BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS LANGUAGE
Psycholinguistics is an interdisciplinary study of language development, language in relation to human mind, language in thought, etc. Therefore the analysis of different language units and structures can hardly be separated from the study of human mind and the way it functions. Let us proceed from the assumption that there are two spheres in human soul: the conscious sphere and the subconscious one. We will talk about those spheres in the next chapter.
When studying different aspects of the subconscious sphere, modern psychologists use the term “MIND SET”.
It was D.N.Uznadze, a Georgian psychologist, who defined mind set as a state that precedes every human activity, including speaking. It is a special form of soul modification that underlies every involvement into the world. The mind set is the person’s readiness to perform an action, it is the modality of human behavior. D.N.Uznadze shows that it is in the mind set that the person’s need and the concrete situation are reflected in the form of a drive. So the mind set is the beginning of every human activity, and it underlies both conscious and subconscious behavior.
Speaking about the language, we can think of two possible mind sets that underlie the process of speaking:
1) the communicative mind set and
2) the expressive mind set,
which correspond to the two main
functions of language: the communicative function and the expressive function. Of course, when we speak, both functions are realized. However, the person’s desire to say something may proceed from the necessity to get something from the hearer, which can be either of material or ideal nature: an object, an action, a piece of advice, even understanding and compassion. Of course, the speaker will do his best to be understood by the hearer. He will control what he is saying, he will keep in mind the hearer’s social status, his specific character traits as well as different parameters of the communicative speech situation, like the time and the place. So when the speaker wants to share some information with somebody, he will proceed from the communicative mind set. Most speech acts are realizations of the communicative mind set.
Therefore, any speech activity, proceeding from the communicative mind-set is well controlled, and attention is highly involved, even though certain operations are realized automatically without the speaker actually controlling them.
When the expressive mind set is realized, the person is driven by the desire to pour out his soul, to get rid of something that is tormenting him. He doesn’t care whether he will be understood or not. He perceives linguistic signs as a part of himself. The speaker creates, he is just like an artist or a composer. And it doesn’t matter what will eventually appear: a poem, a hypnotic text, a joke or a schizophrenic text. What is really important is that the expressive mind set has been realized. The speaker forgets about the hearer or the reader to some extent. Of course, there can be different stages or levels of the speaker’s drift from reality. Still it is the logic of wish-fulfillment that underlies everything that goes on. That is why the texts that are the product of speech based on the expressive mind set are, in most cases, samples of the negative speech material.
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Lecture 1: THE SCOPE OF THEORETICAL GRAMMAR.
BASIC LINGUISTIC NOTIONS.
(Лекция , семинар )
1. Language and its definition.
Language and speech.
General characteristics of language as a functional system.
2. The constituent parts of language.
Notions of ‘system’ and ‘structure’. General characteristics of linguistic units.
3. The definition and parts of grammar.
4. General principles of grammatical analysis.
Language and its definition.
As Grammar is a part of a language so first of all we should consider the term language.
Language is the system , phonological, lexical and grammatical, which lies at the base of all speaking. It is the source which every speaker and writer has to draw upon if he is to be understood by other speakers of the language.
Speech, on the other hand, is the manifestation of language, or its use by various speakers and writers of the given language.
We use language to represent our experience of the processes, persons, objects, abstractions, qualities, states and relations of the world around us and inside us.
Language and speech.
Language is a collective body of knowledge, it is a set of basic elements, but these elements can form a great variety of combinations. In fact the number of these combinations is endless. Speech is closely connected with language, as it is the result of using the language, the result of a definite act of speaking. Speech is individual, personal while language is common for all individuals. To illustrate the difference between language and speech let us compare a definite game of chess and a set of rules how to play chess.
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General characteristics of language as a functional system.
Any human language has two main functions: the communicative function and the expressive or representative function – human language is the living form of thought. These two functions are closely interrelated as the expressive function of language is realized in the process of speech communication.
The expressive function of language is performed by means of linguistic signs and that is why we say that language is a semiotic system. It means that linguistic signs are of semiotic nature: they are informative and meaningful. There are other examples of semiotic systems but all of them are no doubt much simpler. For instance, traffic lights use a system of colours to instruct drivers and people to go or to stop. Some more examples: Code Morse, Brighton Alphabet, computer languages, etc. What is the difference between language as a semiotic system and other semiotic systems? Language is universal, natural, it is used by all members of society while any other sign systems are artificial and depend on the sphere of usage.
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