Language as a complex system can only be described from a certain perspective, taking into account a particular aspect of the object. This perspective, aspect is called the subject of study.
In its most general form, linguistics as a science is divided into two areas: theoretical and applied.
Theoretical linguistics considers language as an object of reality in order to build its model (fix all significant elements, relationships and functions). It is in this form that knowledge of a language can be transferred from one person to another. At the same time, it is important to distinguish between knowledge of a language and knowledge about a language, since in order for a person to learn and know a language, it is enough to live in a society that uses this language. Knowledge of the language allows, up to certain limits, to master a certain language in a society where it is not used.
Applied linguistics studies the possibilities of using knowledge about language in the practice of communication. Applied linguistic disciplines include methods of teaching native and foreign languages, rhetoric, advertising, office work, psychotherapy and psychocorrection, some research in the field of forensic science (for example, a system is being developed that allows you to create an identikit of a person according to the timbre of his voice), engineering linguistics (in particular, developing systems for automatic translation, speech recognition, electronic text reading systems), literary criticism. Literary criticism can be attributed to applied linguistics, since when reading a literary text we rely on language, and when analyzing any aspect of a literary speech work, we rely on knowledge about the language.
The term "applied" can also be considered in another aspect - the aspect of relying on empirical speech material. Here we can note in particular the British "corpus" linguistics (corpus linguistics), which opposes itself to the "sofa" (armchair linguistics). Ch. Fillmore characterizes this opposition as follows: in the event of a dialogue between the “body” (possessing a sea of facts and constantly busy calculating some empirical patterns) and the “sofa” (lying with his head clasped with his eyes closed and occasionally jumping up with a shout of “What an amazing fact !”) by linguists, the first, not without reason, says to the second: “Why should I consider that what you say is true?”, And the second to the first - “Why should I consider that what you say is of interest?”.
Chapter 6 Applied and theoretical linguistics: problems of mutual influence § 1. Tools of applied linguistics in linguistic theory
The history of the development of linguistics can be described as a change in scientific paradigms, each of which is characterized, among other things, by a specific set of heuristics - initial ideas about the object of study and acceptable ways of studying (modeling) it. Of course, different paradigms can coexist over time, in which case it makes sense to talk about more or less distinct trends. The current period of development of linguistics is characterized by a serious influence on the linguistic theory of applied linguistics. Many theories of modern linguistics, which significantly changed the face of traditional linguistics, arose in connection with the solution of purely applied problems. This fully applies to the generative grammar of Chomsky, and to the model “Meaning“ ■ Text ”developed in Russian linguistics, and to a number of other areas in the field of cognitive linguistics. V. A. Zvegintsev, in a recently published book summarizing the reflections of this scientist on language and the role of applied linguistics in the theory of linguistics, wrote: “(...) applied linguistics is the empirical testing ground where both private hypotheses and global theoretical construction. (...) the results obtained as a result of such tests are of value not only for applied linguistics, but also for linguistics in general. It follows from this that applied linguistics cannot be denied the right to vote in solving general theoretical issues of linguistics” [Zvegintsev 1996, p. 222].
The main influence factors of applied linguistics can be formulated in the form of four trends that have manifested themselves in the creation of new linguistic theories:
Formalization of the metalanguage of theoretical linguistics;
Change in the principles of verification of scientific results, manifested in the orientation towards a real, supposed or hypothetical computer experiment;
Modification of the idea of explanation in linguistics;
The transition from classification, a simple description to the construction of computer and/or formal models of the functioning of the language.
Let's consider these effects of influence on the example of using categories of knowledge in lexical semantics.
1.1. Traditional problems of lexical semantics from the point of view of the cognitive approach*
One of the results of the influence of applied linguistics (and especially work in the field of linguistic aspects of the creation of artificial intelligence systems) is the emergence and wide development of cognitive linguistics. Hence the spread of the terms “cognitive linguistics”, “cognitive semantics”, “cognitive grammar”, etc. The paradox lies in the fact that the cognitive paradigm in linguistics, having restored linguists’ trust in conceptual categories, directed linguistic theory towards traditional linguistics. True, the return to tradition took place at a new level: for the conceptual modeling of many features of the functioning of the meaning of words and sentences, the categories of knowledge theory began to be used - the apparatus of frames and scenarios. It turned out that the diffuseness of the semantics of the word, the effects of neutralization of meanings, polysemy, the peculiarities of the interaction of some predicates with negation receive a natural explanation if we consider that the proper linguistic meaning is only the tip of the iceberg of knowledge structures. The processing of knowledge structures - their change, embedding into each other, the generation of new structures can be considered as an analogue of intellectual processes (understanding, problem solving, thinking, cognition).
