Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology

The course will consider the concepts, history of development and methodology of cultural anthropology (Leo Frobenius, Edward Tylor, Lucien Levy-Bruhl) and its contribution to the world system of knowledge about man. The sections of linguistics will also be considered, including those concerning the study of the interaction between language and thought: cognitive linguistics, semantics, etymology, sociolinguistics, neurolinguistics, and their contribution to the development of modern applications (computer translators, text plagiarism checking systems, SEO-marketing, linguistic neural network), which give practical application of the above knowledge.

A large section of the course is devoted to an analysis of anthropolinguistic laws and theories explaining the relationship between human/social development and the evolution of language and language constructions. As well as the mutual influence of language and mentality (way of thinking) of a nation, peculiarities of formation of different language groups and their origins. In addition, the course covers practical aspects of anthropolinguistics (turns of politeness, forms of personal and business communication in different linguistic traditions), revealing the features of thinking and worldview of representatives of different cultures.

Understanding of features of national mentality gives an opportunity in the course to consider culture in a civilizational context and to allocate several approaches to understanding of structure and destination of both already gone from the world arena and existing up to now civilizations (A.Toynbee, O.Spengler, S.Huntington and N.J.Danilevsky). This knowledge makes it possible to analyze the trajectory of development of both individual national-ethnic communities and the entire world social system as a whole.