XIII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2021

Language is called a certain code, a system of signs and rules for their use, in contrast to speech, which means the activity of people to use the language code, the use of the sign system. The study of language is engaged in such a science as linguistics (or linguistics). Since language is a very diverse and complex phenomenon, linguistics is a multidimensional science. During the XIX century, the dominant branch of linguistics was comparative-historical linguistics, one of the directions of which is the study of changing languages. Elucidation of the specific causes of changes in certain linguistic phenomena requires consideration of the history of these phenomena, as well as the study of their connections and dependencies in the language system from a synchronic and diachronic point of view. Therefore, diachrony and synchrony have become the two main opposing aspects of historical linguistics.

The concept of synchrony and diachrony.

In a broad sense diachronia (from the Greek. dia-means "through"," through " + chronos-time) is a phenomenon and concept that denotes both the presence of some events in space-time in general, and the long-term existence of objects and processes of any kind in the time intervals between these events. However, it reflects certain aspects of their nature, such as various forms of existence, position in space and time synchronic slice, as well as the ratio of whole and part, communication confidentiality, and of these repetition-related events with each other and their continuity, certainty intervals and their uncertainties, the wholeness of existence of objects, orientation of events along the time axis, in General, is the development of phenomena in the historical perspective, etc [4]. From the point of view of linguistics, diachrony is the historical development of a language system as a subject of linguistic research; the study of language in time, in the process of its development on the time axis.

In contrast to diachrony, we consider synchrony (in Greek, sin - together + chronos - time) - a temporological and private scientific concept that reflects a certain kind of connectedness and interaction in time with each other of two or more objects of any kind, as well as their states. It manifests itself in the forms of - at least-simple pair relations, such as simultaneity, coincidence, identity in time, and others [5]. From a linguistic point of view, synchrony is the consideration of the state of language as an established system at a certain point in time.

Prerequisites for the emergence of synchrony and diachrony as aspects of language learning

From the most ancient times to the XVIII century. language in European science was considered immutable and not subject to time. Even in the" Grammar of Port-Royal " Latin and French were considered in the same row: for the authors of the grammar, it did not matter that French came from Latin. In the nineteenth century, the other extreme became dominant: scientific linguistics began to be considered only historical linguistics and, first of all, comparative-historical. They studied ancient languages, and the description of modern languages seemed a task unworthy of a real scientist. Living dialects were used only to find traces of the language of ancient eras. Modern languages did the people far from science: languages of culture -- teachers, textbook authors, and languages of "exotic" peoples -- the missionaries, and military officials of the colonial administration. Representatives of these approaches considered the language each in its own plane.

However, one of the founders of linguistics as a science, Wilhelm von Humboldt, who lived at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, paid attention to the development of language, its evolution. For him, language was the activity itself, the energy, not the product of activity. He noted that each generation receives a language from the previous one in a ready-made form, but the language has everything necessary for further development, the language is constantly updated [3].

This interpretation of Humboldt's language anticipates the division of language into: synchrony and diachrony. At the end of the 19th century, based on the teachings of W. Humbolt, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure managed to combine all the planes of language consideration in a single three-dimensional picture.

Teaching F. de Saussure on synchrony and diachrony

Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist of the 19th and 20th centuries who laid the foundations of semiology and structural linguistics. He is often called the father of 20th-century linguistics.

He proposed to distinguish between two coordinate axes: the axis of simultaneity and the axis of sequence. De Saussure's main thesis is that "at any given moment, speech activity presupposes both an established system and evolution; at any moment, language is both a living activity and a product of the past" [1, p. 27].

Synchronic linguistics is associated with the axis of simultaneity - the description of a language at some point. For example, you can study the Russian language of the 90s of the 20th century. out of any connection with its history; it will be a synchronic description. A synchronic description, for example, of the Old Russian language of the 80s of the 12th century is also possible, based on the" Word about Igor's Regiment " and other monuments of that time. At the same time, the language depicted in them does not compare in any way with the language of the 11th or 16th century, or with the modern Russian language. If we conduct a different type of research (for example, to find out how the system of cases in the Russian language has changed), it will be a work on diachronic linguistics, including historical and comparative-historical linguistics.

