What is the main function of language. Functions of the Russian language in the modern world. Basic functions of language: nominative function
“Being the most important means of communication, language unites people, regulates their interpersonal and social interaction, coordinates their practical activities, participates in the formation of ideological systems and national images of the world, ensures the accumulation and storage of information, including those related to the history and historical experience of the people and personal experience of the individual, dismembers, classifies and consolidates concepts, forms the consciousness and self-awareness of a person, serves as a material and form of artistic creativity" (N.D. Arutyunova. Functions of language. // Russian language. Encyclopedia. - M.: 1997. P. 609) .
The main functions of the language are:
Communicative (communication function);
Thought-forming (function of embodiment and expression of thoughts);
Expressive (function of expressing the internal state of the speaker);
Aesthetic (the function of creating beauty through language).
The communicative function lies in the ability of language to serve as a means of communication between people. Language has the units necessary to construct messages, the rules for their organization, and ensures the emergence of similar images in the minds of participants in communication.
Language also has special means of establishing and maintaining contact between participants in communication.
From the point of view of the culture of speech, the communicative function presupposes the orientation of the participants in speech communication towards the fruitfulness and mutual usefulness of communication, as well as a general focus on the adequacy of speech understanding.
Achieving functional communication efficiency is impossible without knowledge and compliance with standards literary language.
The thought-forming function is that language serves as a means of designing and expressing thoughts. The structure of language is organically connected with the categories of thinking.
“The word, which alone is capable of making a concept an independent unit in the world of thoughts, adds a lot of its own to it,” wrote the founder of linguistics W. von Humboldt (W. Humboldt. Selected works on linguistics. M.: 1984. P. 318).
This means that the word highlights and formalizes the concept, and at the same time a relationship is established between units of thinking and symbolic units of language. That is why W. Humboldt believed that “language must accompany thought. Thought must, keeping up with the language, follow from one of its elements to another and find in the language a designation for everything that makes it coherent” (ibid., p. 345). According to Humboldt, “in order to correspond to thinking, language, as far as possible, in its structure must correspond to the internal organization of thinking” (ibid.).
Speech educated person is distinguished by the clarity of presentation of one’s own thoughts, the accuracy of retelling other people’s thoughts, consistency and information content.
The expressive function allows language to serve as a means of expressing the internal state of the speaker, not only to convey some information, but also to express the speaker’s attitude to the content of the message, to the interlocutor, to the communication situation. Language expresses not only thoughts, but also human emotions.
The expressive function presupposes the emotional brightness of speech within the framework of socially accepted etiquette.
Artificial languages do not have an expressive function.
The aesthetic function is to ensure that the message, in its form in unity with the content, satisfies the aesthetic sense of the addressee. The aesthetic function is characteristic primarily of poetic speech (folklore, fiction), but not only of it - journalistic, scientific speech, and everyday colloquial speech can be aesthetically perfect.
The aesthetic function presupposes the richness and expressiveness of speech, its correspondence to the aesthetic tastes of the educated part of society.
Russian as a world language
At the beginning of the 21st century, over 250 million people in the world speak Russian to one degree or another. The bulk of Russian speakers live in Russia (143.7 million according to the 1989 All-Union Population Census) and in other states (88.8 million) that were part of the USSR.
Representatives of different nations of the world speak Russian, communicating not only with Russians, but also with each other.
Just like English and some other languages, Russian is widely used outside of Russia. It is used in various areas of international communication: at negotiations between CIS member countries, at forums of international organizations, including the UN, in global communication systems (on television, on the Internet), in international aviation and space communications. Russian is the language of international scientific communication and is used at many international scientific conferences in the humanities and natural sciences.
The Russian language ranks fifth in the world in terms of the absolute number of speakers (after Chinese, Hindi and Urdu together, English and Spanish languages), but this feature is not the main one in determining the world language. What is important for a “world language” is not the sheer number of people who speak it, especially as a native speaker, but the global distribution of native speakers, its coverage of different, maximum number of countries, as well as the most influential social strata of the population in different countries Oh. Great importance has the universal significance of fiction, of all culture created in a given language (Kostomarov V.G. Russian language in international communication. // Russian language. Encyclopedia. M.: 1997. P. 445).
Russian is studied as a foreign language in many countries around the world. Russian language and literature are studied at leading universities in the USA, Germany, France, China and other countries.
The Russian language, like other “world languages,” is highly informative, i.e. wide possibilities of expression and transmission of thoughts. The information value of a language depends on the quality and quantity of information presented in a given language in original and translated publications.