The development of cognitive linguistics in the former USSR dates back to the early 1980s. The emergence of this trend, on the one hand, was associated with the influence of Western concepts (cf. the works of R. Shenk, J. Lakoff, C. Fillmore, W. Chafe, L. Talmy), and on the other hand, it was determined by the destruction of the ideology of structuralism. As elsewhere in the world, cognitive methods in Russian linguistics have been and are used not only in linguistic semantics, but also in syntactic typology [Kibrik 1992] and in discourse analysis (including political discourse [Parshin 1996], see also the previous chapter) .
Appeal to cognitive categories makes it possible to place traditional problems of semantics, for example, (quasi)synonymy and polysemy, in a completely different theoretical context. In particular, two fundamentally different types of quasi-synonymy can be distinguished: words that are close in meaning and are derived from the same frame (single-frame quasi-synonymy) and semantically close words from different frames
* Sections 1.1.-1.3. are based on [Baranov, Dobrovolsky 1997].
(interframe quasi-synonymy 1) . Yes, the words talk and conversation are linguistic embodiments of a single frame of VERBAL COMMUNICATION, which includes slots of participants, topics, temporal duration, communicative moves of participants, change of roles of participants, etc. The differences are connected, in particular, with the appearance of an additional slot - cf. reflecting this in compatibility telephone conversation if it is impossible * telephone conversation: word semantics talk allows the presence in the frame of VERBAL COMMUNICATION of the slot "technical means of transmitting a message", and conversation- no 2).
An example of interframe quasi-synonymy is the words the country and state. Word state- as in the first (state functions), as well as in the second meaning (European states), is the embodiment of the POWER frame, and the country- frame SPACE. That is why you can find quite a few contexts in which their interchange is undesirable or simply impossible, cf. move to another country and? move to another state, legal state and *legal country, unknown countries and? unknown states, protected by the state and *protected by the country, the Russian state and * Russian country, the company owes the state and *the company owes money to the country, the State of Israel and *country Israel, foreign countries and? foreign states. For example, in the latter case, the adjective foreign clearly actualizes the idea of space, which is alien to the semantics of the word state 3) . If the adjective indicates simply the idea of "other", then the combination is quite acceptable, cf. foreign states. In the phrase young states of Asia and Africa adjective young indicates the recent emergence of a power formation, and the combination? m young countries of Asia and Africa doubtful, since it implies the emergence of new spaces. The contrast between phrases is also interesting. rich country and rich state, as well as great country and great state: adjective rich connected primarily with natural conditions, production, finance, etc. That is why wealthy state less common and is used mainly in relation to the state of the state treasury, budget, etc. Adjective great in combination great state associated with political and military power, and great country- with ample space
1) Wed. Ch. Fillmore's analysis of English words land and coast, as well as the identification of two types of negation - intra-frame and inter-frame [Fillmore 1988].
2) For some semantic differences between the words under consideration, see [Apresyan et al. 1995].
3) Although the total ban on the combination foreign states no, compatibility confirms the observed semantic difference. In the corpus of modern Russian journalism (21 million word usages) for 33 occurrences of a phrase foreign countries/foreign country there are 133 uses of the phrase foreign countries/foreign country.
cf. natural expression Canada is a great country and doubtfulness of the proposal? Canada is a great state. It should be noted, however, that the adjective great tends to pair with a quasi-synonymous noun power, which requires special discussion.
Replacement states on the country would look strange in the following context:
(1) Is it not so in our football for many years, people who sincerely wished him well and seemed to understand everything, everything, put up with the fundamental unreformability of the System, reassuring themselves that they were doing their job honestly, and for others - not the defendants? Others meant not only colleagues in the football shop, but also the state of "workers and peasants", the political system.
[Moscow's comsomolets]
phrase land of workers and peasants in principle it is quite admissible, but it means something like "a space in which many workers and peasants live", which conflicts with the given context, cf. context elements unreformability System, political system, pointing rather to the POWER frame.
Similarly, it is not possible to metaphorically expand the type * run the machinery of the country at the rate manage the government machinery. It is connected with the European cultural tradition. Since the POWER frame underlies the semantics of the word state, and POWER in the European sense is often compared with the idea of MECHANISM, a metaphor state machinery turns out to be quite appropriate. On the other hand, SPACE is difficult to interpret as a MECHANISM - at least within the framework of European ideas. This can be explained by two factors: firstly, by the fact that SPACE is not an artifact, is not created by people, it is “natural”, and not socially, and, secondly, by the fact that it is clearly non-discrete. Hence the inadmissibility of the above phrase * manage the mechanism of the country.
