Fundamentals of the Theory of “Language” in the Bilateral Consensus. Stalin’s Marxism and Problems of Linguistics from the Standpoint of the Communicative Model Part I

Abstract

In Joseph V. Stalin’s work Marxism and Problems of Linguistics (1950), a num­ber of general issues of the theory of the verbal process are touched upon, the in­terpretation of which is generally consistent with traditional (including modern quantitatively predominant) linguistic views on the phenomenon of “language”. The consensus is observed in several positions that arise as a result of theoretical simplification (inaccurate metaphor): 1) “language” exists as objective verbal forms, constitutes a unity that ensures communication between people and which can be an object of study and description; 2) “language” is grammar and vocab­ulary; 3) “language” is connected with thinking; there are no thoughts without “language”; 4) “language” is a common property for a given collective (nation, people), “language” unites all those who speak it; 5) “language” is a mystical (“magic”) object. This article proposes a critique of the Marxist-linguistic con­sensus from the point of view of the communicative model. A simplified model of a word-containing semiotic process is the result of excessive attention to the verbal substrate (“words”), of an attempt to present verbal units as self-orga­nized semantic-formal modules responsible for everything that happens in the field of communicative meaning (sense) formation. As a result, a theoretical construct “language” is created, designed to save researchers’ a priori attitude to the matter of words (which, at the right moment, when confronting with reality, is casuistically replaced by “speech”, which, however, is also verbal). The ineffi­ciency of “language” (and “speech”) lies in the imposition of its own action on verbal “bodies”, while the generation of meaning in natural word-containing communication is entirely carried out by the complex personal impact of the semiotic actor.