MULTILINGUALISM OR CULTURAL DIVERSITY?

Abstract

The present work is aimed, first of all, at outlining the idea that integrative characteristic of any national culture, which is adopted in Western social psychology, obviously concentrates spiritual aspirations of the nation and vividly reflects the deep and stable type of individual and collective consciousness as well as behavior of its members. Values which lie at the core of cultural mentality, are a kind of “line of attraction” – they convert the empirical diversity of national cultures into a single systematic integrity.

Representing an organic synthesis of outlook and psychological orientation, mentality outlines cultural and semantic space of the society. It is formed by the interaction of various factors: natural, socio-cultural, psychological, etc., being developed under the influence of human environment, social conditions, and cultural traditions. National and cultural mentality, in its turn, generates and reproduces all key factors, being their source and cause, persisting in lifestyle, traditions, texts, values and semantic linguistic units, language as a whole.

The second message of the work is to state that, in connection with the mentioned above, an evident and extensive raise of multilingualism as both social and cultural phenomenon and a component of globalization appears to be the point of discussion because of its positive, though controversial influence.