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 II

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 linguistic 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 (linguistic) 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.