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7ANTHROPOCENTRIC CONTEXT OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE
Abstract
The paper focuses on some aspects of linguistics and language education, associated with a anthropocentric ideologeme as the educational dominant of the European social cultural, social linguistic and economic space. Introducing a competency-based approach in education is noted to have synchronized with a grave crisis experienced by modern Western civilization. Military, terrorist threats and mass exodus turn to searching for effective mechanisms to stabilize the situation inter alia in education. In this regard, a lot of social and economic problems are established to remain undetermined while implementing a competency-based approach, that is indicative of difficulties faced by the educational community while setting a new educational paradigm. The main reason for the adverse trends is assumed to be in missing the point of the superconcept "human competence", forming the conceptual core of a competency concept sphere. In this context, and relating to language education there are analyzed some aspects of so called generative doctrine which has been created since antiquity and currently cultivated (Heraclitus, Isocrates, Humboldt, Heidegger, Chomsky); there are substantiated the notion that a human essence / competence is directly correlated with the essence of language. At the same time, it is stated that many simple issues in linguistics remain unexplained. Prospects for further development of competency-based approach in language education is conditioned by the extension of an anthropological trend and the awareness of the linguistic competence concept as a semantic centre of "human competence".
Keywords
anthropocentric ideologeme, competence crisis, human competence, metahistory,
language education
AUTHOR Lada Lichman
PhD, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Foreign Languages, P.L. Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, 9, Dorohozhytska Str., Kyiv, 04112, Ukraine. E-mail:
Introduction
The transformation of the European way of thinking, the birth of new, not fully conceptualized ideological foundations in the interior of Western civilization ensue on a number of legally formalized intelligible paradigms. One of them is a competency-based approach for arranging a social and economic space: the government and municipal authorities' functioning as related to material production, culture, education and science should focus on developing personal, professional, discipline-specific, environmental, civil, political, existential and other competencies. The human competence in various fields is brought to the level of basic criteria for measuring the efficiency of life. The concept of competence has been entrenched in education, among others, in language education, having gained the status of educational dominant idea. Hence, the strategy of the social changes accomplished in the European space, has been taken off as a result of a competence-centered civilizational choice.
The ambiguity of this choice is obvious. On the one hand, the surging integrative and economic affairs determine upgrading qualification standards for professionals as well as contribute to introducing the new types of competencies. On the other hand, the social and political, ethnocultural and, globally speaking, civilizational imbalance in Europe is
indicative of many problems which can hardly be solved through the instrumentality of competency-based model while implementing institutional reforms. Social inequality, discrimination on the ground of national origin, dilemmatic comprehension of ethnic identity, power confrontation, terrorist threats, the repartition of the geopolitical spheres of influence - all the situation points to the imperfection and, apparently, some conceptual inertia of the competency-based approach. But if we assume that this is not the case and a competence paradigm is quite optimal, then it must be admitted that the political quarters, the political and intellectual elites of Western Europe have manifested themselves incompetent grappling with critically dangerous challenges of modernity. In this regard, one would think that the very theory of competence and the way to perceive it as well as to understand and practically transform are far from perfect, as confirmed by the current events: terror, war, the evidence of the "decline of the West" and the transition to a metahistorical developmental system. This assumption is very likely for good reason.
Methodological Framework
The methodological substantiation of investigating the issues regarding the crisis of a competence-oriented ideology in the imbalanced world order is determined by the works focusing on the anthropocentric essence of language. Indeed, just studying the nature of the individual / community - language / speech correlation offers the challenge for extending the concepts of language education resources of building a highly qualified, quite competent person. In this view the statements and writings dealing with the generative essence of language, which actively awakes the consciousness the individual, are of particular importance. The approximate - anthropological linguistic - ideas are found in such thinkers as Heraclitus, Isocrates, W. von Humboldt, R. Descartes, M. Heidegger, P. Florensky, N. Chomsky and others. Such a great variety of doctrines and the areas of expertise is quite consistent with the scale of modern education traditions. Therefore, a competency-based approach as a global educational paradigm is rather versatile research material that requires adequate methodological and methodical support, in particular, by reference to the terminological, sociological, anthropological and genetic methods of scientific reflection.
