Ethnic image of the world: the problem of descriptive terminology

Abstract

Ethnic image of the worlds is a term naming a specific model of culture that is an interdisciplinary research object. Interdiciplinarity characterizes a research that determines new essential characteristics of the object with the help of methods that were invented while researching other objects. Ethnic constants, values, ethnic stereotypes represented in speech activity can become interpreting notions of such a model. The author demonstrates interdependence of terms interpreting the ethnic image of the world and studies the basis of uniting them into a hierarchical system of terms. Ethnic constants are system-forming components of culture; ethnic values are a system of socially approved notions, that represent constants, and ethnic stereotypes are a system of models representing values in activity of individuals. A speech act is an integrative term that is capable of defining cultural specifics of speech activity. Predicative feature of meaning formation and way of its verbal representation interact during a speech act.