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9ANTHROPOCENTRIC APPROACH AND ITS PLACE IN COGNITION OF PHYTONYMIC FIELD
yagumova N.
Candidate of Philology, Assistant professor Adyghe State University Maykop Berestneva A.
Candidate of Philology, Senior Lecturer of the Department of English Philology
Adyghe State University Maykop
Abstract
Close attention of science to a person indicates the fundamental importance of anthropocentrism as a methodological basis for the application of complex analysis in linguistics, and since anthropocentricity and communicative function is an integral characteristic of any language, it makes possible to carry out typological and contrasting studies.
Keywords: anthropocentric approach, nomination, model of the world, linguistic representation, semantic field, phytonym.
Our research is focused on plant names, constutut-ing the common botanical nomenclature. It is not scientific, since it finds its existence in the ordinary consciousness of a person, in its deep archetypal structures, which are manifested in different ways in the process of nomination. Common names for plants are part of our everyday language but are open to alternative interpretations. A common name can mean different things to different people (communities, professions, languages) in different geographic locations and their use can change over time.
Modern linguistics has made an important shift both to a person and to the problems of philosophical cultural anthropology. On the one hand, this phenomenon predetermined the further development of issues of human identification as a representative of a certain cultural community, on the other hand, the intensification of research related to the human mind, the processes and structures of cognition. According to this approach to research, language and the picture of the world, created on its basis, should be studied in close connection with a person. The realization of it has made relevant the anthropological direction of language learning and an increased interest in interdisciplinary areas of humanitarian research based on the unity of "person - language - culture". This indicates a transition from "immanent" linguistics, which considers the language "in itself", to anthropological linguistics, which involves studying the language in close connection with a person, his consciousness, way of thinking, spiritual and practical activities [1, p.8].
According to anthropological linguistics, language is a constitutive property of a person. As E. Ben-veniste notes, "We can never get back to man separated from language and we shall never see him inventing it. . . . It is a speaking man whom we find in the world, a man speaking to another man, and language provides the very definition of man" [2, p.259] In support of what has been said, W. Humboldt futher elaborated that «language is, as it were, the external manifestation of the minds of peoples. Their language is their soul, and their soul is their language. It is impossible to conceive them ever sufficiently identical» [3, p. 55].
As a result of anthropocentric studies, linguists focused on the problem of human influence on language,
i.e. "the human factor in the language". If the supposition about the possibility and necessity of reconstructing the general picture of the world and its varieties appeared comparatively recently, the idea of the existence of a special linguistic worldview was formulated by W. Humboldt as a scientific and philosophical problem at the beginning of the 19th century.
In contrary to the common beliefs of philosophers and linguists of his time, Humboldt equated language and thought as inseparable. From his point of view, the character and structure of a language expresses the inner life and knowledge of its speakers, and that languages must differ from one another in the same way and to the same degree as those who use them [3].
At the same time, each language has integral characteristics in relation to other languages, but wherein reflects the world in its own way. This gives reason to assume that such differentiating characteristics constitute a variety of pictures of the world, and the man's knowledge of the world around him captured in words is called "linguistic representation", or "linguistic picture of the world."
The concept of "semantic field" in typological descriptions of the semantics of language was expressed in the 1930s by Jost Trier, one of the followers of W. Humboldt. According to representatives of the so-called "field theory" (J. Trier, L. Weisgerber, G. Ipsen, V. Porzig, etc.) the language of each nation creates its own worldview and picture of the world. Different languages caused different views of the world [4, p. 8].
The concept of a picture of the world has organically merged into modern cultural studies and semiotics, the task of which includes understanding the pluralism of cultures in the world. According to this concept such expressions like "model of the world", "picture of the world", "vision of the world" are used as equipollent.
The appearance of the concept of a linguistic picture of the world causes the emergence of epistemology of language developed on anthropological basis. This concept suggests effective solution to the problem of the correlation between language and reality, invariant and idiomatic in the processes of linguistic reflection of reality as a complex process of human interpretation of the world [5, p.37].
Thus, life practice and experience with a certain amount of accumulated knowledge has confirmed the idea without which knowledge of the surrounding world would be virtually impossible. Adherents of cognitive linguistics emphasized that our "conceptual system, displayed in the form of a linguistic world picture, depends on physical and cultural experience and is directly related to it " [6, p. 123].
There are complex relations between the picture of the world as a reflection of the real world and the linguistic picture of the world as a fiction of this reflection. The picture of the world can be represented by spatial, temporal, quantitative, ethnic and other parameters.
Taking as a basis the pre-scientific nature of the linguistic picture of the world, which he called a "naive picture", Yu. D. Apresyan emphasized that "the reconstruction of a naive model of the world on the basis of a complete description of lexical and grammatical meanings is considered as the most important task of semantics and lexicography, which has value in itself' [7, p. 6].
According to his practical needs, a man defines the reflection of a naive picture in a language as the necessary cognitive basis for his adaptation to the world. Each human as a linguistic person has a conceptual and linguistic picture of the world, which presents a global, continuously constructed system of information about society.
