Consciousness, language and problems of communication

Abstract

In spite of the fact that the perspective of language communication in the 21st century perhaps will accept new outlines, which are difficult for expecting so far, however, some aspects and tendencies of further researches in this area can be marked out, based on the analysis of the existing concepts, and also those problems that in many respects remained unresolved. The distinctive feature of modern post-nonclassical philosophy is the reflection relatively of its own preconditions. In this aspect it acts as a research of the general conditions of the communicative experience. Consciousness forms a complex relationship with various kinds of unconscious and irrational mental phenomena. They have a structure of their own, whose elements are connected both with one another and with consciousness and actions which influence them and in their turn experience their influence on themselves. We sense everything that acts on us, but it is by no means all sensations that reach our consciousness. A great many of them remain on the periphery of consciousness or even beyond its limits. Two types of unconscious actions should be distinguished. The first comprises actions that were never realized, the second, those that were previously realized. Thus many of our actions controlled by consciousness in the process of formation, become automatic and then performed unconsciously. Man’s conscious activity itself is only possible on condition that a maximal number of the elements of that activity are performed automatically. Language and consciousness form a contradictory unity. Language influences consciousness: its historically evolved norms, distinctly different in each nation, stress different features in identical objects. Language influences thought, but it doesn't determine what concepts we're able to think of. It influences how we perceive the world, but if we don't have a particular word in our language, it just takes more time and more words for us to describe that concept. It is a problem of translation; not of our ability to be able to imagine the concept.