LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL UNIVERSALS, CONCEPTS, DEFINITIONS: PHENOMENOLOGY OF CONCEPTOLOGY

Author(s):  
А.Б. Бушев

В статье обсуждаются дискуссионные вопросы лингвокультурологии, концептологии, языковой картины мира, национального коммуникативного поведения. Рассматриваются не получившие пока однозначного решения дефиниции концепта, различные подходы к отождествлению концепта и понятия, значения и концепта (и основания таких отождествлений). Дискуссионной, по мнению критиков лингвокультурологии, является и методика выделения концепта, преодоление порочного круга рассуждения типа «концепты выделяются по признаку непереводимости, а основным свойством концептов является непереводимость». Неясным предстает вопрос, является ли концепт абстракцией общности говорящих или индивидуальной эмоционально окрашенной единицей сознания. Представлена идея национального языка как фикции, состоящей из множества динамично меняющихся социолектов, что не свидетельствует в пользу возможности выделения «национальных концептов». Обсуждается линия критики концептологии, связанная с обсуждением спорных вопросов этнологии, «национального характера», этноса, народа, нации. Продемонстрирована линия критики лингвокультурологии концептов, исходя из тезиса о невозможности отождествления языка и мышления и языка и культуры. Принципиальная переводимость, синонимия, возможность эквивалентной субституции, билингвизм свидетельствуют в пользу отсутствия непереводимых национальных концептов. Критики лингокультурологии считают, что национальный язык - часто не источник сведений о культуре и мышлении народа. Целый народ не разговаривает на едином национальном языке, который диктует этому народу, как ему мыслить, а также предопределяет модели его поведения. Дискуссионной для критиков концептологии предстает и языковая картина мира. The article discusses the debatable questions of linguistic cultural studies, studies of concepts in linguistics, linguistic cognitive maps, national communicative behavior. The paper scrutinizes the definitions of the concept that are still far from being universally acknowledged and final, looks at different approaches identifying linguistic concepts with meanings and notions ( and at facts that are the foundations of such extrapolations). The mute point for those who criticize conceptual studies is the method of identifying the concept, overcoming the vicious circle in argumentation that «concepts are singled out ad the key elements of the language that cannot be translated properly, and the main characteristic of the concepts is the absence of such adequate translation». It is still not clear whether the concept is the abstract notion of the community or the emotional individual element in the consciousness of the individual user of the language. The paper highlights the idea of representing the national language as a fiction consisting of varieties of social dialects, which are characterized by dynamic changes. This idea is contradicting the possibility of singling out national concepts in national mentality, judging by the language knowledge. Discussed in the paper are the questions of national character, ethnos, nation, ethnology. The paper describes the criticism of conceptology that stresses the fallacies of identifying the language with the culture, and language with the peoples’ character and thinking. The possibility of translation for every word and concept, the status of bilingual consciousness, the possibility of finding synonymous ways of rendering everything are the arguments against unique non-translatable national concepts. The criticism of linguistic conceptual studies states that quite often the language is not a source of national culture and thinking of a whole nation (ethnic group). That ethic group does not possess the language as a mechanism that prompts all the members of the ethnic group how to think and behave. One more debatable question is the existence of the linguistic map of the universe.

JURNAL BASIS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-318
Author(s):  
Dairi Sapta Rindu Simanjuntak ◽  
Yunisa Oktavia

A name as part of a language used as a marker of a person's identity. The name will also show the culture of the owner of the name. For example, if you hear the names Johannes, Markus, Samsul, Pardomuan, Rumondang, Sujono and Paijo, it will at least give us an idea of the religion or ethnicity of the owners of these names. In this case, the author will try to uncover the naming system on the Batak Toba ethnic group. In Batak Toba culture itself the naming system is given to a person more than once according to the status of the individual. From birth to death, a person will get several names. The purpose of this study is to describe or describe the Batak Toba ethnic naming system. Data collection is done by capable methods, notes, and records.  The capable method of fishing technique is used to dig up data from informants. The data that has been obtained is recorded and simultaneously recorded. For this method of ability the author selected two informants who were 62 years old. The naming system in batak toba culture is (1) naming in the period before acquiring offspring; (2) Giving a name before being given the real name (prename), (3) Goar Sihadakdanahon (real name / since birth). In goar sihadakdanahon there are several examples of naming taken from the names of the week found in huria Christian Batak Protestant, especially for those who adhere to Christianity. The names are Trinitatis, Letare, Judika, Rogate, Advent, Exaudi, Sebtu Egatima, Seksagesima, Estomihi, Invokatif, Renimiscere, Okuli, Palmarum, Quatimodogenic, Nisericordiasdomini, Jubilate, Kantate, Ephipanias, and Pentekosta, (4) Panggoaran (name of the eldest child/grandson), (5) Goar-goar (nickname), (6) Marga (family name/relative) (7) Naming by Origin or place of birth.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-109
Author(s):  
Ishwarya N. Iyer ◽  
Sridhar Ramachandran

