Study on Language Consciousness in Statics and Dynamics: Difference in Methodology, Theory and Application Field (Review of Recent Publications)

Abstract

The article is a review and analysis of recent publications dealing with the study of language consciousness. The analysis has revealed two types of research: the one aimed at describing the characteristics of some fragments of the language consciousness of a certain group of people, and the other one aimed at comparing fragments of the language consciousness of different groups of people. As a rule, the comparison is based on the activity that representatives of the two groups carry out regularly. Studies of this type give ground for conclusions about the causes of the observed phenomena since they identify factors that influence changes in the mental lexicon. Such factors are essentially the features of regular activity and the features of the individual and personal experience. For studies of the first type, the traditional interpretation of language consciousness as an integral part of human consciousness is suitable. For studies of the second type, a different interpretation of linguistic consciousness is required, the one that fixates the pattern of changes in the language consciousness of different groups of people. The author defines language consciousness as a psycholinguistic concept that shows how the internal and external factors for the functioning of a language as a human property are associated with changes in the meanings and senses of linguistic signs. Thus, language consciousness is not an integral part of individual consciousness, but a theoretical construct that fixates the patterns of change in the mental lexicons of a group of people depending on sociocultural and individual and personal factors. This concept reflects the ways the speech experience of a cultural group is organized depending on certain internal and external factors (those fixed by theory). The language consciousness does not contain a listing of the properties of individual images of consciousness, but instead a general pattern according to which the images of group or individuals consciousnesses are organized forming finally a certain system with its specific connections and characteristics which are determined by the impact of a peculiar combination of inner (personal senses, emotions, values, etc.) and outer (regular activity, social codes, cultural stereotypes, etc.) factors.