Interpretation of thesaurus in the sciences of culture and society

Abstract

The article is devoted to the methodology of cultural research. It is revealed that the concept of thesaurus in cultural studies, philology, and anthropology does not coincide with those accepted in linguistics and computer science. The author shows that the concept of thesaurus in cultural studies corresponds to the idea of a certain reserve, wealth, which can be called a treasure (from the Greek “thesaurus” — treasure, treasury). In other words, we can talk about the richness of language, knowledge, life experience, and so on. The author relies on the concept by Vl. A. Lukov and V.A. Lukov, who argue that the purpose of the concept of "thesaurus" appears when it is necessary to reflect the completeness of some knowledge that is essential for a given subject for some reason. The article highlights two main characteristics of the thesaurus: the first one is that we are speaking about the completeness/sufficiency of information, without taking into account its volume and measure; the second one is that the materiality of this knowledge is determined by the subject himself — his values, goals, attitudes, etc.