Abstract

For a long time, the study of ethno-language and ethno-culture was conducted based on the use of different conceptual and terminological devices, despite the significant commonality and the research possibilities in mutual connection with applying a single system of instrumental categories – universal methodological basis – semiotics. The semiotics of culture made it possible to interpret the phenomena of language and culture as phenomena of the same order. Culture is explored as a polyglot phenomenon, as a system of sign systems. In the dynamic aspect, culture, formed in the process of socio-historical development of the people, appears as a set of schemes or programs of subject-practical and spiritual-theoretical behaviour of people. By analogy with biological heredity, we refer to cultural heritage, in the frame of which individual behavioural programs are considered as a kind of “cultural genes”, whose systems, like genetic codes, form cultural codes. In this article, we consider the language and cultural code, namely their interaction in the linguo-cultural space. Thus, behavioural programs function in society in a signed form: in the form of social symbolism systems, in the form of etiquette signs, various kinds of signals, in the form of language. From these perspectives, we consider language as a mega program that regulates human thinking and behaviour. This approach allows us to identify the connection between language and culture. From the standpoint of the semiotics of culture, verbal speech is the main, nuclear sign system of ethno-culture, over which all other sign systems of this culture are built as its auxiliary mechanisms. The article deals with the connection between the concepts of language and code, as well as a number of related concepts. The concept of “linguistic image” is specified. The cultural code is divided into subcodes with a multi-level hierarchy. The system of cultural codes with its “vertical” and “horizontal” relations represents the figurative system of culture. Units of linguo-cultural code are formed under the interaction of cultural codes with the generally accepted code. A unit of linguo-cultural code consists of any number of lexemes, but it is a natural language embodiment of only one unit of cultural code (a separate image). Figurative codes of culture are embodied only in such linguistic units that have a figurative basis.

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