There are a number of contexts which, in principle, allow the substitution states on the country, but nevertheless such a substitution is not entirely natural, cf. states of Central Asia and somewhat unfortunate countries of Central Asia with absolute normality of phrases countries of the Middle East, countries of Latin America, countries of Asia and Africa. One could attribute this to the whims of the usus. However, these differences can be explained by the construction of words described above the country and state to different cognitive structures. In cases like? countries of Central Asia there is a need to emphasize the idea of POWER. The fact is that the republics of Central Asia have never been perceived as separate state formations by an ordinary native speaker of the Russian language 4), which is why a communicative “highlighting” of the idea of state status is required, cf. (2):
(2) It was only with the help of Interpol that two gangs operating in the states of Central Asia were identified and detained.
(Moscow's comsomolets]
It can be assumed that over time, when the state status of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan becomes familiar, then the phrase countries of Central Asia will be completely normal.
Conceptual differences between country and state are also manifested in state and the country are personified in different ways. Personification states based on his understanding as a special person, cf. state control over the distribution of resources; the state decided to mark the drummers with the Order of Honor; the state is not ambushed in the alley; the state lives on a different principle. Word Personification Possibilities the country are limited to the standard metonymic transfer "space - people inhabiting this space", cf. get up, great country; the whole country, with bated breath, followed the presidential elections; the whole country rose up to fight etc. In this case the country is understood not as one person, but as a multitude of persons, as indicated by the frequent presence of a quantifier pronoun all. Wed clearly unsuccessful personification in the examples? the country will not agree with you; ?country requires; ? country's control over export-import operations.
Appeal to cognitive structures allows us to take a fresh look at another classical problem of semantics - polysemy. It is traditionally believed that if a word has several meanings, then their distinction is obligatory for each of the uses. Meanwhile, every practical lexicographer constantly encounters contexts for which it is impossible to determine which of the meanings of a polysemantic word is realized. The cognitive approach makes it possible not to distinguish polysemy in cases where this is not necessary. Thus, traditional semantics is forced to postulate the presence of two meanings for the word state and distinguish them in contexts like (3). Here it is difficult to talk about the realization of one of the two meanings of the word state, which can be represented, for example, as follows: “1) the main political organization of society, which manages it, protects its economic and social structure; 2) a country that is under the control of a political organization that protects its economic and social structure” [Ozhegov, Shvedova 1992]. It is easier - and more theoretically correct - to describe these examples as contexts
4) The fact that ancient empires with a centuries-old tradition of statehood existed on the territory of many of the former Soviet republics of this region is not decisive, since in this case we are talking about naive consciousness.
value neutralization. This requires the use of a metalanguage based on the category of knowledge, which makes it easy to vary the degree of their specificity.
(3) Princess Diana, the charming wife of the heir to the English throne, Prince Charles, arrives in Moscow on June 15 ... to work. Her visit to the capital of Russia is called a worker, although the princess is not entitled to represent the interests of her state, she will not meet with either the president or the prime minister of the government, she will not make any statements to the press ...
[Moscow's comsomolets]
Traditional lexicography, oriented towards component analysis, always requires the assignment of each context to one of the selected meanings, which in cases of neutralization turns out to be violence against the language. Moreover, from a theoretical point of view, the idea of meaning neutralization is supported by the traditions of phonology and morphology (cf. neutralization of phonological and morphological oppositions).
Form of study: full-time
Training period: 4 years
Qualification at the end of training: Bachelor of Linguistics
Languages studied:
- English (first compulsory language),
- French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Italian (the second compulsory language of the student's choice from the 1st year of the 1st semester).
- third foreign language from the 3rd year
- Electives in other languages are also possible.
Information about the number of budget places is received before the start of the admission campaign for the current year.
The results of the Unified State Examination in the following disciplines are accepted as entrance examinations:
- Story
- Russian language
- Foreign language (profile exam)
A graduate will be able to perform professional activities in educational, academic, public, political, industrial and research organizations working in the field of intercultural communication in various professional fields (including in the field of processing Russian and foreign texts for production and practical purposes) , in the field of linguistic expertise of sounding speech and written texts in any language for industrial and practical purposes. In addition, the graduate will be able to carry out professional activities in education, training and assessment of the quality of learning outcomes, information retrieval and organizational and managerial activities.
The curriculum provides for the mandatory study of three foreign languages, as well as not only the practical development of the first and second foreign languages, but also workshops on the culture of speech communication in two foreign languages. Students learn to perform linguistic text analysis, study information theory and database management systems, as well as cognitive technologies in applied linguistics. In addition, in the curriculum, students can choose, depending on the individual educational trajectory they build, such disciplines as automated processing of text arrays, information technology in linguistics, theory and practice of machine translation, project management, web design, psycholinguistics, applied methods in linguistics and etc.
