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14проелемы современного осрпзоопнип
E.A. Salikhova, Yu.R. Mursalimova
SPECIAL ASPECTS OF PERSONAL LINGUISTIC IDENTITY
Keywords: associative meaning of words, identity, confessional identity, religious component of word meaning, religious identity, linguistic identity, linguistic consciousness
Abstract: Here is an attempt to describe the peculiarities of functioning of religious component's word meaning in linguistic consciousness of representatives of Christian (Orthodox) and Islamic (Muslim) religions in Bashkortostan Republic. The authors of the offered material present terminological description of the notion "religious component of word meaning"; they define correlation of the concepts "linguistic - religious - confessional identity"; using the data of psycho-linguistic experiment, and sociological pollings that characterizes the tendencies of person religious identity in multi-confessional conditions of the republic.
Ключевые слова: ассоциативное значение слова, идентификация, конфессиональная личность, религиозный компонент значения слова, религиозная личность, языковая личность, языковое сознание.
Аннотация: В статье предпринята попытка описать особенности функционирования религиозного компонента значения слова в языковом сознании представителей христианской (православной) и исламской (мусульманской) религий, распространенных в Республике Башкортостан. Авторы предлагаемого вниманию материала представляют терминологическое описание понятия «религиозный компонент значения слова»; определяют соотношение понятий «языковая - религиозная - конфессиональная личность»; с использованием данных психолингвистического эксперимента, а также социологических опросов характеризуют тенденции религиозной идентификации личности в поликонфессиональных условиях республики.
The aim of undertaken research is the peculiarities of functioning of religious component of word meaning in linguistic consciousness of representatives of Christian (Orthodox) and Islamic (Muslim) religions which are widespread in RB. The next tasks are intended to be completed: 1) to give terminological description of the concept "religious component of word meaning" (WM); 2) to define interrelation of the concepts "linguistic personality - religious - confessional personality"; 3) to distinguish the tendencies of religious identification of personality in multi - confessional conditions in Republic of Bashkortostan (RB).
The religious component in structure of psychological (associational) WM is defined by us as the content of a word reflecting and fixing in individual's consciousness mystical beliefs, based on the believing in supernatural forces and beings (gods, spirits). In presentation of psychological WM we adhere to its conception as the component of word structure generating, on psychoverbal level in consciousness of representatives of a definite national-cultural community, a certain minimum of similar associative reactions according to a number of features (inner ones are of perceptional, cognitive, emotive nature and external- verbal, situational ones) as an ability to form mental structures, integrating skills of associating with the definite realia.
The result of such complex and ambiguous interaction is religious experience by means of which personal identity is actualized and concretized, and in individual case it can drastically transform up to changing religious orientation.
According to philosophic interpretation, belief is considered to be a powerful spiritual factor in formation of a human being, the basis of understanding of his place in the world, some form of the world acceptance and unity with it. In other words, religious belief as phenomenon presents orientation of a man on understanding the world and himself in it through oration to God and helps to discover everything created by Him. Traditionally, in science conception belief is opposed to mind, allowing one to overcome not only the limits of individual capacity but doubts. To satisfy this need, a person needs to imagine Somebody like him, but who is able to do something that exceeds man's ability. Such God's quality as a being unlimited by time and space demonstrates measureless strength of human imagination. For example, in Christianity God is endued both human and superhuman qualities: He has a propensity for forgiving, solving, judging. Religious persons associates these qualities with God, because for him He is an exemplar to which a believer looks toward during the whole life, but realizing that he is not able to reach such ideal. For this reason, God is some absolute being, eternity and endlessness, perfection and beauty, truth and goodness.
Psycholinguistic researches related to the questions of language-religion interconnection in the context of problem of language, knowledge and consciousness, lead to a thought about great variation of meanings, actualized by acquisition of language symbols, traditionally serving religious sphere, upon availability of general trend to shifting symbolic sacral component of meaning from center to periphery. As ratee's interpretation of content of this or that stimulus is based on his formed conceptual system, which obligatory includes common cultural invariant, it's reasonable to turn to the issue about common cultural determinants of reproduced personal meaning. It is fixed in the memory of a human being as one of the association that later can become the ground for other activity and provides transcendence of a speaker or listener beyond the communicated and perceived information, it can be determined as "motivationally based means of giving psychological meaning" [3: 126].
