Linguosemiotic analysis of the correlation of concept and notion (case study of scientific and popular scientific discourse)

Introduction. The article deals with the correlation of two terms gaining popularity in current linguistic studies - concept and notion. The novelty of the research is not only due to the problem statement, but to the possibility to apply its results when analyzing the communication efficiency for discourse expert communities. The purpose of the research is to analyze the approaches to their correlation and find out criteria forming the basis of their identification or opposition. The topicality of the research is due to the need for differentiating between these two terms as far as the issue has not been solved by modern linguists yet. The article also aims to analyze the correlation of concept and notion based on knowledge development theory suggested by A. Kaplunenko. The author analyzes two viewpoints which can be presented as 1) concept = notion, 2) concept ≠ notion. Materials and methods. The material used for analysis is the texts of modern scientific and scientific and popular discourse published on the Internet. The author uses two main research methods - comparison of approaches and theoretical views and analysis of factual data. Results. The terms concept and notion are used as complete synonyms or differentiated in linguistic works. The proponents of the first approach believe that the concept is the same phenomenon as the notion and their differentiation is irrelevant. The proponents of the second viewpoint describe their relations based on different oppositions: sensual vs. mental, scientific vs. naïve nature, generality vs. individuality, etc. Conclusion. Based on the theory of knowledge evolution, the article concludes that the notion is a mental unit with clear semantic boundaries while the concept is a result of phenomenological individual experience. The author also emphasizes that the concept and the notion have different scope and content: a large scope and poor content of the concept vs a limited scope and dense content of the notion. The communication of expert communities must be organized only around the notion which enables mutual understanding and compromise.