Sociocultural and linguistic diversity in the Mid-European (Slovak) economic and technological space

Our existence is under a permanent influence of various factors entering our lives. There are certain sociocultural phenomena that have the potential to transcend and dominate not only in a regional context but also internationally. The problem of European perception and the consequent acceptance of foreign influences still traumatise society.

These days also Slovakia must face a number of inner struggles over the character of its culture, language, and religious identity.

Being influenced by constantly pervading cultural traditions from abroad, we tend to prefer foreign values as a necessary part of the social and cultural life of the Slovaks. But at the same time, on the other hand, there are significant efforts to protect the nation from any assimilation attempts because some cultural elements adopted from abroad can be seen as problematic. In this article, we focus on two main factors – sociocultural phenomena and linguistic diversity. We reveal mechanisms and relations that run our society, with regard to the terms culture, language, diversity, society, and their mutual overlap.

According to the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, “culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs. Noting that culture is at the heart of contemporary debates about identity, social cohesion, and the development of a knowledge-based economy ….”1.

Foltinova understands culture as a complex or a complex entity². She continues that the development of media and mass culture disrupts the traditional model of culture; therefore, culture becomes a homogeneous subject of consumerism. Basically, we can talk about two main models of culture ‒ Western and Eastern. The Eastern model emphasises the harmony of man with nature, while the Western model focuses on technical progress and transformation of nature³.

Kyslan says that those definitions evoke a lot of discrepancies in the way how the meaning of a term culture is pictured⁴. The problem of definition arises from the fact that there is no idea of universal culture, and man becomes cultural only through a particular form of culture.

Similarly, we can mention the term phenomenon (gr. phainomenon). “A phenomenon given in experience; a sensory or intellectual phenomenon,” – the way of perception as we can see in Piacek and Kravcik5. The phenomenon can be perceived in the context of external experience (confrontation with external things) and internal experience (reflexively we perceive what is happening “in usˮ – wishes, anxiety, perceptions, judgments).

The impact of various cultural phenomena is evident in various areas of social existence. We perceive them as the driving elements of social consciousness. They come, affect a specific group of recipients, and then expire. They have an impact on norms and conventions of behaviour – the conspicuous aspect of human beings – and significantly affect the value system.

So there are cultural elements with social elements that colour existing phenomena certain way up to the point that we can see they merge and create a new reality – sociocultural phenomena.

Another important point is communication within the system. Variability of languages brings linguistic diversity. McCarty and Chen see linguistic diversity as “an inherently enabling condition to its speakers and humankind – a resource to be protected and promoted – as each language is the repository of immense knowledge built over centuries of development and use. Linguistic diversity is unevenly distributed across populations and regions” [1].