The hypothesis about the presence in religious culture, and correspondingly in consciousness of its bearers, a separate sphere of values as ideal in every respect, is confirmed. Theoretical justification of such argument was apprehension that linguistic context is capable to reflect more completely the fragment of an individual conceptual system actualized by perceiving initial stimulus. There emerges the possibility of finding out the potential capability of actualizing some sacral semantic content through revealing principal connection between stimulus and corresponding response in ratee's consciousness. Thanks to the presence of the experiment participants' religious knowledge, there was formed an individual system of meanings presenting a peculiar method of reflecting reality, allowing to exceed the scopes of words meaning described by dictionaries. However, beyond visible common religious precedents at bearers of different confession, there is necessary not identical content, reflected in language consciousness with account of national-cultural specificity [ibidem: 130].
Language is the main method of forming and existence a man's knowledge about the world, and one of its main items - a word - is a means of access to variable knowledge of a human being and has a meaning expressed in it, and by deflecting through individual seeing it "gives an opportunity to reflect in individual worldview a certain fragment, identified on different levels of perception as an entire, more or less generalized or specific situation with its necessary components, providing actualization of knowledge inference" [3: 126].
The problem of religious words meanings is the key for understanding religious words function in developing religious views of a person. Within the task stated in the article the conception of a famous Polish cyberneticist G. Grenevskyi is of interest. Within the bounds of perceptive code, G. Grenevskyi distinguished information of the first and the second type, in accordance with I.P. Pavlov's theory about two signal systems. The scholar supposes that the result of these two information flows can be four conditions of a human being: 1) sensual-nominal-condition, the content of which is "information-perception" and at least approximate or partial transferring it on speech; 2) sensual-non-nominal - "information-perception" without (approximate or partial) transferring it on speech; 3) nominal-sensual - condition, the content of which is knowledge, referring to the speech and its (approximate or partial) transferring on the code of perception; 4) nominal -non-sensual condition - knowledge referring to the speech without its (approximate or partial) transferring on the code of perception
By reason of social homogeneity, psychological (associative) meaning on principal cannot be unified for all members of (micro) society. A word and associated with it members of sensual groups are exposed with unconscious processes of analysis, synthesis or classification, interacting with the products of the impressions perceived before.
For determining the role of the religious component in identification of psychological meaning of a word, we have conducted a free associative experiment in verbal form with representatives of Islamic and Orthodox religious cultures. As a material of associative experiment we used 17 wordstimuli, specially selected for it, seven of which were connected with religious theme: SINFUL, GOD, RELIGION, HOLY, TO PRAY, TEMPLE and FAITH, the rest are - TO GIVE, HOLIDAY, TO
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READ, LOVE, ANCIENT, SCIENCE, A BOOK, UNEARTHLY, DIRTY, SOUL - were used for weakening notional transfer degree, that is why semantic unions of the words were dismembered and stimulus were used separately from each other. The language of answers was not restricted.
Here is an attempt to show mutual interaction between religious and linguistic kinds of knowledge by revealing and partial describing religious word meaning, that is, within the presented research, defined by us as the content of a word reflected in a person's consciousness and strengthens in him mystical apprehension, based on believing in supernatural forces and creatures (gods, spirits) and its influence on individual world view. Details of psycholinguistic interpretative work of the conducted experiment results are presented in [3], within the bounds of the given publication we confine ourselves to the affirmation of some important observations having the meaning for the describing specificity of religious component of word meaning functioning in linguistic consciousness of the representatives of Christian (Orthodox) and Islamic (Muslim) religious, spread in RB.
