Philology as a Social Activity: Sociophilological Analysis of Mental and Linguistic Situation in Modern Russia. Part 1: About the Profession of “Philologist” and Higher Philological Education in Russia

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of the phenomenon of “philology” as a humanitarian science, a type of social activity and an element of everyday consciousness. The components named above constitute a unity, which we denote by the term “modern mental-linguistic situation.” In this study, philology as a social activity is placed at its center. The most important institutions of socialization and officialization of philological activity are the system of school and university education and law (labor legislation regulating professional activity). Complex and contradictory relations have developed between these institutions in the USSR and the Russian Federation, which are analyzed in the article. In this socio-mental space, school education forms a functional unity with ordinary metalinguistic consciousness, while university education tends to some unity with scientific metalinguistic consciousness. We believe and prove further that educational structures “represented by” higher and secondary educational institutions carry out a non-systematic response to socio-public requests for philology as a science and as a practical activity. The main subject of the study is the causes and consequences of the non-systemic institutionalization of philological activity in university and school philological education.