The traditional sphere of use of the Russian language outside Russian Federation there were republics within Soviet Union; it was studied in the countries of Eastern Europe (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany), as well as by students from around the world who studied in the USSR.
After the start of reforms in Russia, the country became more open to international contacts. Russian citizens began to travel abroad more often, and foreigners began to visit Russia more often. The Russian language has begun to attract more attention in some foreign countries. It is being studied in Europe and the USA, India and China.
Interest in the Russian language abroad largely depends on political factors (the stability of the social situation in Russia, the development democratic institutions, readiness for dialogue with foreign partners), and cultural factors (interest in Russia in foreign languages and cultures, improvement of forms and methods of teaching the Russian language).
In the context of expanding international communication in Russian, the quality of speech of people for whom Russian is their native language becomes a significant factor in its further development, since speech errors of native native speakers are perceived by people studying Russian as a language of interethnic communication or as foreign language, as correct speech patterns, as the norm of Russian speech.
Integration processes taking place in modern world, helps to increase the role of “world languages” and deepen interaction between them. There is a growing international fund of scientific, technical and cultural vocabulary, common to many languages. Computer terms and vocabulary related to sports, tourism, goods and services are becoming widespread worldwide.
In the process of interaction of languages, the Russian language is replenished with international vocabulary, and itself is a source of lexical borrowings for the languages of neighboring countries.
Russian language and electronic written speech in computer technologies
The globalization of processes of communicative cooperation in the modern world as a result of the spread of computer networks leads to an expansion in the number of people using “world” languages in communication. This leads, on the one hand, to the universalization and standardization of means of communication and language use skills, and on the other hand, to the rapid spread of individual and regional characteristics of speech as a result of the lack of editorial and proofreading in the electronic communication environment. The inconsistency of these trends, caused by new conditions of communication, leads to the emergence of new factors affecting the development of the language, contributing to both its enrichment and the decline of speech culture. In these new conditions, it becomes especially important to take care of the correctness of electronic written speech, adherence to the traditions of written communication, and attention to the functional and stylistic differentiation of speech genres.
New conditions of communication increase the responsibility of each person for the fate of his native language and other languages that he uses in communication, the correctness of their use, and the technical capabilities of computer technology help to modern man check the spelling and accuracy of the use of words, edit and beautifully format the text. However, no technology will help fill the text with the necessary content, make a person’s speech spiritual, beautiful not only in form, but also in essence.
Freedom of speech is a necessary but not sufficient condition for speech to improve people's lives. Therefore, in the new conditions of oral (public, television, interactive) and written (electronic) communication, the role of speech culture should increase and, above all, thanks to the deep internal awareness of the participants in the information exchange of their personal role and responsibility for how their native language and others will develop. languages that people use.
“Being the most important means of communication, language unites people, regulates their interpersonal and social interaction, coordinates their practical activities, participates in the formation of ideological systems and national images of the world, ensures the accumulation and storage of information, including those related to the history and historical experience of the people and personal experience of the individual, dismembers, classifies and consolidates concepts, forms the consciousness and self-awareness of a person, serves as a material and form of artistic creativity" ( Arutyunova N.D. Functions of language // Russian language. Encyclopedia. - M., 1997. P. 609).
communicative(communication function);
thought-forming(function of embodiment and expression of thoughts);
expressive(function of expressing the internal state of the speaker);
aesthetic(the function of creating beauty through language).
The main functions of the language are:
Communicative function lies in the ability of language to serve as a means of communication between people. Language has the units necessary to construct messages, the rules for their organization, and ensures the emergence of similar images in the minds of participants in communication. Language also has special means of establishing and maintaining contact between participants in communication. From the point of view of the culture of speech, the communicative function presupposes the orientation of the participants in speech communication towards the fruitfulness and mutual usefulness of communication, as well as a general focus on the adequacy of speech understanding. Achieving functional communication efficiency is impossible without knowledge and compliance with the norms of the literary language. Thought-forming The function is that language serves as a means of designing and expressing thoughts. The structure of language is organically connected with the categories of thinking. “The word, which alone is capable of making a concept an independent unit in the world of thoughts, adds a lot of its own to it,” wrote the founder of linguistics, W. von Humboldt ( Humboldt V. Selected works on linguistics. M., 1984. P. 318). This means that the word highlights and formalizes the concept, and at the same time a relationship is established between units of thinking and symbolic units of language. That is why W. Humboldt believed that “language must accompany thought. Thought must, keeping up with language, follow from one of its elements to another and find in language a designation for everything that makes it coherent” (ibid., p. 345) . According to Humboldt, “in order to correspond to thinking, language, as far as possible, in its structure must correspond to the internal organization of thinking” (ibid.). The speech of an educated person is distinguished by the clarity of the presentation of his own thoughts, the accuracy of the retelling of other people's thoughts, consistency and information content. The expressive function allows language to serve as a means of expressing the internal state of the speaker, not only to convey some information, but also to express the speaker’s attitude to the content of the message, to the interlocutor, to the communication situation. Language expresses not only thoughts, but also human emotions. Expressive the function presupposes the emotional brightness of speech within the framework of socially accepted etiquette. Artificial languages do not have an expressive function. Aesthetic the function is to ensure that the message, in its form in unity with the content, satisfies the aesthetic sense of the addressee. The aesthetic function is characteristic primarily of poetic speech (folklore, fiction), but not only of it - journalistic, scientific speech, and everyday colloquial speech can be aesthetically perfect. The aesthetic function presupposes the richness and expressiveness of speech, its correspondence to the aesthetic tastes of the educated part of society.
