The term "concept" in modern linguistics

The term "concept" has entered the conceptual apparatus of cognitive science, semantics, and linguo-cultural studies. The period of approval of the term in science is necessarily associated with a certain blurring of boundaries, arbitrariness of its use, confusion with terms that are close in meaning and/or in language form.

Currently, there is no clear and precise definition of the term "concept", since it covers several areas at once: cognitive science, semantics, and linguoculturology. This term is similar to other similar terms in language form. The main task is to give a precise and clear definition that would include all aspects of the term "concept".

There are many points of view on what a concept is.

The well-known linguist S.A.Askoldov defines it as a mental formation that replaces an indefinite set of objects of the same kind in the process of thought. According to S.A.Askoldov, the concept can be a substitute for some aspects of the subject or real actions, such as the concept of "justice", and can also be a substitute for various kinds of at least very precise, but purely mental functions. Such are, for example, mathematical concepts. Figuratively speaking, he says about the concept that these are the buds of the most complex inflorescences of mental concreteness.

Such well-known scientists as Z.D.Popova and I.A.Sternin define the concept as "a discrete mental formation that is the basic unit of a person's mental code, has a relatively ordered internal structure, is the result of cognitive (cognitive) activity of the individual and society and carries complex, encyclopedic information about the reflected object or phenomenon, the interpretation of this information by public consciousness and the attitude of public consciousness to this phenomenon or object".

"Concept" and "notion" are not equal, as V.N.Telia notes in his works. She believes that " the change of the term "concept" to the term "concept" is not just a terminological replacement: a concept is always knowledge structured in a frame, which means that it reflects not just the essential features of the object, but all those that are filled with knowledge about the essence in a given language group." "Concepts, stereotypes, standards, symbols, mythologems, etc. - signs of national and - more broadly-universal culture".

His explanation of the terms "concept" and "notion" and gave Y.S.Stepanov, who believes that the concept and the concept of terms of different Sciences; the concept is used primarily in logic and philosophy, and the term "concept" as a term in mathematical logic, in recent years entrenched in the science of culture, and cultural studies. Y.S.Stepanov, considering the concept as a fact of culture, identifies three components, or three "layers" concept:

• 1)    the main, current feature;

• 2)    additional, or several additional, "passive" features that are no longer relevant, “historical”;

• 3)    an internal form, usually not at all conscious, imprinted in an external, verbal form.

In modern research, the analysis of the concept of "concept" is conducted in two directions:

• 1.    On the epistemology of the concept (from the point of view of the origin of the concept and its "location", as well as its relationship with reality and the forms of its manifestation).

• 2.    According to the typology of concepts (from the point of view of a certain science (discipline), taking into account its conceptual apparatus and its needs in this term).

The concept is a mental unit, an element of consciousness. Human consciousness is the intermediary between the real world and language. Cultural information enters the consciousness, it is filtered, processed, and systematized in it: "Concepts form" a kind of cultural layer that mediates between man and the world."

A concept is something that is not subject to change in the semantics of a word sign, which, on the contrary, directs the thought of speakers of a given language, determining their choice and creating the potential possibilities of language-speech." And in contrast to the image, symbol, concept, "the concept is not expanded by any question, because it is the starting point and the end of the process at a new level of semantic development of the living in the language; it is the source of universal meaning, which is organized in a system of relations of multiple forms and meanings."

The following structure is proposed by S.G.Vorkachev. He distinguishes three components in the composition of a linguistic and cultural concept: conceptual, reflecting its characteristic and definitional structure, figurative, fixing the cognitive metaphors that support the concept in the linguistic consciousness, and meaningful, determined by the place that the name of the concept occupies in the lexical and grammatical system of a particular language, which will also include its etymological and associative characteristics.

According to the concept, it consists of three components - conceptual, figurative and value. He believes that the cultural concept in the linguistic consciousness is a multidimensional network of meanings that are expressed by lexical, phraseological, paremiological units, precedent texts, label formulas, as well as speech-behavioral tactics that reflect repeated fragments of social life.

In the "Linguistic Encyclopedia", the term "concept" is not presented as an independent dictionary entry, but its meaning is revealed in the article "Concept", and "notion" as a synonym is indicated by a number in parentheses: "Concept (concept) is a phenomenon of the same order as the meaning of a word, but considered in a slightly different system of connections; meaning - in the system of language, concept - in the system of logical relations and forms, studied both in linguistics and logic."

In modern scientific literature, the concept and the concept are not " of the same order as the meaning of the word”, - as already noted, the concept is much broader than the meaning.

Summarizing the various points of view of linguists on the term "concept", we can draw the following conclusions.

V.Z.Demyankov, on the basis of a large number of texts of different genres, analyzed the use of the term "concept" in different languages, came to the following conclusions:

• 1.    Languages vary in the time when the term "concept" took root in the humanities, in fiction, and in everyday speech. In Russian, if we ignore the "quoting" mention of the concept as a term of medieval philosophy, this term begins to be often used since the 1920s, and up to the mid-1970s-most often as a complete synonym for the term "concept".

• 2.    The concept reaches its peak of popularity in the language when this term is used in a meaning other than just "concept", especially in the humanities. The distinction runs along the following line: concepts are what people agree on, they are constructed by people in order to "have a common language" when discussing problems; concepts exist by themselves, and people reconstruct them with varying degrees of confidence. Sometimes the referents of the terms "concept" and "notion" coincide.

• 3.    In such interpretations, the meaning of the term concept contains the idea of "rudimentary truth", laid down in the Latin conceptus "conceived". The concept is something that is apparently "conceived". The peculiar fashion for the term "concept" in the scientific and fiction literature of the late XX - early XXI centuries indicates an interest in the reconstruction of those entities in human life

that we encounter in everyday life, without thinking about their "true" (a priori) meaning. It turned out that it is not always possible to "agree" on events: sometimes it is more productive to reconstruct the usual meanings, or concepts, and on the basis of existing ideas - old concepts, without destroying them, try to construct new concepts. The new, especially in ethics, is a reconstruction of the old. We are confronted with the justice of this position both in public and in scientific life.

Thus, the concept - this is a mental formation that replaces an indefinite set of objects of the same kind in the process of thought, a unit that is not subject to change in the semantics of a word sign, which directs the thought of speakers of a given language, while determining their choice and creating the potential possibilities of language-speech, and is also the basic unit of the human mental code, which has a relatively ordered internal structure, which is the result of cognitive (cognitive) activity.) 100 of the activity of the individual and society and carrying a complex, encyclopedic information about the reflected object or phenomenon, about the interpretation of this information by the public consciousness and the attitude of the public consciousness to this phenomenon or object.

A concept is a unit of collective consciousness that leads to higher spiritual values, has a linguistic expression and is marked by ethno-cultural specifics.