In this opinion article, we highlight that the cultural policy of language in India has resulted in an impasse in regard to determining and deciding upon a national language policy. We then summarize how English use across India has been elevated to the status of a lingua franca (amidst the language policy impasse), making it an indispensable part of the system and the economy. In that context, this opinion article presents the various tenets of the language policy issue with recommendations for educators in India on how to utilize best practices from literacy, culture, and language education (LCLE) literature to improve and maintain the quality of education whilst operating within the confines of the language policy impasse.


2008 ◽  
pp. 110-134
Author(s):  
Pavlo Yuriyovych Pavlenko

The cornerstone of any religion is its anthropological concept, which seeks to determine the essential orientations of man, to outline the ideological framework of its existence, to represent the idea of ​​its essence, purpose in earthly life. The main task of the religious system is the act of involving and subordinating man to the spiritual divine realm as the realm of the transcendental existence of God. Belief in the real presence of the latter implies a new understanding of oneself, which ultimately leads the religious individual to the desire to be involved in this transcendental existence, to have intimate relations with him, to have a consciousness inherent in God. Note that in this context, all human being is interpreted as a certain arena for this realization. Therefore, the religious life of the individual acquires the status of religious activity.


Author(s):  
Rachel Ablow

The nineteenth century introduced developments in science and medicine that made the eradication of pain conceivable for the first time. This new understanding of pain brought with it a complex set of moral and philosophical dilemmas. If pain serves no obvious purpose, how do we reconcile its existence with a well-ordered universe? Examining how writers of the day engaged with such questions, this book offers a compelling new literary and philosophical history of modern pain. The book provides close readings of novelists Charlotte Brontë and Thomas Hardy and political and natural philosophers John Stuart Mill, Harriet Martineau, and Charles Darwin, as well as a variety of medical, scientific, and popular writers of the Victorian age. The book explores how discussions of pain served as investigations into the status of persons and the nature and parameters of social life. No longer conceivable as divine trial or punishment, pain in the nineteenth century came to seem instead like a historical accident suggesting little or nothing about the individual who suffers. A landmark study of Victorian literature and the history of pain, the book shows how these writers came to see pain as a social as well as a personal problem. Rather than simply self-evident to the sufferer and unknowable to anyone else, pain was also understood to be produced between persons—and even, perhaps, by the fictions they read.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-138
Author(s):  
Dr. Bilal Ahmad Khan

Islamic economics based on specific concept of universe and the creation of man is contradictory to the concept adopted and accepted by modern science. Islamic economics postulates although ability and expertise is required for progress and growth but distribution of resources completely dependent on it would be cruel, inhuman and bereft of kindness, and lead to oppression. Islamic economics does not favor making human ability and expertise the fulcrum of resource distribution. It should be kind, considerate and based on justice and fairness. This is because according to Islamic philosophy, ownership is considered to be a trust from Allah which has been bestowed on the rich so that they may utilize it correctly. In Islamic economics the role of the individual, has inclinations and his aims and objectives occupy a central position and are vitally important. He is definitely a rational being but his level of rationality is not confined to the calculations of cost and profit. An individual does not want merely to obtain monetary profit and physical pleasure and leisure but he also wants and aims for something beyond what the material world has to offer. The main aim of the study is to find out the relationship between Islam and economics. In Islamic economics the comprehensive moral training of the individual, his technical and educational ability, his aims and his priorities are of primary importance. According to Islamic economics the means of acquiring wealth has the same importance as wealth itself. Dishonesty, abuse of trust and earning of wealth through fraudulent ways and means may perhaps increase the status of an individual but the society suffers because of it on the whole. This leads to an unjust and oppressive economic system.