Theoretical material:
Language functions
Communication function
cognitive
phatic
emotive
conative
accumulative
metalinguistic
aesthetic
Types and forms of speech
Oral speech
Written speech
The types of speech are
Silence - even the branch doesn’t crunch (Bunin). 2. Somewhere after lunch, in the middle of the continuous rain, we hear some strange sounds, they are getting stronger and stronger, and we understand..m that a boat is coming (Kazakov). 3. Move..sh..sya to the middle of the roadstead - the sea hides...t..sya, but suddenly the whole bay moves...t..sya to the left (Goncharov). 4. It was Abogin who was coming to protest, to do stupid things (Chekhov). 5. Others shake their heads, others whisper...t..sya, and others laugh..t..sya among themselves (Krylov). 6. I reserve the right to say my opinion (L. Tolstoy).
Tests to control knowledge
1. Complete the definition: Language is..... .
A. officially accepted form of address;
B. current level of knowledge;
B. simple speech forms;
D. a set of means of communication between people through the exchange of thoughts and rules for the use of these means;
D. property of society, it reflects the “picture of the world” of the people speaking it;
E. the use of existing linguistic means and rules in the linguistic communication of people;
G. communication with people at a level appropriate for a particular situation;
Z. the form of address has been officially adopted;
I. sending sound signals carrying information.
Topic No. 1. Language and its main functions. Speech: types and forms of speech.
Theoretical material:
Language is a set of means of communication between people through the exchange of thoughts and the rules for using these means; language as an essence finds its manifestation in speech. Speech is the use of existing linguistic means and rules in the very linguistic communication of people, therefore speech can be defined as the functioning of language.
Thus, language and speech are closely interrelated: if there is no speech, then there is no language. Language and speech have their own opposite characteristics:
Language is a means of communication; speech is the embodiment and implementation of language, which through speech performs its communicative function;
- the language is abstract, formal; speech is material, everything that is in language is corrected in it, it consists of articulated sounds perceived by the ear;
- the language is stable; speech is active and dynamic, characterized by high variability;
- language is the property of society, it reflects the “picture of the world” of the people speaking it; speech is individual, it reflects only the experience of an individual;
Language is independent of the situation and setting of communication - speech is contextually and situationally determined.
Being the most important means of communication, language unites people, regulates their interpersonal and social interaction, coordinates their practical activities, ensures the accumulation and storage of information that is the result of the historical experience of the people and personal experience individual, forms the consciousness of the individual (individual consciousness) and the consciousness of society ( public consciousness), serves as a material and form of artistic creativity.
Thus, language is closely connected with all human activities and performs various functions.
Language functions
Communication function means that language is the most important means of human communication, that is, the transmission from one person to another of any message for one purpose or another. Communicating with each other, people convey their thoughts, feelings and emotional experiences, influence each other, and achieve common understanding. Language gives them the opportunity to understand each other and establish joint work in all spheres of human activity, being one of the forces that ensure the existence and development of human society.
The second main function of language is cognitive(i.e. cognitive, epistemological), meaning that language is the most important means of obtaining new knowledge about reality. The cognitive function connects language with human mental activity.