Results and Discussion
The analysis of the new world order, performed by the author of the concept of language competence Noam Chomsky, conveys the suggestion that many transcribed ideologemes of the modern society are designedly cancelled out, deliberately unexpanded, left disembodied. From the point of view of the American thinker, this situation is appointed by transnational corporations and it is beneficial to very few people, possessing majority of the financial planetary resources (Chomsky, 1999). The establishment's interests center around the total control over the information space and, consequently, over the way and the prospects of worldview of billions of people; dominating people in a great number of varieties, as follows the "open", "democratic", "neo-liberal", "libertarian," "conservative religious", etc. societies, calls for expanding total ideological and psychological / neurobiological industries.
From this perspective, it can be assumed that introducing the idea of competence-oriented education is one of the technologies for mind control as early as at school and university. Indeed, this idea concentrates and, at the same time, preserves a limited logical algorithm: good education / self-education - productive labor - a lucrative business - emotional well-being. This algorithm is very simple and therefore, comprehensible for everyone. However, it should be noted that such a central element as the concept of
human competence has been withdrawn, this being the case the competency-based approach seems to be a conceptual simulacrum.
Let's get down to J. Delors' report "Learning: The Treasure Within", which has been taken as a conceptual framework in the scientific educational and expert community. The content-related quintessence of this document is in the following wording: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together/ learning to live with others, learning to be (Delors et al., 1996).
The first thing that stands out particularly is a consistent emphasis on the process of cognition / understanding / learning in order to achieve certain vital priorities, as follows to know, to do, to live together / to live with others, to live. The quality and structure of the stated priorities indicate the pragmatic and utilitarian nature of the whole document, the one-dimensionality of the competence theory axiological approach, wherein the ideas about education, qualifications are reduced to the vague, amorphous theoretical concepts, but called the vital ones. What does it mean "to know'? or what does it mean "to live"? There are no explanations. That makes sense, as there is no concept of human competence in the report, while the most impartial investigation of the history of civilization shows that the matter concerning the essence of man in his relation to the world, space, being etc. were always of many thinkers' great attention. Indeed, just due to the retrospect one can enrich the scope of this or that phenomenon, in particular, design its national specificities: "Anyways, it seems to me that when they plan to write or say something, they should better to advance in the historical knowledge as far as possible, and in formalizing the existent, fulfilled and completed programs. (...).The quest for historical knowledge and interpretive formalization is the minimal conditions for a "responsible" writing" (Derrida, 1993).
Later on M. Heidegger, speculating on the being of things in existence, believed that "...never does the Being of that which is consist here in the fact that it is brought before man as the objective, in the fact that it is placed in the realm of man's knowing and of his having disposal, and that it is in being only in this way" (Heidegger, 1977). Thus, the philosopher developed and consistently grounded the issue of human competence in its direct relationship with the question of being. Moreover, according to M. Heidegger, just language activity is a key to determine the human competence/essence, but not the cognitive activity, as Delors reported, that's because the being manifests itself in language, in which man gains the ground and shelter for living in truth (Heidegger, 2000). Such an approach is quite in line with J. L. Austin's speech act theory ("performative utterances"), according to which some aspects of speech are, in fact, actions ("to do things with words") (for example, declaration of war or surrender, wedding ceremony and so on): language / speech gets the function of action. In this context, ontological and pragmatic outlook horizons close in under modern conditions.
It is worthy of note that the conceptions of some major scholars (M. Mamardashvili, M. McLuhan and others) about the phenomenon of modern man are not only more extensional as compared to competency-based approach ideologemes, but in some cases they are opposed to the modern ill-conceived educational paradigm. Thus, M. McLuhan in his "The Medium is the Massage" points out that the "fragmenting of activities, our habit of thinking in bits and parts — "specialism"— reflected the step- by-step linear departmentalizing process inherent in the technology of the alphabet (McLuhan, Fiore, 1967), while the current communication media causes unusual perception correlations which change mentality and activity, transform a person. As a result, "media involves all of us, all at once. No detachment or frame is possible" (McLuhan, Fiore, 1967). Therefore, according to the author, "We have had to shift our stress of attention from action to reaction" (McLuhan, Fiore, 1967). Perhaps, this attitude anticipates the new aspects in
the development of communicative competence or predetermines the entry of conceptually new educational systems for building the kind of interpersonal community.
