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20PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOLOGY
DISCUSSION ON VALUES, CULTURE, AND LANGUAGES
Rakhmatova Mehriniso Uzbekistan, Bukhara State University
Abstract. Is language possible without thinking? Is thinking possible without evaluation or judgement? Is evaluation possible without understanding value? How much do concepts contribute to thinking and language production? The paper tries to give some solutions by comparative analysis of concept "beauty" in Uzbek and English languages.
Comprehension of foreign language can hardly be bound only with understanding of certain words and lexemes of universal character or with knowing the structure and system of a foreign language. There are parts of meaning in the concepts which are peculiar only to the culture and to specific values of speakers of certain foreign language. Anna-Marie Taylor (2014) in her thesis "Investigations into facts and values: groundwork for a theory of moral conflict resolution" admits : "A necessary condition for being able to speak a language is knowing under what circumstances to use terms and judgements. Another necessary condition, obviously related is knowing p-imlications of judjements and terms". In other words associations (p-implications) of words are important to convey the meaning more vividly. Associations used in conveying meaning closely deals with values of certain culture. Krzeszowski (2012)explains: "The crucial metalinguistic concept 'valuation' is consistent with the cognitive approach to meaning. This approach involves the philosophical commitment that reality, even though it objectively exists as being independent of human cognition, can only be accessed and described thanks to human experience shared by groups of people making up a given community, a given nation, or perhaps, at least in some cases, by the whole human species". In other words value objects existing in the world get their value property only through human experience in community.
Krzeszowski Tomasz Pawell (2012) in "Warsaw studies in English language and Literature, Volume7: Meaning and translation:Part1:Meaning" affirms that: " axiological aspects of meaning have been extensively dealt with by semanticians, psychologists and philosophers, working outside the structuralist-generative tradition. They have considered them to be elements of emotive meaning, usually as aspects of connotation. These emo- tive aspects or 'overtones' ... were only marginally dealt with by linguists working in mainstream semantics". As stated above linguists could also partially explain emotive aspects of language. However, emotive meaning or overtones are closely connected with "values" and they are central subject matter of axiology (Krzeszowski,2012) .
Krzeszowski (2012) believes that "the experiential grid through which we perceive the world necessarily involves some system of values. These values are necessarily reflected in language without which our experience of the world as we perceive it is impossible. Therefore, the experience of values is a necessary component of cognition, which means that axiology, as a study of values, cannot be ignored either in semantics or in pragmatics". In other words to explain how much are values important to understand and produce the language, one should understand the relation of thinking to language. Is language possible without thinking? Is thinking possible without evaluation or judgement? Is evaluation possible without understanding value? How much do concepts contribute to thinking and language production? The paper tries to give some solutions by comparative analysis of concept "beauty" in Uzbek and English languages. Linguacultural modeling of reality is one of the disciplines of linguistics with active and rapid development. However linguacultural peculiarity of aesthetic judgment is not sufficiently studied in Uzbek linguistics. Concept "Beauty" being one of the important key points of human behavior and leading aesthetic concept have not yet been undertaken to study specifically in professional and every day use of the concept. Comparative characteristics of the given concept in English and Uzbek languages will pave way to more accurate and distinct imagination of the system of evaluative priorities in two different language societies. In the current paper the reflection of values in the language is analyzed through comparative analysis of the concept 'beauty'.
Values as reflection of culture and social being.
Choosing the word that appropriately judges the object is the matter of conception of values in different cultures. Value is studied in Axiology. According to Krzeszowski (2012) "'Axiology' (from the Greek words 'axia' "value, worth" and '-logia' "study, science") is a branch of philosophy dealing with
values. Values must not be confused with objects of value (valuable objects), i.e. with things that are valued". Henry Rickert(1995) in his "Sciences about nature and sciences about culture" claims that not every belief and object is considered as value. According to Rickert value is an object that is interrelated with human being and they are basic characteristics of culture and the key point or guideline of human behavior ( Rikkert, 1995 ) in other words value is not just a thing, it is specific and peculiar social way of its existence. Henry Rickert(1995) proves that science can distinguish cultural processes from natural ones basing only on the principles of value. We can always find embodiment of some value recognized by man in all phenomena of culture. For those values these phenomena are created or if they existed before are fostered by man; and vice versa everything that appeared and grew of itself can be regarded as of no relations with value (Rickert, 1995). Generally accepted view that exactly values bear fundamental characteristics of culture, and are the highest guiding points of behavior is confirmed by the above statement. That is why the image of "beautiful woman" in Uzbek world picture may not coincide with the image of "beautiful woman" in English world picture.
