The concept of «cultural code»: levels of meaning

Abstract

The article presents a philosophical conceptual analysis of the concept “cultural code” in the works of Y. M. Lotman and other researchers. The aim of the article is to identify the levels of meaning of the concept “cultural code” and their consistent description. The authors substantiate the use of the conceptual analysis developed by Yu. S. Stepanov (description of etymology and structure of the concept) and L. G. Babenko (structuring of the concept by revealing nuclear, intermediate and peripheral meanings) as a research methodology. Authors show that the nuclear meaning of a concept coincides with the universal-philosophical meaning of the same name concept, therefore techniques of the conceptual analysis can be used both by scientists-philologists at drawing up dictionaries of concepts, and at the analysis of the phenomena of culture expressed in this or that concept, by philosophers of culture and culturologists. In the methodology of conceptual analysis performed meaningful differentiation of the concept “cultural code” in the works of Y. M. Lotman, the values of the concept at different levels of generalization are explicated. The authors of the article highlighted the nuclear universal-semiotic meaning of the concept “cultural code”, understood as a sign system, which most corresponds to the philosophy of sign and sign systems in the understanding of the phenomenon. Then the intermediate meaning of the concept, characteristic for the philosophy of culture, and including such meanings as cultural matrix and cultural tradition is defined, which helps to form ideas about a special type of culture and to carry out typology of cultures based on dominant cultural codes. After that the peripheral, applied meanings of the concept, elaborated in social psychology – cultural archetypes, philology – linguistic meaning-forming structures of the text, media-communication and other humanities sciences are described. The authors of the article conclude that the values of the concept “cultural code” are historically formed and changeable in time, expanded by the increment of knowledge in the applied sciences, in the philosophical sciences determine the order of analysis of the phenomenon “cultural code” from the level of the sign system to cultural tradition and then semantic structures of the text in a particular culture.

Keywords

• conceptual analysis
• cultural code
• levels of meaning
• levels of the cultural code
• structure of the concept
• y. m. lotman