„Rozumný“ prístup k jazykovej kultúre

Abstract

The content of the paper is based on reactions that are stimulated by Alexandr Stich’s ideas in his study on the concept of language culture and its content. In his statements there is a hidden conviction about the need for a “reasonable” approach to language culture. Although the attribute reasonable in this context is questionable, the paper discusses the possibility of determining such an approach. The author’s conception is based on the conviction that the natural meaning of our behaviour and actions consists in cultivating a way of life that corresponds to our humanizing determination in the evolutionary process. From this follows the thesis that a reasonable way of human life is governed by the authority of its natural basis. This also applies to the way of cultivating the language. Language users show this by tending to linguistic behaviour that corresponds to the nature of their native language. If the democratization of a literary language has reached such a degree that its users accept it as a mother tongue, it is reasonable to cultivate it in accordance with its natural basis. The task of linguistic theory is to analyze this basis and draw “reasonable” conclusions for the approach to literary language cultivation. The attribute “reasonable” means that this approach is generally accepted in a community that is guided by the principle of rationality alone.