In turn, F. de Saussure emphasized the advantage of synchrony over diachrony, which he saw in the fact that the language system as such is accessible to synchronic consideration, whereas diachronic linguistics deals with changes that occur initially not in the language, but in the speech of individual speakers [6].

Before Saussure, there were many synchronic and diachronic studies. But the two ways of describing it were often confused. Here is just one example-a description of borrowings. In the grammars and dictionaries of the modern Russian language, you can read that the word bed came from the Greek language, bread-from the Germanic languages, and goods-from the Turkic ones. Russian Russian, however, does not matter to a native speaker of the modern Russian language: these words are no different from the native Russian. But in words like mayor, sir, boa, cockatoo, and now there is a foreign language, because they have special properties, such as non-declination.

According to Saussure, language should be studied independently of a person, as if from the position of an outside observer, in much the same way as physics or zoology studies its objects. Many very important questions for linguistics were left out: language and man, language and society, the sound character of speech.

Many of F.'s contemporaries de Saussure did not want to abandon the idea that a solid scientific study of language must necessarily include historical analysis. Of all Saussure's ideas, the distinction between synchrony and diachrony was the most controversial.

And as a result of the break between synchrony and diachrony, due to the obvious futility of the diachronic study of isolated facts pulled out of the system, many foreign followers of Saussure proclaimed achrony, i.e. completely excluded the time factor from the study of language [2].

All this, of course, narrowed the subject of linguistics. However, time has shown that the science of language will be very incomplete if it does not study all these questions.

Modern perception of the concept of F. de Saussure

Modern researchers are of the same opinion that synchrony and diachrony cannot be identified and confused, as well as torn from each other, since the current state of language is a product of its past development. Deep knowledge of the language is possible only if it is thoroughly studied both in synchrony and in diachrony [2].

The choice of a synchronous or diachronic method of considering a language depends on the specifics of individual aspects of the language system: thus, all other things being equal, diachronic methods are more easily applicable to lexicology, more difficult to grammar, and even more difficult to phonology.

In a broader sense, for speakers, for example, synchrony is important, i.e. the language must be known as it is now. To have a good command of a modern language, it is not necessary to know the history of the language, how the sounds changed, which of them disappeared, how many forms of grammatical number once were (singular, dual, plural), etc.

For the language researcher, both aspects are important - synchronic and diachronic. In order to understand the current state of the language well, it is necessary to study its historical development.

Statics and dynamics in the language

Statics is the stillness, the dynamics of the movement. Language by definition is a non-static, dynamic, mobile object in its essence, that is, dynamics is the most important property of language at any moment of its existence.

An example of dynamics is the historical nature of the literary norm, its constant change, for example, the plural variants of the word "professor" - " professors "and"professors". The language of today is no longer the language of yesterday. It may seem that it has not changed in one day, but in fact some new word has appeared, the position of some form or accent has become more stable, some word has gone away.

Static can be observed in a single text, whether it is a literary work or a private letter, as well as in dead languages that have ceased to develop and therefore have become static.

The study of statics and dynamics in the works of I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay

Russian and Polish linguist of Ivan of Alexandrovich Boduen de Kurtene at the turn of 19-20 centuries. he analyzed speech as a means of thought and communication. He clearly distinguished between the statics and dynamics of language, or the state of language at the moment and the variability in time. As it was noted earlier, before him, the historical direction prevailed in linguistics - languages were studied exclusively from written monuments. If the Young grammarians considered only historical grammar to be scientific, and ignored the meaning of static, descriptive grammar, then later f. de Saussure placed descriptive, synchronous linguistics in the center of attention, and recognized historical, diachronic linguistics as secondary. Baudouin de Courtenham also proved in his works that the essence of language is in speech activity, which means that it is necessary to study living languages and dialects. This is the only way to understand the mechanism of language functioning and verify the correctness of linguistic theories [1].

