Limba română – „partea noastră de cer”. Aspecte ale individualității lingvistice

Abstract

Out of the plethora of definitons and acceptations that were conferred to language throughout time, two greater paradigms were especially delineated: on the one hand, the understanding of language as an “instrument for communication”, and on the other hand, the understanding of language as a “worldview”. I shall emphasize in my paper certain aspects pertaining to the current context that impose an adequate understanding of language and its function, presenting and discussing therewith the definition of language under these two trends / paradigms in linguistics and the direct or indirect implications of these types of understanding of language. I deem that the furthering (through various ways, either: didactic, scientific, cultural etc.) of one or the other of these perspectives for understanding language determines in the consciousness of the speakers an intuition as to what language represents. As such, a change of outlook on language (from the quasi-generalized perspective of language as an “instrument for communication”, towards language as a “worldview”) is highly important, especially in the present context where the phenomenon of English language “globalization” is being increasingly noticed. The realization that each language represents an inestimable spiritual value first is possible solely through the angle of understanding the fact that the individuality of every language is being situated, after a first approximation, at the level of the specific way through which it demarcates and structures reality using its own signifiers, offering thus a “worldview”.