E.F. TARASOV'S APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF THE CONTENT OF VALUES IN LINGUISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS

Ilyina V.A.¹, Nistratov A.A.²

Ilyina V.A.

Russian New University
e-mail: violette-viola@inbox.ru

Nistratov A.A.

Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov
e-mail: a.nistratov@mail.ru

Introduction

What is value and what is the attitude towards it in a given historical period of society's development? Does its content remain unchanged or does the socio-psychological time, represented in language as situational-temporal meaning [4], influence the content of this value? Value is a basic structural component of the value framework of the consciousness of the bearer of a certain culture, and therefore it is very difficult to overestimate the importance of studying the basic values and anti-values of bearers of Russian culture at all stages of the development of Russian society. Even in antiquity, it was believed that the meanings of lexemes are formed either "by nature" (house, window, door), or "by agreement" (combatant, plutocracy, secularization). Among the latter, there is a group of lexemes whose meaning for society is constructed under conditions of social control - these are, first of all, the so-called social values (good, evil, prosperity etc.). The content of social values is constructed by the social institutions of all societies around those objects, actions, and phenomena that become socially significant through their involvement in shared human activity: physical objects thus acquire a social definition that they lack by nature. Social values serve as guidelines for members of society for human behavior, adapted to the demands of society.

For a linguistic analysis of the content of value, it is important to keep in mind that this content is constructed on behalf of society by social institutions and exists both in standard (in explanatory dictionaries and treatises of philosophers) and in individual form (in individual consciousness).

In this regard, axiology uses the concept of three forms of values: as a social ideal – content correlated with what is due; as an objectified form in the form of material and spiritual works and actions of people; as part of the psychological structure of the individual in the form of sources of motivation for his or her behavior.

According to various criteria, values are divided into "positive" and "negative," "relative" (ancestor veneration in some ethnic groups) and "absolute" (good and evil), "subjective" (weekend beer relaxation for European men) and "objective" (education in a European cultural region). According to the criterion of content, values are distinguished as material, logical (truth), aesthetic (beauty), ethical (goodness), and so on.

When analyzing values, the most common division is into terminal and instrumental ones. Terminal values function in evaluation and selection. goals activities (according to the criterion of desirability, attractiveness, dueness), instrumental - when assessing and choosing the mode of activity and acceptable ways of achieving them (responsible, smart, courageous, etc.).

Before describing the approach to studying the ethnic content of universal values outlined by E.F. Tarasov, and also pointing out the prospects for its development, I would like to say a few words about the extraordinary personality of my teacher. In the distant 2000s, as V.A. Ilyina notes, they met during their postgraduate studies, which over time developed into a warm relationship of a scientific supervisor, a wise mentor on the difficult path of development of a young scientist, and then into professional communication between colleagues sharing common scientific views. Joint work on values began around 2010, when for the first time, in the process of implementing a grant (RGNF grant 14-04-12021B "Information research base of the modern Russian language based on the materials of the dictionary-reference "Universal Human Values in the Russian Linguistic Consciousness"), the idea arose of the need to develop an approach to the study of values from the perspective of the Moscow psycholinguistic school. It was then that E.F. Tarasova [5] conceives of the idea of studying the content of values at three levels of consciousness. This will serve as the basis for the creation of a dictionary that serves both as a teaching aid for those learning and studying Russian culture and as a reference source for linguistics specialists, as well as a general readership interested in the current content of universal human values.

According to the point of view of E.F. Tarasov, the study of the ethnic content of universal human values presupposes their analysis at three levels of consciousness, namely at the level of public consciousness, at the level of everyday consciousness of profane bearers of culture, and also at the intermediate level of public consciousness [5], which is reflected in language.

According to E.F. Tarasov, the official level of public consciousness is expressed in language through the semantic components of value and anti-value content, represented in encyclopedic sources. Analysis of the content of the intermediate level of public consciousness is carried out through the description of the semantic components of value content, which are contained in lexicographic sources. Analysis of the everyday level of public consciousness is realized through the description of the content of paroemias presented in the paroemiological fund of the Russian language, as well as based on the results of the interpretation of associative fields revealed during a psycho-semantic experiment, presented in the form of semantic spaces, profiles of assessments of the content of values and anti-values.

