precisely, with prototypical features of certain classes of objects.

The prototypical approach to semantics assumes that categories appear in the most striking and presentable patterns (Lakoff, 1988; Langacker, 1997; Rakhilina, 1997) [4]. A prototype is the most representative (canonical, reference) version of a certain invariant system object, characterized by the greatest specificity (concentration of specific features of this object), the ability to influence derivative variants and, in many cases, the highest degree of regularity of functioning. One of the common properties of the invariant and the prototype is the relativity property, the essence of which is that the value in question can be derived from a prototype of a higher level and at the same time be a prototype in relation to one or another semantic variant located at a lower level of the hierarchy.

The correlation of the concepts under consideration determines the algorithm of invariant-prototypical analysis:

• 1)    solves the issue of interpreting this semantic phenomenon as a categorical value, which is an invariant;

• 2)    defines a network (series) of variant implementations of the studied categorical value (the presence of variant implies the use of the concept of prototype as a reference variant, most clearly revealing the specifics of this value);

• 3)    considers the individual stages of the transition of reference properties to the properties of units located in the nuclear zone, then in the near and far periphery [5].

Prototypical features are those properties that characterize objects of the corresponding class. Moreover, the set of such signs and their hierarchy in each national language are "their own". In other words, the same objects are perceived and encoded by the ethno-linguistic consciousness in accordance with the ideas developed in this ethno-cultural community about this class of objects. And this is despite the fact that logically the mechanisms of their conceptualization remain universal. The same concepts in different languages may have different verbal representations in the form of an ethno-cultural component of the meaning of a word or phraseme.

Thus, nominative units of increased ethnocultural significance are the designations of household items (clothing, jewelry, monetary units, musical instruments, etc.), as well as anthroponyms, toponyms, names of phenomena and objects of spiritual culture, rituals, traditions. Another type of nominative units, the nuclear component of lexical meanings of which is nationally determined, forms, according to A.G. Gurochkina, connotative vocabulary. For example, the peoples of different countries endow the same animals with different qualities (pig- amer. means "rude, greedy"; Rus. means "slob, dirty") [2].

The specificity of the name, representation of an object, phenomenon or process by a separate ethno-linguistic collective is due to its special vision of the world, determined by the cultural model existing in the national tradition and its linguistic projection. The study of proverbs and sayings reflecting ideas about the world within a separate national-cultural tradition, forming its own vocabulary, defining the features of the textual organization, will reveal the peculiarities of perception and cognition of the world by different peoples, the nature of the display and dismemberment of the world by the language of a certain eth- nic group.