The Word as a Sign-symbol in the Linguistic Worldview: Towards the Question of Panchronic Mechanisms of Sense-making
Year: 2023
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: This paper is intended to herald our work [12; 13; 14] that focuses on the sign-symbolic nature of the word as an element of the linguistic worldview showing its properties in evolutionary dynamics.The research traverses the domains of historical and comparative linguistics, cognitive linguistics, cognitive translation studies, semiotics, psychology, and philosophy of mind, and uses (proto-)language data as it aims to reconstruct the structures of the archaic and modern consciousness of man [4], and to expose the interrelations that these structures develop diachronically and maintain synchronically, with the understanding that these interrelations trigger the panchronic mechanisms of construal for particular linguistic worldviews that become formative for distinct national cultures [15].The authorial theory of image-driven interpretations of words of language [10; 11] forms in this research the basis for the methodology of diachronic semantic reconstruction suited to analyzing words as sign-symbols.Analysis of this kind exposes and explains the various and unique ways of seeing and understanding the world by speakers of different languages.Importantly, this analysis shows exactly how different the speakers' seeing and understanding of the world is across different languages, as long as one works with the speakers' non-propositional (seeing the world) vs. propositional (understanding the world) thought manifested in words.We particularize word interpretation in terms of a creative act of giving a meaning to a verbal sign and, vice versa, of manifesting a meaning via a verbal sign, whereby a mental image as a symbol is converted to the meaning of a word as a sign, and back; this act is enabled by the mind's representational content owing to the peculiar embodiment of the human species [1].Wordimage-word conversion is constitutive for the sign-symbolic nature of the word, and is actuated by a distinct (neuro)physiological mechanism in the human makeup that is panchronic.This mechanism orchestrates the visual and auditory zones of the brain [7], as well as the deep and shallow layers of the mind [3].The theory of image-driven interpretations of words of language serves in our research to elaborate the theoretical concepts of word inner form,
Author: Olha Vakhovska
Institution: Kyiv National Linguistic University
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4388570529