Prof. Valery V.Mykhaylenko
Ametkhan E. Dzhemalyadinov, undergraduate
Bukovyna State Finance Academy
Chernivtsi, Ukraine
On
Money Concept Verbalizing
Abstract. This is one step on the
way to categorizing the money concept and its semanticizing with the help of
the definitional and componential analyses to model the money semantic graph.
Conceptual
analysis is currently undergoing a revival despite the enormous impact of
naturalism in philosophy and a long history of proposed analyses being
subjected to counterexample after counterexample [4,253-282.]. This renewed
interest is due to a number of philosophers who have reinterpreted the role of
conceptual analysis in philosophy. Recent advocates of conceptual analysis
include George Bealer, David Chalmers, Frank Jackson, and David Lewis (among
others).
On the contrary,
conceptual analysis being employed in linguistics reveals human-being’s
cognition of the world and his/her verbalizing it. The conceptual analysis in
linguistics presupposes concept modeling and concept description (cognitive
informational structures) [5, 261-262].
The objective of
the present paper is to define the way of the money concept semanticizing and
the way of categorizing the English money concept system. First, it may help
finance majors understand semantic taxonomy and its internal relationships,
second, it may help linguists follow the development of money semantics, and,
third, it may help lingual culturologists determine typological and
differential features inherent in the languages of a certain area [6].
Conceptual
analysis has had a long and venerable history tracing back to the very origins
of philosophy, but in the early XX-th c. it came to the thesis, following Carnap
and others, that scientific concepts must be definable a priori and that it’s philosophy’s
job to furnish the definitions. However, in the 1950s and 1960s, W.V.O. Quine
and Hilary Putnam convinced many philosophers that this is a mistaken view.
They highlighted the limits of a priori inquiry, noting that science sometimes overturns
even our most cherished beliefs. Together with Saul Kripke (1972), H.Putnam also
emphasized the fact that we can possess concepts in spite of being massively ignorant
of, or mistaken about, the kinds our concepts pick out.
Categorization
involves a psychological process in which an object, event, etc. is judged to
fall under a concept or term. F.Jackson emphasizes that categorization isn’t
random or miraculous. The main problem with this argument is that categorization
doesn’t require analytic or a priori principles in order to operate [3;4].
Let’s take the money concept:
1. the coins or notes which
are used to buy things, or the amount of these that one person has. (Cambridge
Advanced Learner's Dictionary);
2. something generally
accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value or a means of payment: as
a: officially coined or stamped metal currency b: money of accounts, paper
money (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary);
3. a piece of metal, as
gold, silver, copper, etc., coined, or stamped, and issued by the sovereign
authority as a medium of exchange in financial transactions between citizens
and with government; also, any number of such pieces; coin (English Dictionary for Word
Games);
4. medium of exchange: a
medium of exchange issued by a government or other public authority in the form
of coins of gold, silver, or other metal, or paper bills, used as the measure
of the value of goods and services (Encarta® World
English Dictionary);
5. a commodity, such as
gold, or an officially issued coin or paper note that is legally established as
an exchangeable equivalent of all other commodities, such as goods and services
, and is used as a measure of their comparative values on the market (American Heritage Dictionary);
6. anything that is
generally accepted by people in exchange for the things the sell or the work
they do. Gold and silver were once the most common forms of money. But today,
money consists mainly of paper bills, coins made of various metals, and
checking account deposit (World Book
Encyclopedia).
Thus, it is
important for the categorization of money that it is coins or notes, a medium of exchange, a measure of value, a means of
payment, a piece of metal, a commodity, an exchangeable equivalent of all other commodities checking account deposit , etc., but all
the same for the philosophers it isn’t analytic
or a priori that money has these features. Though for the linguists the results
of the definitional analysis and then the results of the componential analysis
prove the validity of the previous thesis. Consequently, the semantic analysis
of money nominations in, for example, the finance discourse will reveal a more
general component as “finance”.
Likewise in the economics discourse it will reveal the component “economy”. Therefore the more discourses
we employ for the semantic analysis the more components can be registered in
the nomination. Here we can have a semantic structure o money nomination in
language competence and in discourse or language performance. We believe that
the semantic structure must have some empty positions in the language system
while in the discourse they are filled in.
Perhaps it makes sense
to distinguish between categorization (which is often based on minimal
perceptual contact) on the fragment level, like medium of exchange, and categorization on the system level, like finance or economics. In the second case we observe the transportation of components
of meaning:
dominant component à periphery component, e,g.:
medium of exchange à pound (dollar, banknote, property, currency, )
periphery component à dominant component, e.g.:
cash (credit card, deposit account,
wealth, heritage, stock, ) à medium of exchange
Conceptual analysis
comes into the picture as the means of identifying the essential feature of the
unit used in a definite discourse , for example:
property, wealth, economy, property, bank (credit,
loan, interest rate)
exchange (hard/soft currency, exchange rate, pound,
dollar, rouble, hryvnia, euro. cent, penny, kopiyka),
civilization (Middle Ages, epoch, period, nation,
country, people), etc. The distribution of money
unit in the sentence pattern and in the discourse structure proves the shifts
possibility in the semantic structure of the money nomination meaning.
References:
1. Jackson F. From Ethics to
Metaphysics. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
2. Langacker R. W. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. I Theoretical Prerequisites.
- Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
3. Langacker R. W. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. II Descriptive Applications.
- Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.
4. Laurence S., Margolis E. Concepts
and Conceptual Analysis//Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. - 2003. - Vol.
LXVII. - No. 2. - Pp.253-282.
5. Selivanova O. Suchasna
Linguistica. Terminologichna Entsyclopedia. - Poltava: Dovkillia - K, 2006. - 716
p.
6. Wierzbicka Ann. English: Meaning
and Culture. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. - 352p.