The pragmatic aspect of the concept of "human competence", but in slightly modified definitions was formulated by the German scholar and teacher V. Kerber with reference to R. Herzog (Herzog, 1998): "The learned thing gets out of date very quickly in a new professional and labor sphere. The new requirements are imposed upon: what it involves is about lifelong learning, which should be combined with the creativity, team player skills and personal responsibility. (...) All of this, I would like to call human "life competency" in an extended sense ...." (Kerber, 2003).
In fact, man who is faithful and irreprehensible in the performance of his professional duties, but nothing besides, is hardly to be envisaged as competent. Probably, the competency-based approach will never get off the ground and the individual will act like George Orwell's heroes, for a variety of reasons, apart from a thorough understanding of the concept of human competence.
Meanwhile, the designated concept was thought in antiquity, when human competence corresponded to the category of human nature, directly relating to the essence of speech/language. Later on the tradition of correlation between human essence/competence and the essence/competence of language/speech was enlarged in the works of W. von Humboldt, M. Heidegger, P. Florensky, N. Chomsky and others. Our definition for competence is supported by the tradition of generative grammar, according to which man and speech are alive reciprocal generative, but not discrete, whole.
Heraclitus was one of the first who thought about it. He divided people into those who knew how to listen, imbibing the power of the Word (Logos) and those who did not know: "Though this Word is true evermore, yet men are as unable to understand it when they hear it for the first time as before they have heard it at all. For, though all things come to pass in accordance with this Word, men seem as if they had no experience of them, when they make trial of words and deeds such as I set forth, dividing each thing according to its kind and showing how it truly is. But other men know not what they are doing when awake, even as they forget what they do in sleep" (Fragments, 2015).
A little later Isocrates, classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher, whose philosophical heritage we got due to the writings of his best disciple Plato, likened midwifery to the process of activating consciousness and generating new ideas by linguistic effect stimulating critical thinking in those who searched for truth (maieutics, or Socratic method). According to Isocrates, speech both introduces to Logos and contributes to learning human nature and therefore to mastering the single most important profession -to be a good decent person (Timmerman, Schiappa, 2010). Thus, further to Heraclitus' doctrine Isocrates puts forward the idea about the unity of a human being and speech.
Subsequently the generative ideas of the ancient thinkers were explicated in the main Humboldt's work "On Language: The Diversity of Human Language-Structure and Its Influence on the Mental Development of Mankind." (Humboldt, 1988), which left a mark in the history of the modern European humanities, especially in reference to the works of German philosophers. According to Humboldt, a language originates from the inscrutable, mysterious depth of the individual's self-awareness. At that man's language behavior is produced by the activities of the other, unknown forces, energies and forms. Thus, the actual linguistic and extra-linguistic, or an energetic, activities build a unique, individual intellectual identity which depends on the social realm and the laws of inner freedom. This linguistic concept has been associated with the concept of linguistic competence (N. Chomsky), being considered in terms of the concept of "implicit competence" to begin with and divided chiefly into two positions: a) the unknown power's impact on thought (the action of the spirit, energy) and b) innate knowledge, incorporated into the consciousness (super-personal consciousness) by the entire experience of the people's
historical evolution, that is a kind of the people's knowledge matrix or "the inner form". In fact, the concept of "implicit linguistic competence", according to W. von Humboldt, identifies ontological language nature; language is a competence, which is interpreted as the synthesis of the active interaction among incomprehensible energy, innate knowledge and individual, genetically predetermined consciousness. Consequently, a language, in Humboldt's opinion, should be regarded as an ontologically efficient, historically predetermined (innate) and individually actualized unity. In this definition, the concept of "implicitness" is semantically equivalent to the notion of "innate" and it defines language as something inherent in man.
M. Heidegger was one of those who not only acclaimed enthusiastically that language concept, but recreated it in his own way and developed its fundamental principles. In his paper "On the way to language" the German philosopher relied on the speculations on Humboldt's language, putting forward a formula to be thought through: "the formula for the way: to speak about speech qua speech" (Heidegger, 1971). The formula focuses on a dominant, fatal power of language, when the language itself "involves" a person in speaking, assuming "All true language, because assigned, sent, destined to man by the way-making movement of Saying, is in the nature of destiny (italics added - L. L.)" (Heidegger, 1971). It is quite reasonable as combining a language and event as a phenomenon determining people's destiny as well as deriving the human essence from the essence of language / speech allowed the German scientist to show that the science of language (linguistics, language education, philosophy, etc.) is possible and necessary to be developed from postulate about this - anthropological linguistic - ontological / competency-based entity.
