Linguistic aspects of language consciousness in synchrony and diachrony

Abstract

The article focuses on a current issue in modern linguistics: linguistic consciousness. Linguistic consciousness refers to the outcomes of mental activity, perception and assimilation of information verbalized by means of the national language. Theoretical issues with the functioning of the term of "linguistic consciousness" in scientific circulation are clarified, and emphasis is given to the evolution, stages of formation of the linguistic consciousness in connection to social development. The national-language, social, ethnocentric as well as communicative varieties of linguistic consciousness in the diachronic aspect are considered.  Linguistic analysis revealed the mechanisms of realization of linguistic consciousness in speech behaviour, determined by the communicative situation with its lingual content and representativeness of extra lingual parameters of the speaker, connection with intellectualized (adapted to a certain stage of language functioning, generalized, suitable for didactic purposes) abstract model of structuring socio-cultural linguistic forms. The following functions of linguistic consciousness are highlighted: reflective (generating a linguistic picture of the world and is realized in linguistic meanings, linguistic forms, and types of communication between words); evaluative (considering different types of evaluation); orientation-selective (providing orientation in the situation in order to choose the means of speech); interpretive (implemented in intralingual and interlingual aspects) (feedback mechanisms). Units of linguistic consciousness are concepts (ethnocentrisms), which are realized in the language by means of associative-verbal thesaurus: words, phrases, utterances, grammatical and logical categories, grammatical and text-forming forms, functioning of intentional-motivational mechanism. The key concept in different definitions of linguistic consciousness is the reflection (the attitude of the subject to the object: the subject enters the picture of the world as an observer, which records the space, time and other characteristics of the object and gives them a subjective assessment).