Conceptual Content of the Category of Reflection in the Systemic Linguistics

Contrasting the conceptual content of the category of reflection in G.P. Melnikov's theory of reflection with the system of meanings of the words Slav. obraz (image) – Latin fōrma – Greek τύπος – Greek εἶδος supported the hypothesis expressed about the advanced reflection of a reality that has not yet been mastered by scientific knowledge within the semantic system of the language. A comparative-and-historical research into the semantics of linguistic signs that denote the idea of reflection in Slavic and ancient languages, demonstrated the universal nature of meanings, similar in all people, as figurative units of thinking, which reflect the essential properties of reality. It revealed the deeply motivated (and not involuntarily associative) nature of the connection between sign and meaning, which the founder of modern systemic linguistics G.P. Melnikov insisted on and which fundamentally distinguishes his understanding of semiotic processes from the established ideas in linguistics about the "relationship between the plane of expression and the plane of content". The research results showed the potential of forming a conceptual system of signs with an open internal form. Being significant for scientific knowledge, it reveals the logic of their relationship and reflects the objective connections of phenomena and processes of physical and non-physical reality. The methodological universality of G.P. Melnikov's theory of reflection was additionally confirmed by clarifying the nature of the relationship between the content of the concept of image in the philosophy of art and in systemic linguistics.