On formal-structural level national-cultural specificity is expressed in the changing of inner context of stimulus identification through breakdown of correlation between religious and non-religious components that leads to modification of source word meaning. As a result the given stimulus loses the ability to serve appropriate means for appellation to the religious knowledge as a component of individual consciousness (a girl's name; a beautiful name; Nadezhda (Hope) and Lyubov (Love)) or, on the contrary, it gets content-related specificity, which consisted in emphasizing and fixation more cultural relevant features of a stimulus, determining their priority actualization in the process of meaning-forming and correspondingly, diverse localization of formed meanings in conceptual system of different cultures representatives (in Monotheism; serving to God; a soul flying to God; in the Name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; a man in God; Godly truth; Orthodoxy of Christ; happiness in Christ; Godhead).
We suppose that every person has a set of sensual-non-nominal information (for example, some kinds of feelings, esthetic, pain and somatic senses). All words, referring to "supernatural" (God, spirit, angel, holiness), devoid perceptions. There is an interaction between non-nominal sensual sphere and sphere of religious words meanings lacking perceptions in individual psychological life of a believer and his consciousness. Thus, religious meanings of words perform sigmatic function of language in individual psyche through referring them to sensual-non-nominal material.
We suppose that every person has a set of sensual-unnamed information (for instance some kind of feelings, sensuous, pain and somatic senses). All words, related to "supernatural" (God, spirit, angel, holiness), are without meaning. There is interconnection between unnamed sensual sphere and sphere of religious words meanings without sensation in the individual psychic life of a believer, in his consciousness. Thus, religious meanings of words perform sigmatic function of the language in individual's psychic through referring them to sensual-unnamed material.
Religious scholars define a religious personality as a bearer of religious consciousness whose dominant characteristics are religiosity, subjective perception and attitude to faith. In the process of socialization a personality (community) identify oneself with definite ideals and values. In the process of communication in different social institutes a personality gets involved in the system of religious interactions where personality's identity is actualized.
For faithful people the religion performs the function of satisfying person's needs in searching life positions, utmost moral values, providence with moral guides and ways of interaction with oneself and others, it influences on establishing gestalt of the world where the concepts of moral values have prevailing importance.
Depending on a degree of faith the modern society can be conditionally divided into intensive religious people with "very strong" religious identity, living in accordance with the canons of religious faith; "convinced" believers - people, brought up within religious bounds, attending religious institutes and sharing religious views; people having not very strong belief, requiring rational ex-
planation of religious truths; those who are interested in religion; doubting persons (including neutral atheists); people not belonging to any region; atheists (irreligious).
"Religious personality" - the concept that is volumetric enough according to its content and includes individual human beings / collectives and whole ethnic groups. Religiousness is comprehended as social quality of an individual and a group, appeared together with their religious features (characteristics).
In A.G.-B. Salakhova's opinion [2], detachment of a religious language personality is eligible on the basis of criteria of social stratification of communicative space. The researcher fairly supposes that by analogy with the way of distinguishing linguistic identity of a politician, a teacher, a military man, a sportsman, a musician, an astrologer, etc., it's possible to determine a religious linguistic identity. A linguistic identity is a multilevel phenomenon, combining both social and individual aspects, that is why it's important to make classification of types of confessional linguistic identity, after clarifying its constitutive features. Modeling of language personality on the base of linguistic criteria is possible backed on discursive characteristics, reflecting both sociocultural and psychological parameters. Yu. N. Karaulov distinguishes verbal-semantic, linguo-cognitive (thesaurus), pragmatic (or motivational) levels of LP. In accordance with these principles it's allowable to detach catholic, orthodox, protestant, Islamic and others types of LP, entering into generic relations of religious LP with confessional one.
Large-scale sociolinguistic investigations, conducted in post-restructuring period (for example, [1]), the data of 2010 census of enumeration, and also survey and psycholinguistic experiment with students organized by us in 2013-2014 reveal absolutely new situation in religious sphere. There are 58% of youth of titular nation in 16 republics of RF and 57% of Russian young people consider themselves as believers and for some of them religion has become behavioral norm (according to M.N. Guboglo). There are almost no atheists among them, regardless their ethnic background.