IMPORTANT! A student chooses a specific educational trajectory (profile) in the 2nd year (1 semester) of study with further fixation of the chosen profile in the bachelor's degree. The study of special disciplines begins with the 2nd semester of the 2nd year.
For the 1st year, all students are enrolled in a general (basic) program for all profiles of the direction 45.03.02 Linguistics in the field of business and professional communications and information technology.
Academic disciplines (mandatory)
- Philosophy
- Story
- Russian history
- Russian language and culture of speech
- Ancient languages and cultures
- Culturology
- Information technology in linguistics
- Informatics
- Mathematical methods in linguistics
- Cognitive technologies in linguistics
- Information theory
- Automated translation systems (including databases)
- Fundamentals of linguistics
- Practical course of the first foreign language
- Practical course of the second foreign language
- Theory of the first foreign language
- Fundamentals of the theory of intercultural communication
- Workshop on intercultural communication (first foreign language)
- Workshop on intercultural communication (second foreign language)
- Fundamentals of Management
- Cross cultural management
- Fundamentals of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
- Comparative cultural studies
Disciplines of the student's choice
- Theory and practice of translation
- Regional studies of the country of the second language being studied
- Project management
- Marketing
- Fundamentals of information and analytical processing of documents
- Psycholinguistics
- Business English course
- Fundamentals of foreign economic activity
- Political psychology
- Globalization and regionalization of the world economy
Thus, linguistics is conditionally divided into theoretical, sometimes also called "scientific linguistics", or "theory of linguistics"(within this direction, various scientific concepts, linguistic theories, linguistic schools, language from the point of view of its structure and systems are considered), and applied(practical) linguistics, which in its most general form is defined as the activity of applying scientific knowledge about the structure and functioning of the language in various non-linguistic scientific disciplines, in various areas of human practical activity, as well as the theoretical understanding of such activities.
This is a broad understanding of the term "applied linguistics"; along with it, there are a number of narrower ones, which, at the same time, differ greatly in different scientific and national traditions (in Russian and in Western, for example). For example, in Western linguistics (applied linguistics, angewandte Linguistik), it is associated primarily with the teaching of foreign languages, including teaching methods, features of describing grammar for educational purposes, teaching a language as native and foreign, etc. For example, an institute in Dublin called the School of Applied Languages is actually a language institute. This term appeared in Western linguistics at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the 1920s.
In the USSR, the term applied linguistics began to be widely used in the 1950s. in connection with the development of computer technologies and the emergence of automatic information processing systems (machine translation systems, information retrieval systems, automated text processing systems, etc.). That is why in the Russian literature, instead of the term "applied linguistics", the terms "computer linguistics", "computational linguistics", "automatic linguistics", "engineering linguistics" are often used in the same meaning; meanwhile, the identification of these disciplines is not entirely successful, since each of them has its own subject and methods of work within the framework of applied linguistics as a broader direction.
V. A. Zvegintsev, discussing the relationship between theoretical and applied linguistics, wrote that “applied linguistics is most often understood as all types of automatic processing of speech information (Language-data Processing) - machine recognition of oral speech, machine translation, automatic classification of technical and other documents, automatic annotation of texts, automatic coding, etc. But still, it would be wrong to close applied linguistics within the limits of this problem.”
At present, the broadest view of the problems of applied linguistics is the most popular. The breadth of the problematics explains the “ability” of applied linguistics to significantly increase and intensify “contacts of linguistics with a wide variety of sciences”. Interdisciplinary studies of the functioning of language have a decisive influence on linguistic theory, contributing to the renewal of the conceptual apparatus of modern linguistics.
Currently applied linguistics understood as an activity for the application of scientific knowledge about the structure and functioning of the language in non-linguistic scientific disciplines and in various areas of human practical activity, as well as the theoretical understanding of such activities .
Object of study of applied linguistics- analysis of the language in its natural state in the process of use by people in various situations of communication, as well as an analysis of how the features of the language can be formulated.
Subject of research in applied linguistics- constructive knowledge of the systemic principles of the language structure, development and improvement of structural and formal methods for analyzing and describing the language.
The connection of applied linguistics with general linguistics
Initially, applied linguistics implemented the ideas and theories of general linguistics. Nowadays, however, there is the following division: classical linguistic studies are concerned with the description and study of language at the level of direct observation (for example, speech perception and speech production), and applied linguistics is concerned with the utmost detail of the language at the level of difficult-to-observe and unobservable linguistic objects (for example, morphemic level, syntactic level).