Traditional, cultural and religious beliefs of people accumulated over the centuries form values and the values lead the whole life of one person, community and the whole nation. Many philosophers claim that norms of value change and they develop or fade due to the dialectically developing experience of society, f.ex handlebar moustache valued as handsome by 17th-18th century western cultural aesthetic norms may sound ridiculous if evaluated by xxi century aesthetic western cultural norms. Karasik V.I. (1996) in his book "Cultural dominants in the language//Language identity:cultural concepts" distinguishes value of civilizational type: values of medieval Christianity or values of modern industrial society among ethnic and universal values. Hence, while reading the description of a man with "a handlebar moustache" in a novel written in 17th century will indirectly imply about aesthetic pleasure received by that century aesthetic social norm. As it is seen in the example above by the change of social aesthetic norms values also change. Mesheryakova Y. V (2004) in her doctoral thesis "Concept "beauty" in English and Russian linguaculture" also confirms that essence of value is changeable, it develops together with dialectically developing world experience, and can be cognized as any other objective relation, object or property. Evaluation in this process plays a big role being one of the means of realization of value. Evaluation as reflection of values: Interests, tastes, preferences of speakers are reflected in evaluation as a component which forms semantic structure of the word. Gurevich P.C (1994) states that values are the reflection of evaluation made by man and conception of values of specific type of objects are the main moments of evaluation criteria according to Granin. (Granin, 1987) For example the idiomatic expressions " a face that would stop a clock, mutton dressed as lamb" is English specific idioms that cannot be explained in Uzbek through the same image of clock, mutton or lamb.
Mesheryanikova (2004) explains the relation of value to evaluation and notes that evaluative judgement is subjective form of reflection of objective reality. To have the idea of values of particular type of objects are the main moments of evaluation criteria. Besides evaluation should reflect real peculiarities of objects and include in itself the needs and interests of subjects... Evaluation does not exist without subject as it presents representation of value property (essence ) . So evaluation carries information about that valuable objectness or reflects specific features of social being. Here emerges a question: are the matter of cognition and matter of evaluation identical? Mesheryanikova(2004) gives example to elucidate the matter by explaining that elements of being which have not become social are devoid of any valuable essence (mineral which is not used in social practice can be cognized, but can not be evaluated unless cognition realizes its features due to which it can be used in social practice). Cognition is prerequisite of evaluation and evaluation stipulates for the process of cognition, stimulating activeness of cognition in the direction that counts preferable (Mesheryanikova 2004). Subject of evaluation as Seleznova(1999) states whether it is explicit or implicit is a person or social stratum from whose point of view evaluation is carried out. Object of evaluation is a person, subject, events or situation of things to which evaluation is referred. The most important peculiarity of evaluation is the constant evidence of subject factor, which is in interrelation with objective. Evaluative utterance if even when subject of evaluation is not expressed directly in it, implies value relations between subject of judgment and its object.(Seleznova, 1999). I consider the above given statement being obvious in the example of my blue eyed boy(uk)/ fair haired boy(US) in English compared to qora ko'zlar (black eyes) in Uzbek.
He was very much the blue eyed boy in the office (Cambridge idioms Dictionary)
Why is it beautiful?
Deciding what is beautiful can be easier rather then deciding what makes something beautiful? What is beautiful is reflected in every language through concept of beauty whereas why something is beautiful has not yet found its explanation. In his book "The Critique of Judgement" Kant(1965) gives explanation of the notion "beauty" in four moments of the first part "Critique of Aesthetic Judgement". Together with
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separately explaining the notion in four distinctive moments he again unites the explanations connecting them. Hawkin (2013) vividly illucidates Kant's ideas on beauty in his "Philosophy weekend:Kant on Beauty": "The agreeable is what gratifies a man; the beautiful what simply pleases him; the good what is esteemed, i.e that on which he sets objective worth" (as dsbd in Hawkin, 2013). Kant (1965) explains utility judgement the state of being useful totally different from good and beautiful; whereas good being moral judgement in his explanations is not similar with beautiful; he ascribes pleasure to the state of beautiful. According to Kant beauty is universal and aesthetic judgement we make is subject to taste.
As it is given in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : "by the 18th century, Hume could write as follows, expressing on 'species of philosophy':"Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others." As we see above beauty does not exist as quality in things it exists in the mind of an individual. Hence, "Beauty" is subjective. In particular some thinkers have believed that there can be no strict criteria of beauty, no valid generalizations at all; and that there can be no explanation of individual cases, all our "knowledge" of them being based on unanalyzable feeling or intuition.(Brown , 2012)
Taylor (1983/2014) decides: "The perspective of an individual is likely to be unique and individual or novel for personal, historical, cultural, social and biological reasons. These differences can often be alided by language -either person does not have the skills required to use language creatively; because they do not have the incentive or because they do not have the opportunity. Furthermore the language is standardized in form (syntax) and content(meaning) exactly in order to facilitate communication. But for that reason also language can mitigate against verbal expression of novel conceptions or perceptions." In other words perspective of each individual is value and culture bound. The language unites all intentions of an individual in the form and content.
Some linguists try to explain the question "what makes something beautiful" through the explanation of cultural values reflected in metaphors, proverbs and in phraseology of the language of each culture in various ways others prefer to explain the matter through interaction of mind and thinking. According to famous Russian linguist B.A. Larin (1977), fixed phrases always indirectly reflect views of the people, a social stratum, and ideology of a relevant period (Larin, 1977). So, words, metaphors and phraseological units have not only grammatical and lexical meaning, they also express value of the object evaluated by subject.
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