ANTROPOCENTRIC NATURE OF LANGUAGE IN ITS FUNCTIONS, UNITS, AND CATEGORIES

ANTROPOCENTRIC NATURE OF LANGUAGE IN ITS FUNCTIONS, UNITS, AND CATEGORIES

Author:  Boldyrev N.N.

Affiliation:  Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin

Abstract:  It has become common knowledge in linguistics that language performs two main functions (cognitive and communicative) and quite a number of complementary ones (emotive, esthetic, meta-linguistic, poetic, performative, etc.). The author argues here that all these latter functions are various manifestations of an interpretative function as one more general function of language. It is through this function that the anthropocentric nature of language is being realized. The key argument for this statement is that interpretation is characteristic of linguistic conceptualization and categorization and is represented in the system of categories of language. Two types of linguistic interpretation (interpretation of the world and interpretation of the knowledge of the world), its structure and sub-functions (selective, classifying, and evaluative) are ana-lyzed as being represented in the system of language and in discourse, and thus displaying an anthropo-centric nature of language. The author of the article draws special attention to conceptual domains as collective and individ-ual cognitive schemas of processing experience and to lexical conceptualization and lexical categories and their structure as language processing system.

Keywords:  anthropocentric, interpretation, function, category, knowledge, conceptualization, categorization

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Pages:  5-12