“LANGUAGE” – “MAN” – “CULTURE”: CULTURAL LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The article provides linguistic-and-cultural perspective on dialectics of elements interrelations within semiotic triad “language – man – culture”. The research is based on the arsenal of domestic and foreign studies that form conceptual and terminological apparatus of modern Cultural Linguistics as an autonomous research field. The paper presents different views on the spectrum of tasks solved within the framework of Cultural Linguistics with its focus on analyzing the language system as the nation’s culture code. The integrative nature of Cultural Linguistics is demonstrated through brief overview of the methods it uses – the ones drawn from various sciences (e.g. psychology, ethnography, sociology, cognitive science, culture studies, etc.), which has enabled this field to acquire the status of a valid source of information about the nationally-specific logic of the world perception by a certain ethnic community. Theoretical background to the study is exemplified through interpretation of solid linguistic and cultural potential encoded in the inner form of English anthroponomy. The choice of proper names as a research object derives from specificity of their semiotic status: as language signs anthroponyms function as distinctive cultural and historical indices of variety of conceptual manifestations of MAN in certain socio-cultural context. With respect to this onym is treated in the article as a linguistic cultureme – the unity of language sign form, its meaning and cultural content. Interpreting semantic space of these linguistic culturemes enables the researcher to extract knowledge of realia (both material and spiritual), in particular those that have been lost, become obsolete or forgotten due to a number of extra-linguistic factors, and often linguocultural analysis appears the only decoding instrument.