The conceptual and linguistic picture of the world of each man is heterogeneous: they include universal elements that do not depend on the linguocultural worldview of the individual, elements reflecting the national character of the linguistic personality, as well as information connected with the education of a person, his social environment, thus, associated with background knowledge, cultural traditions of a particular language personality. Differences in the conceptualization of the world in language require an explanation, and one of the explanation lies behind the national character [8, p. 42].
The mentality of an ethnos lies in the forms and categories of its language; it combines both universal human qualities and intellectual, spiritual and volitional features of the national character in its typical manifestation.
The national image of the world is a reflection of a unified world civilization and historical process in the national consciousness. It is the study of the relationship between language and culture that helps to understand the specifics of national psychology, since the language reflects the peculiarities of the mental structure. It can be stated that the picture of the world is an integral global image of the world, which is the result of the entire spiritual life of an individual.
The goal of linguistic analysis can no longer be considered simply to identify the various characteristics of the language system. From the standpoint of the an-thropocentric paradigm, a person learns the world through awareness of himself, his ideal and material activity in it.
The main areas of modern linguistics within the anthropocentric paradigm has become cognitive and
cultural linguistics, representated in human consciousness and linguistic forms.
Linguistic and cultural studies in intercultural communication acquire special relevance in the 1990s. They focus on the study of the culture of another people through its language, awareness of national identity and identity, which are reflected in the language.
This concept has become the basic notion of cognitive linguistics and cultural studies. For the first time the term "concept" was used by S.A. Askoldov-Ale-kseev in 1928. The scientist defined the concept as a mental formation that replaces in the process of thinking an indefinite set of objects, actions, mental functions of the same kind (concepts of "plant", "justice", mathematical concepts) [9, p. 4].
In modern linguistics, the study of the factor determining the regularity of the nomination is becoming increasingly important. Nomination is "the process of converting the facts of extra-linguistic reality into the property of the system and structure of the language, into linguistic meanings that reflect their social experience in the minds of native speakers" [10, p. 19].
The selection of extra-linguistic features is, to a certain extent, automated and dictated by the general laws of the reflection of the world by an individual. So, if we take phytonyms as an example, it is evident that they differ in a large number of names fixing the color and shape of real objects. This can be explained by the fact that the visual impressions of color and shape are the most informative, easily noticeable signs, perceived by a person.
It is essential here to determine how human perception of individual fragments of flora is reflected in semantic and lexical categories. This is revealed in the process of nomination, as a result of which the naming object, concept and language sign logically interact.
Anthropological theory of meaning as the latest trend in onomasiology pays great attention to the "reconstruction" of not only linguistic, but also cognitive-cultural mechanisms of nomination, trying to find out the reasons for choosing a particular linguistic sign, intended to serve as a linguistic "representative" of the corresponding reality.
Therefore, it would be fair to say that natural language reflects a certain way of perceiving and conceptualizing the surrounding reality. There is a certain view of a single objective world, which in one way can be universal, but in other way - nationally specific, and at the same time, speakers of different languages can see the world a little differently, through the prism of their languages, which is the most significant expression of human culture.
"It is the human factor, that is, the attitude of a person to any object or phenomenon of the world, that explains not only the subsequent choice of a name for it, but also the way of describing it, reflecting the practical use of the corresponding object" [11, p.32].
As aforementioned, it can be stated that the knowledge of the surrounding world by a person and the formation of a language is a creative act. In different languages the surrounding world can be divided in dif-
ferent ways. Therefore due to different living conditions a person creates and transforms the world around him in his reflecting consciousness.
The traits chosen as the basis for the naming of plants in each language may differ in their specific features. The selection of features occurs on the basis of certain associations, by bringing objects into some categories, establishing the similarity of functions and relations of objects.
All of the above can be confirmed by examples of how native speakers of English and Russian can see the same plants differently and name them differently, through the prism of their languages. In both English and Russian, when nominating a plant based on its shape, the nominator first of all distinguishes it from the general class of plants, and then identifies it with other plants, animals, humans, and household items. This can explain the presence of a large number of met-aphorized nominations on the basis of form, which reflect the national characteristics of the perception of reality: русск. тещин язык, англ. babe-in-the-cradle "малыш в люльке". The system of phytonymic nominations is characterized by the subjectivity of selection and interpretation of motivational features, methods and means of nomination in terms of expressing the stereotypes of the national consciousness of the English and Russian people. However, sometimes the associative series in different languages may cause identical names in both languages: русск. трава удачи, англ. lucky clover (Oxalis deppei). Especially, when it is important to indicate the pragmatic quality of the plant. For example, in phytonym Sydney red gum "сиднейский красный эвкалипт" geographic motivational feature characterizes wood in terms of high practical properties.
Phytonymic nomenclature has its own way of creation, its own spontaneous method of generating representatives of a given linguistic community at the ordinary level of consciousness, based on the cognitive experience of a person's relationship with the environment. In this case, one of the main features of such an experience is the evaluative attitude of a person to everything that surrounds him, which forms a motivational basis for the everyday nomination of plants.
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