The Symbolical Expression of Language Practices in the Review of Leslie White’s Culturological Ideas

The article characterizes the mechanism of language practices as a manifestation of the symbolization ability in the context of the culturological generalizations by L. White, who considered culture as a self-sufficient phenomenon defining the human development. This question is relevant because of the need to identify the ultimate determinants of culture, which ensure sustainability of its development. The author analyzes the specificity of the symbolical expression of language practices in the theory of L. White and carries out the approach to defining culture as an extrasomatic phenomenon. In this context, the language is considered as a requirement for culture existing, and its active character, manifested in articulated speech — as a method for discovering new meanings providing culture development. The ideas of language statements efficiency are updated in these considerations. The article identifies the capabilities of the language symbol, in its cumulative and progressive development, to form thoughts, which corresponds to the reasoning of L. White on evolutionary dynamics of culture. In this vein, the view of L. White on the language practices in establishing cultural continuum is determined by their focusing on the progressive targeted evolutionary development in its material embodiment, which is reflected in the specific abilities of symbolization, forming human behavior. 

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