In addition to the above, the language performs a number of functions:
phatic(contact-establishing) - the function of creating and maintaining contact between interlocutors (formulas of greetings when meeting and parting, exchanging remarks about the weather, etc.).
emotive(emotionally expressive) - an expression of the subjective psychological attitude of the author of the speech to its content. It is realized in means of evaluation, intonation, exclamation, interjections;
conative– the function of assimilation of information by the addressee, associated with empathy (the magical power of spells or curses in an archaic society or advertising texts in a modern one);
appellative - the function of calling, inducing one or another action (forms of the imperative mood, incentive sentences);
accumulative– the function of storing and transmitting knowledge about reality, traditions, culture, history of the people, national identity.
metalinguistic(speech commentary) – a function of interpreting linguistic facts. The use of language in a metalinguistic function is usually associated with difficulties in verbal communication, for example, when talking with a child, a foreigner or another person who is not fully proficient in a given language, style, or professional variety of language. The metalinguistic function is realized in all oral and written statements about language - in lessons and lectures, in dictionaries, in educational and scientific literature about language;
aesthetic– 0function of aesthetic influence, manifested in the fact that speakers begin to notice the text itself, its sound and verbal texture. You begin to like or dislike a single word, phrase, phrase. An aesthetic attitude towards language means, therefore, that speech (namely the speech itself, and not what is being communicated) can be perceived as beautiful or ugly, that is, as an aesthetic object. The aesthetic function of language, being fundamental for a literary text, is also present in everyday speech, manifesting itself in its rhythm and imagery.
Thus, the language is multifunctional. It accompanies a person in a wide variety of life circumstances. With the help of language, a person understands the world, remembers the past and dreams of the future, studies and teaches, works, communicates with other people.
Types and forms of speech
There are two forms of speech: oral speech and written speech.
Oral speech- this is speech pronounced in the process of speaking; The most important distinctive feature oral speech is its lack of preparation: oral speech, as a rule, is created during the conversation. From oral speech, i.e. speech generated in the process of speaking, one should distinguish between speech read and learned by heart; for this type of speech the term “sounding speech” is sometimes used. The unprepared nature of oral speech gives rise to a number of its specific features: an abundance of unfinished syntactic structures, self-interruptions, repetitions, and catch-ups. In a speech intended for a listener, the structural and logical pattern of a phrase often changes, incomplete sentences are very appropriate (saving the energy and time of the speaker and listener), incidental additional thoughts and evaluative phrases are allowed (enriching the text and being well separated from the main text through intonation). One of the most significant disadvantages of oral speech is considered to be its intermittency (logical, grammatical and intonation), which consists in unjustified stopping of speech, breaking off phrases, thoughts, and sometimes unjustified repetition of the same words. The second of the most common shortcomings of oral speech is its lack of differentiation (intonation and grammatical): phrases follow one after another without pauses, logical stresses, without clear grammatical design of sentences.
Written speech– this is speech created using visible (graphic) signs on paper, other material, or a monitor screen. The written form of speech is the main one for official business and scientific styles of speech, for the language of fiction. The journalistic style uses equally written and oral forms of speech (periodicals and television). Using the written form allows you to think about your speech longer, build it gradually, correcting and supplementing, which ultimately contributes to the development and use of more complex syntactic constructions than is typical of oral speech. Such features of oral speech as repetitions and unfinished constructions would be stylistic errors in a written text. The letter uses punctuation marks, as well as various means of graphically highlighting words, combinations and parts of text;
The types of speech are: speaking - sending sound signals carrying information; listening – perception of sound signals and their understanding; writing - the use of visible graphic symbols and their understanding.
§ 12. Language as a social phenomenon, as the most important means of human communication, performs a number of social functions in people’s lives.
The word "function" (from Lat. . function– “execution”) has multiple meanings. In general use, it can denote the following concepts: meaning, purpose, role; duty, terms of reference; work, type of activity; a certain phenomenon that depends on another, basic phenomenon and serves as a form of its manifestation, implementation. This word is used in various ways as scientific term, i.e. has a number of special meanings. As a linguistic concept, it is also used ambiguously. According to some linguists, in Lately in the science of language, this term (along with the term “structure”) has become the most ambiguous and stereotyped.
Composite linguistic term“language function”, or “linguistic function”, refers to the purpose, purpose, or “designation, potential orientation of the language system to meet the needs of communication (communication) and the needs of mental activity.” Following V. A. Avrorin, the concept of language function can be defined as “the practical manifestation of the essence of language, the implementation of its purpose in the system of social phenomena, the specific action of language, conditioned by its very nature, something without which language cannot exist, just as matter does not exist.” motionless" .
