Hermeneutic Aspects of Bilingualism: the Role of Interlingual Interference

• Main Author: Nataliya A Sverdlova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2019-12-01
• Series: RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics
• Subjects: hermeneutics; a bilingual person; bilingualism; understanding; consciousness; interlingual interference
• Online Access: http://journals.rudn.ru/semiotics-semantics/article/viewFile/22118/17359

The article is devoted to the problem of studying bilingualism. The object of study is the mechanism of acquiring a non-native language, considered in the context of the hermeneutic approach. For a deeper analysis of the process of acquiring a non-native language, the role of mental and metapsychic categories on the way to bilingual understanding of new knowledge about the world is considered. The activity of a person in the conditions of personal choice is a complex one, where the central place is given to consciousness. Understanding, as a function of consciousness, becomes a key issue in the interpretation of the reality where the bilingual is. The interpretation of all components of the “new” (other) culture and the world goes through language. The native language of the bilingual is associated through a particular set of “presetting” and “pre-understanding”. Gaining new experience in the conditions of conscious choice leads to the emergence of a double format of perception of the world, which does not contradict human nature, is a condition of completeness of the world view. The tasks of the researcher included the representation of linguistic personality in terms and concepts of hermeneutics; the definition of the basic mental processes that are characteristic of the formation of bilingual linguistic personality; the study of interference as a natural process and the result of the interpretation of the phenomena of reality. The article attempts to explain the role of consciousness and understanding in bilingual speech activity and to define the essence of interlanguage interference in the light of the applied approach. In interaction of conceptual and linguistic spheres of the system, appears for the interference systems. Due to irreversible changes in the structure of linguistic consciousness, interlingual interference becomes a natural process that can disrupt decoding under certain communication conditions.