Comparing demonstration of religious identity in social sphere (attending churches, mosques, etc.) and in a family-household one (conclusion of marriage according to religious customs) followers of Orthodoxy more oriented on the church, but the peoples confessing Islam - on observing family-household traditions: from 33-39% of Russians and 16-27% of autochthons in RF Republics attend religious institutes, whereas conclusion of marriage according to religious custom is considered to be obliging for almost half of Bashkirs and Tatars and only from 14,5% of Russians in Udmurtia to 24.7% - in Tatarstan [1: 265].
It is noted that in 1997 among autochthonous youth of 16 capitals the share of those who doubted about realization of their attitudes towards religion was 14,5%, the share of indifferent was 7,9%. Among Russian young people the shares were 16,1 and 10,1% correspondingly. To the beginning of new millennium in addition to believers and indifferent ones, there appeared a group of people being tolerant to religion; they were such representatives of youth, including 13,3% of autochthonous and 12.1% Russian ones, who respected the feelings of believers. During the test in 1995 it was studied out that for the last five years the level of knowledge of religious tradition among young people -autochthons, professing Islam (e.g. in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, 17,4-25,2% young respondents) increased significantly. In eight republics with indigenous population confessing Orthodoxy, the increasing on 18,6% was observed only among the youth of North Ossetia [1: 257].
There is the following impressing tendency that based on the results of the opinion polls between the types of the population according to the level of their religiosity and magnitude of religious identity. Coincidence index between dedicated believers (they "believe and maintain religious customs") and people with hypertrophied self-appraisal of their religious identity among Bashkirs is 0,7, Mari - 1,9, and among Tatars and Udmurts it is1.1. It's possible to build three models of coincidence: the first one, in which the share of people with "very prominent" religious identity, as among Bashkirs, is higher than the share of "dedicated ones"; the second model -
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proportion of dedicated believers (among Mari) exceeds the number of citizens with hypersensitive religious identity; and the last one is the model in which both groups, Tatars and Udmurts, are equal [ibidem: 269].
Similarly, groups of formal believers (they "believe but don't maintain religious customs") and respondents with "prominent" religious identity complied with each other. Range of correspondence was small - 0,6, but the index was - 1,0 among Bashkirs, 1.3 among Mari and 1,6 among Udmurts.
In group of hesitating and those with indifferent attitude to their religious identity indexes were especially illustrative: 0,5 at Mari, 0,6 at Tatars and 0,9 at Udmurts. Received data are attracted because they demonstrate availability of the connection between perceptions of the level of own religiosity and self-conception of own religious identity.
Determination of specific of religious speech behavior of contacting groups will allow one to explain causes of mutual understanding and disagreements in inter-religious communication. Methods and forms of the last one can be discovered at detailed study of features role in the processes of identification of perceived word meaning. It's important to trace how, depending on identifying feature, one and the same word can "lead" to different "schemes of knowledge", and on having common scheme of knowledge under conditions of inter-religious contacts - to specific filling of different slots with patterns typical for representatives of every religious culture features in combination with corresponding emotional-appraisive experience.
Investigations conducted in Bashkortostan in 2011 by Institute of social-political and juridical researches in RB together with Institute of sociology of rAs define religious worldview in the Republic in the following way: 52,2% from respondents identify themselves as Muslims, 39,5% - Orthodox Christians, the rest 8,3% could not define their religious identity. There is approximately equal amount of Muslims and Orthodox Christians (44,5% and 43,4%) in Ufa, (45,7% and 46,8%) in other cities of RB, but number of Muslims among village inhabitants is twice as much - 63,4% versus 30,1% - Orthodox Christians.