When we talk about language functions in a general theoretical sense, we mean, first of all, the functions of language in general, language as a universal phenomenon, i.e. functions specific to different languages. The specific functions of individual languages associated with the special conditions of their functioning should not be confused with them. You can compare such functions of the Russian language as, for example: to be a means of interethnic communication between the peoples of Russia or the Soviet peoples (in former USSR), act as one of the international languages, etc. In general linguistics, including the course “Introduction to Linguistics,” those functions that are manifested in any language, are carried out or can be carried out by each language are usually considered.
Sometimes varieties of language serving different areas activities of people, i.e. speaks about the performance by language of the functions of the people's spoken language, the oral form of the literary language, the language of science and technology, the language of culture, art, the language of socio-political life, or the function of the language used in various spheres of socio-political life, the function of the language of teaching in primary , secondary schools and universities, etc. In such cases, it would be more correct to talk not about the functions of the language, but about the areas of its application.
Speaking about linguistic functions, one should distinguish between such functions of language as a means of human communication, as an integral system, and the functions of the elements of this system - different linguistic units, their types, for example, the functions of a word, sentence, speech sound, word stress, etc. Here we will only talk about the language functions themselves.
The main, most important function of language is considered to be communication function, or communicative(from lat. communicatio– “communication, message”). This function refers to the purpose, purpose of language to serve as a means of communication between people, their transmission of messages, and exchange of information. In the process of communication through language, people convey to each other their thoughts, feelings, desires, moods, emotional experiences, etc.
The presence of a communicative function in language is due to the very nature of language; This function finds its expression in the generally accepted understanding of language as the most important means of human communication. The communicative function is “the original, primary one, for the sake of which human language appeared”; This idea is expressed in the above statement by K. Marx and F. Engels that “language arises only from the need, from the urgent need to communicate with other people.”
Language exists and functions insofar as it realizes its purpose - to serve as a means of communication between people. If, due to certain conditions, a language ceases to fulfill this purpose, it ceases to exist or (if written language is available) remains in the form of a dead language, as discussed above.
In order to exchange information and thoughts about the reality around us, about specific objects and phenomena, it is necessary to create, form, construct appropriate thoughts that do not exist in ready-made form, but appear only as a result of human mental activity, carried out (mainly or only) with using language, as discussed in the previous section. Let us recall that units of thinking (concepts, judgments) are expressed by linguistic means (words and sentences). On this basis, a special function of language is identified - thought-forming function, or constructive(from lat. constructio"construction"), sometimes called the mental, or function of the instrument of thinking. This function of language, unlike the communicative one, is not recognized by all linguists. According to some linguists, the constructive function belongs not to language, but to thinking.
Usually thoughts are formed, constructed by a person for the purpose of transmission to others, and this is only possible if they have a material expression, a sound shell, i.e. expressed by linguistic means. “In order for... a thought to be transmitted to another, it is necessary to express this thought in a form accessible to perception; it is necessary for the thought to receive material embodiment. The most important means for this... is human language.” It is language, being closely connected with abstract thinking, that provides the ability to “transmit any information, including general judgments, generalizations about objects not present in the speech situation, about the past and future, about fantastic or simply untrue situations.” Thus, it should be recognized that, along with the functions discussed above, language also performs function of expressing thoughts, or, more simply, expressive function, which is also called expressive(from lat. expressio- "expression"), or explicative(from lat. explicatio– “explanation, deployment”).
Expressing his thoughts, judgments about the world around him, about various objects and phenomena of reality, the speaker can simultaneously express his attitude to the content of speech, to the reported facts, events, etc., his feelings, emotions, experiences or empathy in connection with the reported information . This is most clearly manifested in artistic, poetic speech and is comprehended through special selection, purposeful use of various means of the national language, “specific artistic organization of linguistic material.” For these purposes, the following language means are used, such as: introductory words and phrases, modal particles, interjections, significant words with emotional, expressive, stylistic overtones, figurative meanings of words, word-forming affixes with evaluative meaning, word order in a sentence, intonation (for example, intonation of joy, admiration, anger, etc.). In this regard, a special function of language is highlighted - the function of expressing emotions, feelings, experiences and moods, or, more simply, “the function of expressing the feelings and will of the speaker,” which in specialized literature is usually called artistic, poetic, aesthetic, emotional, or emotive. This function of language can be defined as “the ability of language to act as a form of art, to become the embodiment of an artistic concept”, “to serve as a means of embodying an artistic concept, a means of creating a work of art”; its essence is that “language, acting as a form of verbal art, becomes the embodiment of an artistic concept, a means of figurative reflection of reality refracted in the mind of the artist.”