In such rendering a person becomes a subject, as in his linguistic activity competence a person serves as a modifier transfusing the different quality of the world - things existent. We can't but agree that from this perspective the issues of language education and linguistics as sciences relate to an ontology, while man, included in the ontological space, is generative, creative personality: the man's dominant competence - the competence of generation - is the competence of language. This idea formed the core of Chomsky's generative theory of language, which initiated the development of a competency-based approach in linguistics and psycholinguistics: "once we have mastered a language, the class of sentences with which we can operate fluently and without difficulty or hesitation is so vast that for all practical purposes (and, obviously, for all theoretical purposes), we may regard it as infinite" (Chomsky,1964). However, it should be noted that, according to N. Chomsky, to comprehend the nature of language, in its belonging to a person, to reflect on the idea of linguistic competency / competence still requires the osmosis of many, at first glance, simple questions: "The what- how- and why-questions raised by these systems have only barely been explored, because just of the unwillingness to be puzzled, despite their fundamental significance for thought and action. The origins of these basic elements and their organisation, now that remains entirely unknown... then they may remain a permanent mystery for human inquiry, but they certainly will be if they're not even investigated"(Chomsky, 2011). The remarkable thing is that the clausal discordance can be found here: on one hand, it is admitted that mankind still remains unable to access the immutable laws of nature and the mechanisms of linguistic manipulation, but herewith, on the other hand, it is accomplished a linguistic "weapon" employment, there is actively used neuro-linguistic programming to manipulate people's minds with the view of serving corporate interests.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be noted that the key to global social and cultural problems is in the communicative sphere, in linguistic communication as an initial matter. Overcoming the
recessionary tendencies in the pace of developments requires new efforts for improving a dominant anthropocentric educational paradigm as it is deprived of the conceptual center - the concept of "human competence". Appealing to the traditions of generative grammar allows us to partly close this substantial gap defining human expertise as a vital dynamic balance among genetically predetermined, socially conditioned and ontologically selected competencies, generated in the language activities as implicit competencies.
Recommendations
At the same time, over the long term the concept of generative linguistic competency / competence will require more intensive enhancement of anthropological linguistics and language education, which can potentially be the most promising sciences subject to taking into account a central concept - human competence.
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EFFICIENCY ASSESSMENT OF THE FOREIGN TRADE PROJECT BY MEANS OF CAPITAL BUDGETING ELEMENTS AND FINAL PROBABILITIES OF MARKOV PROCESSES
Abstract
To provide qualitatively new growth of economy is possible through increase of labor productivity, increase in competitive investments, growth of the capital. It can be achieved through technological progress, decrease in production costs, stabilization of financial market and reduction of the state participation in business. It demands from the economic subject to adopt weighed decisions on capital budgeting defining efficiency of all foreign trade project. The paper approaches to justify strategic decisions while assessing the alternative investments on projects, which are objects of capital rationing, based on both the NPV, and tools of Markov processes.
Keywords
capital investments, efficiency, foreign trade project, methods of investments assessment, capital budgeting, NPV, administrative decisions, analysis of predicted expenses and benefits, final probabilities, differential equations of Kolmogorov, normalizing condition
AUTHOR Olga Martyanova
PhD, Oryol State University of Economy and Trade, Oryol, 12 Oktyabr'skaya Str., Oryol, 302028, Russia.
E-mail: [email protected]
Introduction
At the present stage, both organizations and banks reconstructed their way of work. In the conditions of economic instability, they gave the preferences to big corporate customers. Having established credit payment at the level of 13% per annum, banks compelled organizations to refuse investment projects, as this rate exceeds profitability of many market participants. For example, in 2015 sale profitability of goods, works and services was 9,3%; production of cars and equipment gave - 8,2%; in the construction sphere this indicator was only 5,4%. Thus, banks do not want to work with borrowers, who cannot guarantee repayment of a debt in time.