At the same time, not all Bashkirs and Tatars of the Republic classify themselves as Muslims. In accordance with the Census of Enumeration 2010, 92,4% of surveyed Bashkirs and 86,7% of Tatars consider Islam as their religion. 46,8% of village inhabitants referring themselves to Muslims, 21,9% and 31,3%. of the participants living in Ufa and in other cities of RB, correspondingly. Among Islamic-oriented respondents women make up 53%, men - 51%, 16,2% of them have higher education, 9,7% - incomplete higher education, and also there is a considerable amount of people having secondary and lower education - 21,9%. In accordance with the age groups surveyed Muslims are apportioned enough: within the range from 23,5% in age group 4554 years old to 8,7% in age group 65 years old and older [4: 77]
Evaluating positive value of the religion for moral well-being, most respondents-Muslims (60,8% of Bashkirs and 70,8% of Tatars) meant the religion in the broad sense of the word as one of the form of public consciousness. Surveyed Muslims highly appreciate (positively - 36,8% of Bashkirs and 44,3% of Tatars) the role of Orthodoxy. From negative responses the attitude to paganism can be marked: 15,6% of Bashkirs and 13,8 of Tatars remarked negatively upon this type of religious consciousness. Polling data show not only high level of tolerance of Muslims from the Republic to the people of other religious culture, but reflect the process of secularism, having subjected all the world outlook attitudes of an individual to its laws.
Preliminary results of the conducted comparative analysis of the data in diachronic aspect allow one to uncover the definite tendencies of personal religious identity in multi-religious conditions of the republic.
Most Muslims of the republic are not strong believers, but doubtless they refer to the Islamic culture world and save the elements of its mentality. Obviously, the modern Russian Islam has the backing of the state within the separate "Islamic" republic, institutionalized through spiritual dire ctorate, but it is still minority because it cannot but take into account the federal context. In view of
objectively reasonable causes, formed in the modern Russian society, Islam cannot seize all spheres of life, that the representatives of "radical" Islamic movements aim. The modern Islam in Bashkortostan is minority, because it can't help taking into account the federal context. Ethnic Muslims - Tatars and Bashkirs - integrated into the Russian society and in its behavioral, socio-linguistic, communicative structures. Traditions of interethnic and interreligious tolerance developed in Urals-Volga region play a great role [4: 86].
High rates of mutual confidence and close psychological distance (see the data in [4: 87-89]) reveal that there are good neighbor relations of the main contacting ethno-confessional groups in the Republic, and according to Ultimate mufti T. Tadzhuddin, this fact characterizes Bashkir land as the region of the unified "Eurasian confessional field", based on the close spiritual traditions of povolzhskiy Muslims and Orthodox Christians.
As a sacral basis of the cultural tradition religion acts as one of the elements of ethnical identity. At the present stage in social-political life of Muslims of the Republic the presence of Islam has more symbolic nature than the real content. For the modern ethnic self-comprehension of Bashkirs and Tatars Islam is of great importance both as a world outlook system and as a part of historic memory of the nation.
Definition of the peculiarity of religious language behavior of contacting groups will make it possible to explain the reasons for mutual understanding and contradictions in inter-religious communication. The ways and forms of the last one can be revealed in detailed overviewing of the features role in the process of identification of the perceived word meaning. It's important to trace how depending on identified feature one and the same word can "bring" to different "frames of knowledge", and on having common frames of knowledge in conditions of interreligious contacts -to the specific filling different slots with patterns of features typical for bearers of every religious culture in combination with corresponding emotive- attitudinal experience.
The growth of ethnic self-consciousness and rebirth of religiosity against the changing of the state politics towards confession freedom led to wide-scale ethnic-confessional identity. It became such an element of social categorization that began to get additional weight because of immigrants arriving from CIS former republic to the country. The researches show that the amount of people in RF, identifying themselves as "orthodox Christians", keeps steadily growing - according to Levada-Center data [4: 90], from 17% in 1989 to 76% in 2010, coming nearer to the share of country Russian population in percentage ratio. Sociologists agree with the opinion that orthodox identity, to a large extent, performs the functions of the cultural identity being "the pillar for recovery the feeling of historical continuity of the country ethnic majority's pre-revolutionary status" [ibidem]. In a predictable manner it also reflects the features of modernity, because in modern Russian society the place of orthodox identity is considered in the context of burning issues of XXI century.
Orientation of religious identity on traditions has not only obvious spiritual-moral advantages, but it can be integrated with specific risks. Under certain circumstances of social tension growth in the environment of "convinced" believers these problems can be understood and interpreted in the categories of interethnic and interreligious tensions.
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