Language is not only a means of reflecting reality, objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, a means of expressing human thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc., but also the main means and most important source of knowledge of the world, the processes and phenomena occurring in it. In other words, language performs cognitive function, or, otherwise, gnostic, epistemological(from Greek gnosis"knowledge, cognition" and logos– “word, teaching”), cognitive(cf. lat. cognoscere- "to know, to know" cognitum– “to know, to know”).
The simplest way to understand the external world is sensory perception, but not all objects, their signs, properties, etc. are perceived and known by the senses. In particular, abstract concepts such as space, movement, speed, etc. are completely inaccessible to sensory perception. And only a very superficial idea can be obtained about specific objects with the help of the senses. Deep and comprehensive knowledge of the world around us is possible only with the help of language.
The participation of language in the knowledge of reality is manifested, as is known, in the process of thinking, in the formation of concepts and judgments that are expressed in words and sentences. Without the participation of language and linguistic means, scientific and research activities of people are unthinkable, as a result of which our knowledge is constantly enriched with new information, new information about the world around us, about the phenomena being studied.
In the process of cognition, communication between people for the purpose of exchanging information and experience plays an extremely important role. Such an exchange is possible not only through direct communication in orally, but also when reading books, newspapers, magazines, while listening to radio programs, watching TV shows, movies, theater productions, etc. The process of cognition is carried out especially intensively during study, at training sessions. All this is possible with the participation of language.
As noted above, language is not only a means, but also a source of knowledge about the world around us. “Language itself carries information embedded in its signs.” All significant units of language - morphemes, words, phrases, sentences - contain some information. “The content side of the meaningful units of language, i.e. the meanings of words and components of words, the meanings of phrases, the semantics of sentence structures, is a picture of the world processed by human thought (in each language in some ways) that has developed as a result of long-term analytical, cognitive activities of many previous generations."
The source of human knowledge is not only specific units of language, but also certain linguistic categories, in particular grammatical ones. So, for example, a noun as a part of speech denotes an object (in the broad sense), or objectivity, an adjective is a sign of an object, a numeral is a number, the number of objects, a verb is an action, a process. The same can be said about the lexico-grammatical categories of nouns, adjectives and other parts of speech, about the categories of number, gender, animation, degree of comparison, tense, mood, etc.
It should be noted that the cognitive function of language (as well as the constructive function) is not recognized by all scientists. Some linguists believe that “this function is characteristic of human thinking, and language is only a tool that is used in the process of its implementation,” that language does not perform a cognitive function, but only the function of a means of cognition. It seems, however, that this difference is not fundamental. After all, language is not only a means of learning, but also a means of communication. It is generally accepted that language performs the function of communication, or communicative function, precisely due to the fact that it is means communication between people; it can equally be argued that language as a means of cognition performs a cognitive function.
Closely related to the cognitive function of language accumulative function(cf. lat. accumulatio– “accumulation, dumping in a heap”), i.e. the function of accumulating, consolidating and transmitting social experience, or “a means of consolidating and transmitting the achievements of human thinking, human knowledge.” The essence of this function is that “language, in a certain sense, accumulates in itself the social experience of mankind and knowledge acquired in the process of life,” which “is deposited primarily in significant vocabulary, but to a certain extent also in grammar, which reflects to a greater or lesser extent the least indirect connection and relationship of reality." With the help of language, acquired knowledge and experience are distributed between people, become the property of different nations, passed on from generation to generation, which ensures the accumulation and constant enrichment of experience and knowledge, the development of science, technology, etc. “If language did not make such a transfer of knowledge possible, then each generation would have to start from scratch in the development of knowledge, and then there would be no progress in science, technology, or culture.”
Some linguists, along with the named functions of language, also identify and describe such functions as regulatory, i.e. “a function that regulates relationships between people in the process of communication”; phatic (or contact, contact-establishing), nominative (nominal) and some others, which, in our opinion, are not of particular interest.
- Cm.: Jacobson R. Development of a target model of language in European linguistics during the period between two wars // New in linguistics. 1965. Issue. 4. P. 377.
- Kiseleva L. A. Communicative language functions and semantic structure of verbal meaning // Problems of semantics. M., 1974. P. 67.
- Avrorin V. A. Functions of the language. P. 354; His own. ABOUT subject of sociolinguistics. P. 34.
- Cm.: Kostomarov V. G. The problem of social functions of language and the concept of “world language” // Sociolinguistic problems of developing countries. M., 1975. S. 241–242.