1. Universal human values and anti-values

As noted above, E.F. Tarasov's approach formed the basis for studying universal values within two basic groups: values and anti-values. The study of 68 basic values and anti-values of Russian cultural representatives not only described the components of their content at three levels of consciousness but also identified the degree of similarity between certain values and anti-values, allowing them to be described not only as individual objects but also as mini-groups sharing common semantic semes. The degree of their distance from one another was also revealed. The pragmatic significance of this work stems from the state of the axiological consciousness of Russian society, which has undergone significant transformations over the past 20 years, beginning with the collapse of the USSR. It is natural to expect that these transformations will primarily affect attitudes toward values and their content. Preliminary analysis suggests, with some caution, that at least three generations of Russians currently exist in Russia, each with very different attitudes toward values and their content. Attitudes toward values differ to a certain extent among 20-year-olds, who lived exclusively in the post-socialist era, 40-year-olds, whose axiological consciousness developed under both socialism and capitalism, and 60-year-olds, whose socialist consciousness developed in the first 40 years of their lives and has been transformed in the last 20 years under conditions of wild capitalism. The study's results were compiled into a dictionary of the core values of Russian cultural figures.

Let's take a closer look at the opportunities the dictionary offers users. Each value is described at several levels. By reading these descriptions, we can gain an understanding of the core values of Russian speakers.

The dictionary entry at levels one and two presents the results of a component analysis of the value's content to demonstrate the meanings of a given value in definitions offered in lexicographic and encyclopedic sources. At level three, examples from the Russian national corpus are provided, which also help illustrate how the names of values are used in everyday speech.

At the level of analysis of the content of proverbs, the meanings of values that they had for previous generations are described, which allows us, if necessary, to compare them and identify value orientations in the past and present.

At the level of analysis of the associative experiment, words with which values are associated are considered, i.e., which words are associated with a specific value in the minds of native Russian speakers.

The psychosemantic experiment describes an assessment of the content of basic values in the consciousness of Russian speakers, and dendrograms are used to demonstrate the relationships between individual values in the consciousness of Russians. The use of the psychosemantic research method allows us to identify respondents' stable perceptions of the objects under study. These perceptions are not a direct reflection of people's current emotional or socio-psychological states, and are not easily changed, as they are formed primarily on the basis of established stereotypes and myths.

Pictures as illustrative material visualize the content of basic values and clearly demonstrate their importance in the consciousness of Russians [2].

2. Personal values and anti-values

An analysis of the content of value, based on the approach proposed by E.F. Tarasov, allows us to describe the structure of the content of universal human values in consciousness and their representation in language. Universal human values exist as a theoretical construct until they are appropriated by an individual in the process of value orientation and understood; then we speak of personal values. In Russian theoretical concepts of the second half of the 20th century, when studying the psychological nature of values, "practically identical concepts" were introduced.«value orientations of the individual»" And "«personal values»", which differ, in essence, only in the attribution of values rather to motivational or semantic spheres" [7]. In this regard, we need to mention the fact that, despite the presence of a large number of different interpretations of the concept of "personality", opinions coincide with respect to the leading characteristic of personality, namely, its orientation. Values in this case act as an object of orientation, perform the function of "value orientations", which, following V.P. Tugarikov [6], we define as the orientation of the individual towards certain values. In other words, by "»value orientation of the individual»"means the "social situation of development" (L.S. Vygotsky) of the individual, which determines and forms his value orientation under the influence of society.

We believe it is appropriate not to identify "«value orientation of the individual»" And "«personal values»", and consider them as different stages of a single process, more precisely, "value orientation" as the initial stage, and "personal values" as the final stage (result) of the process of value interiorization. In this case, motives and needs come to the fore, which play a key role in the formation of "personal value" as an "individual-personal equivalent" [1] of a universal value, which, in essence, firstly, is a real representation of it, and secondly, differs from the socially approved (generally accepted) content of the value. In this regard, we believe it is logical to distinguish constant and variable components at each of the three levels of consciousness (the level of public consciousness, the level of everyday consciousness of profane bearers of culture, the intermediate level of public consciousness), externalized in language, to describe the content of a universal value as a personal value.

3. Fixed and variable components of value content

Based on the proposition that the content of value consists of two components, namely constant, that is, that part of the content that correlates with meaning (the concept of A.N. Leontiev) as a generally accepted, universal, socially approved part of the content, which acts as a basis for joint activities of representatives of different cultures. And under variable A component that correlates with meaning is implied, that is, the learned meaning of a value is understood and expressed in language. Understanding is determined by both cultural affiliation and the psychological characteristics of an individual [3]. Words, external meaning and sense in language, form semantic fields. The structure of a semantic field is determined by a core zone and a peripheral zone. The core zone will contain words whose meaning is assessed as universal for all bearers of a certain culture, while the peripheral zone contains words that possess this meaning, but from the point of view of specific bearers of a given culture, that is, taking into account their socio-psychological characteristics. The core is described on the basis of lexicographic and encyclopedic sources, and the peripheral zone is determined experimentally. A description of the components of the peripheral zone forms the basis for identifying the current assessment of values (including its temporal characteristics), and the dynamics of changes in their content [3].

