The idea of linking culture and language dates back to the 18th century, but it was not until the end of the last century that this problem began to be studied. These studies were more declarative in nature, and until the early 1970s, neither Russian (then Soviet), nor foreign linguistics had enough in-depth and detailed studies on this topic.
However, over the past two decades, the number of works testifying to the interest and aspiration of linguists to study linguistic phenomena in a broad extra-linguistic context has grown considerably. While it has only recently been recognized that addressing extralinguistic factors indicates a certain insolvency or "weakness" of an investigator, the need to study the language in its real functioning in various spheres of human activity has become commonplace.
Communication problems
A huge contribution to the consideration of the social conditionality of the content of semantics of the word, as well as to the development of general theoretical and methodological aspects of the problem of "language and culture" made by linguists N.G. Komlev, O.S. Akhmanova, E.M. Vereshchagin, V.G. Kostromarov, T.D. Tomakhin. And their works we will consider further.
However, it should be noted that for the first time the connection between language and culture surrounding individuals was noted in the scheme of the American linguist of the beginning of the century Lado. His scheme, which reflects the process of communication between Person A and Person B, shows what stages and forms the thought should go from one interlocutor to another.
Let's try to analyze this scheme and put the main problems and questions on its basis.
Person A, who wants to convey a thought, first of all, represents this thought in the form of some "individual value". Then, this individual meaning takes on a common meaning through the prism of "cultural meaning". The general meaning, expressed in the words of face A, that is, in the language of face A, takes on a concrete form of speech.
Face B perceives the said form in reverse order and "deciphers" it, using his system of "lenses" of cultural and individual meanings.
We are interested first of all in a question of concurrence of individual meanings of a face A and a face B. In fact as it has been told earlier the main practical purpose of studying the phenomenon of "background knowledge" is as much as possible exact transfer of all that "bouquet" of meanings which bears in itself a word.
It is obvious that the more identical are the processes of encryption and decoding of thought, the more reliable coincidence we will get.
As can be seen from the diagram, the first obstacle to correct understanding is the correct perception of the form spoken, that is, to put it simply, the perception of what is said by hearing. We will not consider this issue. But in general, this problem can be addressed in several aspects, both linguistic and non-linguistic: for example, the presence of dialects with different pronunciation, the presence of homonymous, insufficient knowledge of the language or, finally, problems with hearing or diction. However, this level is not interesting for us and we will consider that we have overcome it.
The second step is to translate the form into a general meaning. At this stage, it is important for us that the listener knows at least one thing, at least the most general meaning of the word that has been said to others. This problem is not essential, because if necessary, the interlocutor can refer to the dictionary and get this meaning
So the third stage is the most intriguing, then first we will consider the fourth, and the third stage is after it.
Speaking about the transition from cultural meaning to individual meaning, the effect of this transition is manifested in the projection of cultural significance through the prism of some of its own properties and attitudes. It is believed that this barrier in communication, called psychological, is the most difficult to overcome, because this mechanism of "encryption" and "decryption" is different for all people and depends on many reasons. The reason for the existence of this barrier is different psychology of people, and the theme of our work "Influence of culture on language".