Language is usually defined in two aspects: the first is a system of phonetic, lexical, grammatical means that are a tool for expressing thoughts, feelings, expressions of will, serving as the most important means of communication between people, i.e. language is a social phenomenon associated in its emergence and development with the human collective; the second is a type of speech characterized by certain stylistic features (Kazakh language, colloquial language).
Language, as the main means of human communication, is designed in such a way that it adequately fulfills various functions to the intentions and desires of an individual linguistic personality and the tasks of the human community. In the very general view Language functions mean the use of potential properties of language means in speech for various purposes.
Language is not a natural phenomenon, and, therefore, does not obey biological laws. Language is not inherited, it is not passed on from elders to younger ones. It arises precisely in society. It arises spontaneously and gradually turns into a self-organizing system, which is called upon to fulfill certain functions.
The first main function of language is cognitive(i.e. cognitive), meaning that language is the most important means of obtaining new knowledge about reality. The cognitive function connects language with human mental activity.
Without language, human communication is impossible, and without communication there can be no society, there cannot be a full-fledged personality (for example, Mowgli).
The second main function of language is communicative, which means that language is the most important means of human communication, i.e. communication, or transfer from one person to another of any message for one purpose or another. Communicating with each other, people convey their thoughts, feelings, influence each other, and achieve mutual understanding. Language gives them the opportunity to understand each other and establish joint work in all spheres of human activity.
The third main function is emotional and motivating.. It is intended not only to express the attitude of the author of the speech to its content, but also to influence the listener, reader, and interlocutor. It is implemented in means of evaluation, intonation, exclamation, and interjections.
Other language features:
– thought-forming, since language not only conveys thought, but also forms it;
– accumulative– is a function of storing and transmitting knowledge about reality. In written monuments, oral folk art the life of the people, the nation, the history of the speakers of the language is recorded;
– phatic (contacting) func-
tion is the function of creating and maintaining contact between interlocutors (formulas of greetings when meeting and parting, exchanging remarks about the weather, etc.). The content and form of phatic communication depend on the gender, age, social status, and relationships of the interlocutors, but in general they are standard and minimally informative. Phatic communication helps to overcome incommunicability and disunity;
– conative function - the function of assimilation of information by the addressee, associated with empathy (the magical power of spells or curses in an archaic society or advertising texts in a modern one);
– appellative function - the function of calling, inciting one or another action (forms of the imperative mood, incentive sentences, etc.);
– aesthetic function - a function of aesthetic impact, manifested in the fact that the reader or listener begins to notice the text itself, its sound and verbal texture. You begin to like or dislike a single word, phrase, phrase. Speech can be perceived as something beautiful or ugly, i.e. as an aesthetic object;
– metalinguistic function (speech commentary) – the function of interpreting linguistic facts. The use of language in a metalinguistic function is usually associated with difficulties in verbal communication, for example, when talking with a child, a foreigner or another person who is not fully proficient in a given language, style, or professional variety of language. The metalinguistic function is realized in all oral and written statements about language - in lessons and lectures, in dictionaries, educational and scientific literature about language.
LANGUAGE – social processed, historically variable system of signs, serving as the main means of communication and representation different forms existence, each of which has at least one form of implementation - oral or written.
SPEECH – this is one of the types of human communicative activity, i.e. using language to communicate with other people
Kinds speech activity:
Speaking
Hearing
The main functions of the language are:
communicative (communication function);
thought-forming (function of embodiment and expression of thoughts);
expressive (function of expressing the internal state of the speaker);
aesthetic (the function of creating beauty through language).
Communicative function lies in the ability of language to serve as a means of communication between people. Language has the units necessary to construct messages, the rules for their organization, and ensures the emergence of similar images in the minds of participants in communication. Language also has special means of establishing and maintaining contact between participants in communication.
From the point of view of the culture of speech, the communicative function presupposes the orientation of the participants in speech communication towards the fruitfulness and mutual usefulness of communication, as well as a general focus on the adequacy of speech understanding.
Thought-forming The function is that language serves as a means of designing and expressing thoughts. The structure of language is organically connected with the categories of thinking. “The word, which alone is capable of making a concept an independent unit in the world of thoughts, adds to it a lot of its own,” wrote the founder of linguistics Wilhelm von Humboldt (V. Humboldt. Selected works on linguistics. - M., 1984. P. 318).
This means that the word highlights and formalizes the concept, and at the same time a relationship is established between units of thinking and symbolic units of language. That is why W. Humboldt believed that “language must accompany thought. Thought must, keeping up with language, follow from one of its elements to another and find in language a designation for everything that makes it coherent” (Ibid., p. 345) . According to Humboldt, “in order to correspond to thinking, language, as far as possible, in its structure must correspond to the internal organization of thinking” (Ibid.).