First methodological function applied linguistics in relation to theoretical linguistics consists in developing criteria of truth in the course of cognition of objective linguistic reality: from living contemplation to abstract thinking, and from abstract thinking to practice.
There are several stages of linguistic cognition:
- Such empirical branches of linguistics as dialectology, history of language, descriptive phonetics, lexicology, grammar. These sections carry out the accumulation and primary processing of linguistic and speech facts.
- Theoretical linguistics generalizes and hypothetically comprehends all these facts, creates theoretical concepts of language and text formation.
- Applied linguistics checks in practice (most often, by modeling) the validity of the hypotheses of general linguistics. And to create a language model, an explanatory side becomes necessary - i.e. knowledge of how language functions. Linguistic engineering modeling serves as a reliable way to implement linguistic theory and a means of testing their rigor and viability, thereby closing the link between linguistic theory and practice.
Second methodological function applied linguistics: engineering-linguistic modeling, transferring the language to an unusual substrate, reveals a theoretical paradox hidden from direct observation and outlines ways to solve it.
The third methodological function: applied linguistics serves as the channel through which the exchange of ideas and methods between linguistics and the natural sciences is carried out. This exchange has a two-way character: new mathematical and cybernetic ideas form the basis of linguo-mathematical and engineering-linguistic models, and from them they are already transferred to theoretical linguistics. For example, the use of information theory and mathematical statistics to solve purely linguistic problems.
Modern natural sciences are characterized by an increased interest in the methods of humanitarian knowledge. Computer scientists often turn to linguistics because need the development of programming languages, as well as the organization of convenient forms of communication between man and machine. Even mathematicians borrow some ideas from linguistics to create new mathematical concepts (for example, the theory of fuzzy linguistic sets and algorithms, as well as the mathematical theory of context-free languages, were created under the influence of the ideas of N. Chomsky's generative grammar).
Components of Applied Linguistics:
- Theory and practice of translation
- Machine translate
- Theory and practice of teaching native and non-native languages, linguodidactics (a discipline that deals with the description of the language as an academic subject and the design of educational exercises)
- Theory and practice of creating information retrieval systems
- Coding theory
- Sociolinguistics
- Impact Theory and Argumentation Theory
- Political linguistics
- Lexicography, including automatic
- Terminology and terminography
- Field linguistics
- Hypertext technologies
- Computational linguistics
- Linguistic criminology
- Psycholinguistics
- Quantitative Linguistics
- Creation of artificial languages
- Support for communication through technical means
- Annotation, abstracting and classification of texts
- Text character recognition
The main research tasks of applied linguistics:
- Creation of linguistic processors - systems for automatic analysis and synthesis of speech and texts in natural language. This also includes the development of the main components of the linguo-processor: morphological, semantic and syntactic analyzers.
- Parser - takes into account syntactic information, lexical information, compatibility, semantics, word valency, etc. As a result, the construction of a dependency tree
- Semantic analyzer - carries out the transition to the deep semantic-syntactic structure of the sentence after using the rules of syntactic paraphrasing. As a result, the compilation of a semantic network and its comparison with the database of automatic information systems
- Machine translation is the construction of an expression plan based on a content plan in various natural languages. Ideally, no human intervention at all.
- Applied lexicology and machine lexicography - automatic compilation of dictionaries for the development of automatic information retrieval systems for machine translation (this includes the creation of frequency dictionaries, indexes, concordances, terminological databases, machine dictionaries and encyclopedias).
- Automatic speech analysis and synthesis systems, i.e. development of a natural language interface. Here, speech recognition requires the involvement of all levels of the language.
- Automatic learning systems - aimed at improving the quality and effectiveness of training
From a functional point of view, applied linguistics can be defined as a scientific discipline that studies and develops ways to optimize the functioning of a language. The functions of the language set the starting points for the classification of a huge area of application of linguistic knowledge. The optimization of the communicative function is carried out by such disciplines as the theory of translation, machine translation, the theory and practice of teaching native and non-native languages, the theory and practice of information retrieval systems, the creation of information and, more broadly, artificial languages, coding theory. The social function of the language - as part of the communicative one - is reflected in sociolinguistics, in language planning and language policy, in spelling and orthoepy, in the theory of influence, in political linguistics. The epistemic function manifests itself in one way or another in lexicography (including computer), in terminology and terminography, in corpus and field linguistics. Optimization of cognitive function is concentrated in computational linguistics, in "linguistic criminology", in psycholinguistics and aphasiology, in quantitative linguistics.
