Philosophy of Culture — Psychology — Linguistics Triad: Bronisław Malinowski’s Conception as regards Interdisciplinarity

Abstract

<p>A shift in philosophical thinking towards language, signs and their meanings marked an early 20^th century. It was a contrast to the metaphysical and rationalist thought style of classical philosophy, centred on reason as expressed in Descartes&rsquo; &laquo;Cogito, ergo sum&raquo;. Language, like culture, reveals the essence of what is happening; the word is the key to understanding the truth that can unite peoples and destroy civilizations. In 20^th century, too, culture continued to be studied from various angles, including biological and psychological. Influenced by W. Wundt&rsquo;s ideas on folk psychology (V&ouml;lkerpsychologie), B. Malinowski considered it crucial to explore the local language and culture to discover the full meaning of words and expressions. He argued that the true meaning of a word could only be seen by contextualizing it with other words, and offered his own approach to translating. Malinowski&rsquo;s term &laquo;situational context&raquo; became a key concept in functional linguistics.</p>