In contrast to the Young grammatists, Baudouin de Courtenay put forward the problem of descriptive, static linguistics as completely scientific, and unlike Saussure did not detract from the role of historicism. On the contrary, he recognized historical research, since it makes it possible to explain phenomena, reconstruct the past and foresee the future.

Usually, in the usage of Baudouin de Courtenay, " statics "and" dynamics " are identical to descriptive and historical grammar or Saussure's synchrony - diachrony. Only in rare cases, the author, distinguishing between dynamics and history, gives a three-term system: "statics" - "dynamics" - "history". This distinction is based on the antinomy of individual and social language: dynamics takes into account changes in individual language, and history-social language [1].

Criticizing the hypertrophied historicism characteristic of Young grammatists, Baudouin de Courtenay defended the right to the existence of "static", that is, synchronous linguistics. Separating "statics" and "dynamics", he nevertheless allowed their mutual exclusion and mutual opposition: the statics of a language is only a special case of its dynamics [1].

In language, one should distinguish between statics, which studies the "laws of equilibrium of language" [1, p. 66], and dynamics, which studies the "laws of historical movement of language" [1, p.66]. At the same time, Baudouin emphasizes: "There is no immobility in the language… In language, as in nature in general, everything lives, everything moves, everything changes. Stillness, stoppage, stagnation - an apparent phenomenon; this is a special case of movement under the condition of minimal changes. The statics of a language is only a special case of its dynamics or rather kinematics" [1, p. 88].

The general principle of dynamic research is that "they fix two really given periods in language development and then try to determine in which direction individual categories of sounds and the entire sound system as a whole developed" [1, p.39]. Hence the increased attention to the descriptive analysis of language - a point on which later historians of linguistics especially sharply contrasted Baudouin with the younger grammatical school.

Already in his early works, created before the main works of the Leipzig linguists, he noted: "It is extremely inappropriate to measure the structure of the language at a certain time by the categories of any previous or subsequent time.

The task of researchers is to determine by a detailed examination of language in certain periods its state, consistent with these periods, and only later show how such and such a system and composition of the previous time could develop such and such a system of the subsequent ... science should not impose alien categories on the object and should find in it only what lives in it, determining its structure and composition" [1, p.24].

It is precisely with the development of problems of synchronic linguistics that Baudouin's main contribution to linguistics is connected, although in principle he never directly rejected the position formulated by him at the beginning of his creative career: "Usually grammarians of different languages take only a certain moment in the history of a language, try to represent its state at the moment.

But they can be truly scientific only by considering this well-known moment in connection with the full development of language" [1, p.26]. In this regard, it is noted that the static study is necessary "to reckon with the fact of cash, on the one hand, vestigial forms inherited from the past and no longer relevant given the General system of language, on the other hand, phenomena, foreshadowing, so to speak, the future status of the tribal and national language and not yet suitable for the modern construction of this language" [1, p. 25].

REFERENCES:

Baudouin de Courtenay, Ivan Alexandrovich. Linguistics and language: Research, comments, lecture programs [Electronic resource]: Moscow: LKI Publishing House, 2010.

Bondarenko, M. A. Course of lectures "Introduction to linguistics". - (http://window.edu.ru/resource/692/67692/files/tula_tsu_051.pdf).

Linguistic concept of V. Humboldt [Electronic resource] / F. M. Berezin / / History of linguistic teachings: textbook for philologists. special universities. - M, 1984. - Ch. 4. - p. 41-57.

Razumovsky, O. S. Diachronia. - (http://www.chronos.msu.ru/old/TERMS/razumovsky_diakhronia.htm).

Razumovsky, O. S. Synchrony. - (http://temporology.bio.msu.ru/TERMS/razumovsky_sinkhronia/razumovsky_sinkhronia.htm).

Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course of General Linguistics [Electronic resource]: biographical and critical notes on F. de Saussure / Editorial Board of Bally Sh. and Seche A.; Per. FR. Sukhotina A., De Mauro T. -- Yekaterinburg: Ural.un-ta,1999.