Language as a system: meaning and sense

Abstract

The article examines the dual nature of language as a system: actual (individual information system) and potential (individual conceptual system). If from the standpoint of the information system the act of speaking performed by the individual is a linguistic reflex, then from the standpoint of the conceptual system, the thought-speech activity actualized by the linguistic personality appears as an experience of reflection.Using the example of creolized discourse, it is shown how operating with language at the level of an information system puts an individual in the position of a passive consumer of the existing meanings (given), which excludes the possibility of considering him from the position of a speech subject. The latter turns out to be achievable in the case when the conceptual system is actualized as a correlate of thought-speech activity, the effectiveness of which is recognized at the level of meaning (created). It is substantiated that if a language as an information system can function without regard to the conceptual system, then the actualization of the language as a conceptual system is impossible without an information system, in the bosom of which it is hidden.It is argued that, in contrast to meaning, which, being objective, is subject to arbitrary subjectivization in the process of use due to the emotive valence of a word, meaning appears as an intersubjective phenomenon. Moreover, if the actual emotives are directly related to the language as an information system, then the potentials demonstrate their belonging to the language as a conceptual system.The article is addressed to philologists-communicologists, philosophers and culturologists who are interested in the issues of language as an activity, emotive linguistics, meaning formation.