The speech of an educated person is distinguished by the clarity of the presentation of his own thoughts, the accuracy of the retelling of other people's thoughts, consistency and information content.
Expressive the function allows language to serve as a means of expressing the internal state of the speaker, not only to convey some information, but also to express the speaker’s attitude to the content of the message, to the interlocutor, to the communication situation. Language expresses not only thoughts, but also human emotions. The expressive function presupposes the emotional brightness of speech within the framework of socially accepted etiquette.
Artificial languages do not have an expressive function.
Aesthetic the function is to ensure that the message, in its form in unity with the content, satisfies the aesthetic sense of the addressee. The aesthetic function is characteristic primarily of poetic speech (works of folklore, fiction), but not only of it - journalistic, scientific speech, and everyday colloquial speech can be aesthetically perfect.
The aesthetic function presupposes the richness and expressiveness of speech, its correspondence to the aesthetic tastes of the educated part of society.
language is system(from Greek systema – something whole made up of parts). And if this is so, then all its constituent parts should not represent a random set of elements, but some kind of ordered combination of them.
How does the systematic nature of language manifest itself? First of all, the language has a hierarchical organization, in other words, it distinguishes different levels(from lowest to highest), each of which corresponds to a specific linguistic unit.
Typically the following are highlighted levels of the language system: phonemic, morphemic, lexical And syntactic. Let us name and characterize the corresponding linguistic units.
Phoneme– the simplest unit, indivisible and insignificant, serving to distinguish minimally significant units (morphemes and words). For example: P ort – b ort, st O l – st at l.
Morpheme– the minimum significant unit that is not used independently (prefix, root, suffix, ending).
Word (lexeme)– a unit that serves to name objects, processes, phenomena, signs or indicates them. This is the minimum nominative(nominal) unit language, consisting of morphemes.
The syntactic level corresponds to two linguistic units: phrase and sentence.
Collocation is a combination of two or more words between which there is a semantic and/or grammatical connection. A phrase, like a word, is a nominative unit.
Offer– a basic syntactic unit that contains a message about something, a question or an incentive. This unit is characterized by semantic design and completeness. Unlike the word - the nominative unit - it is communicative unit, since it serves to transmit information in the process of communication.
Between the units of the language system certain relationship. Let's talk about them in more detail. The “mechanism” of language is based on the fact that each linguistic unit is included in two intersecting rows. One row, linear, horizontal, we directly observe in the text: this syntagmatic series, where units of the same level are combined (from the Greek. syntagma - something connected). In this case, units of a lower level serve building material for higher level units.
Example syntagmatic relations can serve as a combination of sounds: [city of Moscow]; grammatical compatibility of words and morphemes: play football, play the violin; blue ball, blue notebook, under+window+nick; lexical compatibility: desk, work at a table, mahogany table –"piece of furniture" plentiful table, dietary table -"food", "nutrition", passport office, information desk –“department in an institution” and other types of relations of linguistic units.
The second row is nonlinear, vertical, not given in direct observation. This paradigmatic series, i.e. this unit and other units of the same level, associated with it by one or another association - formal, meaningful similarity, opposition and other relationships (from the Greek. paradeigma - example, sample).
The simplest example of paradigmatic relations is the paradigm (pattern) of declension or conjugation of a word: home, ~ A, ~y...; I’m going, ~eat, ~eat... Paradigms form interrelated meanings of the same polysemantic word ( table– 1.piece of furniture; 2. food, nutrition; 3. department in an institution); synonymous series (cold-blooded, restrained, unperturbed, balanced, calm); antonymous pairs (wide - narrow, open - close); units of the same class (verbs of motion, designations of kinship, names of trees, etc.), etc.
From the above it follows that linguistic units are stored in our linguistic consciousness not in isolation, but as interconnected elements of unique “blocks” - paradigms. The use of these units in speech is determined by their internal properties, by the place this or that unit occupies among other units of a given class. Such storage of “linguistic material” is convenient and economical. IN Everyday life we usually don't notice any paradigms. Nevertheless, they are one of the foundations of language knowledge. It is no coincidence that when a student makes a mistake, the teacher asks him to inflect or conjugate this or that word, form the desired form, clarify the meaning, choose the most suitable word from a synonymous series, in other words, turn to the paradigm.
So, the systematic nature of a language is manifested in its level organization, the existence of various linguistic units that are in certain relationships with each other.
Related information.