Author(s):  
Alan Cooper

This chapter discusses three aspects of Jewish reception of the Ketuvim (Writings or Hagiographa): the status and authority of the Ketuvim in relation to the Torah (Pentateuch) and the Nevi’im (Prophets); the study and liturgical use of Ketuvim, focusing on the so-called Five Scrolls (hamesh megillot) and the Book of Psalms; and the character of traditional commentary on selected books, including recommendations for further reading. The Ketuvim were considered sacred and inspired, but at a lower level of inspiration than the Torah and the Prophets. They were regarded as diverting and edifying, but insufficiently authoritative to support the promulgation of law, which was the fundamental concern of rabbinic teaching and learning. On the whole, Jewish commentators seek to find consistency in the interpretation of the individual books, “taming” their originality in order to conform their meanings both to the rest of Scripture and to normative Jewish teachings.


Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Verónica Motta ◽  
Miguel A. García-Aspeitia ◽  
Alberto Hernández-Almada ◽  
Juan Magaña ◽  
Tomás Verdugo

The accelerated expansion of the Universe is one of the main discoveries of the past decades, indicating the presence of an unknown component: the dark energy. Evidence of its presence is being gathered by a succession of observational experiments with increasing precision in its measurements. However, the most accepted model for explaining the dynamic of our Universe, the so-called Lambda cold dark matter, faces several problems related to the nature of such energy component. This has led to a growing exploration of alternative models attempting to solve those drawbacks. In this review, we briefly summarize the characteristics of a (non-exhaustive) list of dark energy models as well as some of the most used cosmological samples. Next, we discuss how to constrain each model’s parameters using observational data. Finally, we summarize the status of dark energy modeling.


Author(s):  
James Aaron Green

Abstract In Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Charles Lyell appraised the distinct contribution made by his protégé, Charles Darwin (On the Origin of Species (1859)), to evolutionary theory: ‘Progression … is not a necessary accompaniment of variation and natural selection [… Darwin’s theory accounts] equally well for what is called degradation, or a retrogressive movement towards a simple structure’. In Rhoda Broughton’s first novel, Not Wisely, but Too Well (1867), written contemporaneously with Lyell’s book, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham prompts precisely this sort of Darwinian ambivalence to progress; but whether British civilization ‘advance[s] or retreat[s]’, her narrator adds that this prophesized state ‘will not be in our days’ – its realization exceeds the single lifespan. This article argues that Not Wisely, but Too Well is attentive to the irreconcilability of Darwinism to the Victorian ‘idea of progress’: Broughton’s novel, distinctly from its peers, raises the retrogressive and nihilistic potentials of Darwin’s theory and purposes them to reflect on the status of the individual in mid-century Britain.


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 597
Author(s):  
Yuxiao Su

This paper considers C.S. Lewis’ “doctrine of objective value” in two of his major works, The Abolition of Man and The Discarded Image. Lewis uses the Chinese name Tao, albeit with an incomplete understanding of its origins, for the objective worldview. The paper argues that Tao, as an explicit theme of The Abolition of Man, is also a determining undercurrent in The Discarded Image. In the former work, Tao is what Lewis wants to defend and restore against twentieth-century secular ideologies, which Lewis condemns as infected with “the poison of subjectivism”. In the latter work, where Lewis presents one of the best accounts of the European medieval model of the Universe, objective value (the Tao in Lewis’ argument) underlies both how the model has been shaped, and how Lewis, as a medievalist, accounts for and draws upon it as an intellectual and spiritual resource. The purpose of this parallel study is to show that Lewis’ explication of the Tao in The Abolition of Man, which is a “built-in”, implicit belief in The Discarded Image, provides a critique of tendencies towards the subjectivism prevalent in Lewis’ lifetime. These tendencies can be traced into the moral relativism, pluralism and reductionism of the twenty-first century, giving Lewis’ work the status of twentieth-century prophecy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Thomas Crew

In this essay I consider the theme of individuation or self-becoming in Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo (1888) and Hesse’s Demian (1917) and Steppenwolf (1927). Although this task appears inter-disciplinary, Nietzsche’s autobiography can be considered a Bildungsroman in which ‘Nietzsche’ plays the protagonist. After showing the correspondences between Nietzsche’s and Hesse’s diagnoses of contemporary Europe, which can be summed up with the notion of ‘decadence’ or nihilism, I suggest that they both point towards the process of self-becoming as the ultimate remedy for both the individual and society. Self-becoming is a painful yet necessary process that holds the repeated destruction of the individual’s identity as the precondition for attaining the status of human being. It is a process implied by Nietzsche’s ‘formula for human greatness’: amor fati. Resistance to individuation leads to a state of ‘miserable ease’, embodied by what Hesse calls the ‘bourgeois’ and what Nietzsche terms the ‘last men’.


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