Anthropocentric paradigm in scientific discourse

Abstract

My paper aims to determine the dominant potential of the anthropocentric paradigm in modern science, in particular, interdisciplinary discourse, and to analyze the semantic, structural, and pragmatic features of scientific discourse. The task of the research is to analyze the modern discourse considering the problem of the anthropocentric doctrine: consider the concept of discourse against the background of anthropocentrism, as well as the concept of anthropocentrism itself and the various definitions of it by different scientists. Accordingly, the research question is raised, which field of scientific discourse is more focused on the implicit and explicit expression of anthropocentric theory? The paper uses methods of analogy, typological research, and semantic-pragmatic analysis. Modern discourse analysis is experiencing a period of rapid formation not only as a new scientific paradigm but also as a set of disciplinary theories and methods, which are characterized by ideological and theoretical fragmentation, as well as the escalation of discourse as an integrated methodological basis of research. Under these conditions, the scientific potential of modern discourse theories to solve several current theoretical problems related to the specificity of such phenomena as the discursive and communicative information society, socio-humanitarian and philosophical and cultural studies, meta-reflexivity, and processes of the researcher of social objects becomes credible. In addition, the conceptual category of discourse is the basis for creating effective models in the direction of interdisciplinary research, the relevance of which increases with the development of crisis internal processes in modern social sciences and humanities. The stylistics of scientific discourse aim to determine the structure of the multidimensional semantic space of the scientific text, the analysis of the semantic structural units of the scientific text and the linguistic means of fixation, and the presentation of scientific knowledge. The essence of scientific discourse can be seen in speech and thought. Its normative basis is a historically formed set of regulatory principles according to which the process of creating, translating, and using knowledge is optimized. This complex includes objectivity, orientation to the search for truth, conceptual (theoretical), empirical, logical, methodological, grounded, critical, and creative aspects. In recent decades, fundamental changes have been made in linguistics. The new stage of the development of linguistics is characterized by polyparadigmism, but the dominant role is assigned to the anthropocentric paradigm. Today, in the linguistic community, the main trends and principles of modern linguistics, in particular, the problem of the scientific paradigm, is one of the most important and, at the same time, controversial problems. Scientists mainly focus on changing paradigms of knowledge in the development of linguistics, and accordingly, different terminological variations of them are proposed. The problem of the scientific paradigm is widely discussed in the scientific literature. Researchers define the concept of scientific paradigm in different ways, including their names and quantitative composition. In 1962, American scientist T. Kuhn used the term "paradigm" as a model for describing scientific knowledge. Scientists in linguistics explain anthropocentrism by changing the research perspective, that is, by forming a new research object - the linguistic personality. As one of the active forms of knowing reality, language gives us an actual image of the world, which people have been trying to understand for many centuries. The anthropocentric approach to language, represented in many linguistic traditions, is historically primary. However, over time it has lost its generality, and only in recent decades has it regained a leading position in science in general and linguistics in particular. As the review of the theoretical material showed, the anthropocentric paradigm is the switching of the researcher's interests from the objects of knowledge to the subject, i.e., "human in language" and "language in human" are analyzed. Undoubtedly, it is essential that in the prism of anthropocentrism, an in-depth study of interdisciplinary concepts that reflect the linguistic and extralinguistic parameters of language has begun. In our case, the object of this study was the concept of discourse. Many terms used in the field of research are multifaceted and contradictory. They certainly include such a phenomenon as discourse. Many disciplines are related to the study of discourse, for example, pedagogy, sociology, pragmalinguistics, speech linguistics, cultural studies, psycholinguistics, jurisprudence, etc. Many disciplines study the term discourse regarding mental correlations with the above directions. Each scientific discipline has its approach to the study of discourse, depending on the specificity of the subject. One of the first to introduce the concept of "discourse" into linguistic use was Z. Harris. For him, discourse is a sequence of sentences, a coherent speech (oral or written) that goes beyond a single sentence and is culturally determined. Modern linguistics has different approaches to defining discourse as "verbal and text." Studying discourse as a subject of text linguistics and discourse analysis as one of its methods, modern science considers discourse as an ambiguous term of text linguistics, which is used by many authors with almost homonymous meanings and emphasizes the primary meanings as dialogue, the oral-conversational form of text, a group of statements related by meaning. A coherent text is a work of verbal, whether given orally or written. A logical conclusion follows from the presented definitions: the text can be performed in writing and orally. In linguistics, the term "text" refers to both written, printed text and "verbal work" - from a one-word reply to a detailed statement. Thus, it is appropriate to consider both text and discourse as interdependent categories that reflect the outcome of verbal activity. At the same time, the communicative situation determines discourse, the broader intertextual and extralinguistic context, and the text expresses the embodiment of the language in use.