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is difficult to overestimate the contribution E.F. Tarasov made to the establishment and development of modern psycholinguistics within the Moscow Psycholinguistic School, to the preparation and defense of numerous PhD and doctoral theses, and to the development of new approaches to studying pressing issues in modern society. For example, we note his study of values as a spiritual and moral foundation that plays a fundamental role in the development of personality. "In the society of a particular ethnic group, the content of universal human values (UHV) is formed and functions at various levels:

— at the level of public consciousness, which is externalized in the form of texts that set ethical prescriptions for social interactions of members of an ethnic group;

— at the level of everyday consciousness of profane bearers of culture, who adapt official prescriptions to the conditions of their individual life (value guidelines);

— at an intermediate level in the consciousness of the authors of articles in publicly available explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language, which summarize the functioning of the universal values in the speech and non-speech practice of profane native speakers of the language and culture; articles in these dictionaries (such as the dictionary of I.S. Ozhegov) reflect the authors' ideas about the content of the universal values in the consciousness of profane native speakers of the culture" [2]. Universal human values are assigned by the individual in the process of value orientation, are understood and transformed into personal values, while in their content at each of the three levels of consciousness, constant (the generally accepted part of the content) and variable components are distinguished, determined by the socio-psychological characteristics of the individual.

 

Literature

1. Antsyferova L.I. Psychology of formation and development of personality // Man in the system of sciences. – M., – 1989. – P.426-433.
2. I.V. Vashunina, V.V. Dronov, V.A. Ilyina, D.V. Makhovikov, A.A. Nistratov, S.L. Nistratova, E.K. Oshchepkova, E.F. Tarasov Basic Values of Russian Culture Bearers: A Textbook for Foreign Students. Moscow: RUDN University, 2020. 479 p.
3. Ilyina V.A., Vashunina I.V. A Socio-Psychological Approach to Defining the Structure of Values Language. Consciousness. Communication: Methodology and Humanitarian Practices (Challenges of Modernity). Proceedings of the II All-Russian Conference with International Participation. Moscow, April 8–11, 2024 / Editorial Board: N.V. Ufimtseva (editor-in-chief), V.V. Krasnykh, I.Yu. – M.-Yaroslavl: Kantsler, 2024. – 302 p.
4. Ilyina V.A. Loneliness in the linguistic consciousness of native speakers of Russian and English cultures – M.: MGOU, –2011. – 416 p.
5. Tarasov E.F. Universal human values: research project // Questions of psycholinguistics. – M.: Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, – 2012. – No. 1 (15) – P. 9–17.
6. Tugarikov V.P. Theory of values in Marxism. — L.: Leningrad State University Publishing House, 1968. — 124 p.
7. Shadrin N.S. Psychology of personal values. – Pavlodar: Pavlodar State University named after S. Toraigyrov. – 2003. –103 p.

 

References

1. Ancyferova L.I. Psychology of formation and development of personality // Man in the system of sciences. Moscow. 1989. P.426-433.
2. Vashunina IV, Dronov VV, Il`ina VA, Maksovikov DV, Nistratov AA, Nistratova SL, Oshhepkova ES, Tarasov EF Basic Values of Russian Cultural Heritage: A Study Guide for Foreign Students. Moscow. 2020. 479 p.
3. Il`ina VA, Vashunina IV. A Socio-Psychological Approach to Defining the Structure of Values Language. Consciousness. Communication: Methodology and Humanitarian Practices (Challenges of Modernity). Proceedings of the II All-Russian Conference with International Participation. Moscow, April 8–11, 2024 / Ed. board: NV Ufimtseva (responsible ed.), VV Krasnykh, I. Yu. Markovina, OV Balyasnikova, SV Dmitryuk. M.-Yaroslavl: 2024. Chancellor. 302 p.
4. Il`ina VA. Loneliness in the linguistic consciousness of native speakers of Russian and English cultures. Moscow: 2011. Moscow State University of Education. 416 p.
5. Tarasov EF. Universal human values: research project // Issues of psycholinguistics. Moscow: 2012. Institute of Language, Russian Academy of Sciences. No. 1 (15). P. 9-17.
6. Tugarinov VP. Theory of values in markism. — L.: Izd-vo LGU. 1968. 124 s.
7. Shadrin NS. Psychology of personal values. Pavlodar: 2003. Pavlodar State University named after S. Toraigyrov. 103 p.