EVALUATION CONCEPT IN THE LIGHT OF ECOCOGNITIVE PRACTICE

Abstract

This piece of writing discusses the ecoсognitive foundations of evaluation concept. It examines the peculiarities of language research approaches as an instrument of harmonious lifestyle of the people as well as an important means of creation of evaluative worldview. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the eсognitive grounds of evaluation category. The paper grounds on theses and techniques of Evaluation, Cognitive ecocognitive and biocognitive theories. Ecolinguistics as a scientific field that combines ecology and linguistics studies the interaction between language, human being as a language personality and his environment. The anthropocentric and eco-centric lines may be distinguished as reasonable forms in the development of contemporary humanitarian sciences for the reason that they establish different interpretations in investigating development and outcomes of human activity. Axiological aspect of natural environment preservation has contradicted the anthropocentric outlook, as a result the principles of ecological ethics are thought to be much more important for the issue of human survival than anthropocentric ideals of value. Evaluation is a fundamental constituent of cognition, which is based on a value approach to the facts of nature and society. So, person’s activity and life as a human being having different requirements, interests and objectives is impossible without estimation. The specificity of evaluative categorization and its main difference from natural categorization is that these two processes are based on different ways of perceiving the world, natural and evaluative pictures of the world. The paper looks at the evaluation concept as the formation which consists of a nucleus, which is the custodian of the collective knowledge of a particular people, and a periphery that is filled by the subjective representations of the native speaker of that language. The category of evaluation is an important component of the conceptual worldview, as far as the notions of positive and negative, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, intelligence and dullness, hard work and laziness, moral and immoral are inherent in any culture, any social system. The evaluation concept is an independent mental formation that is culturally specified. It is considered to be the part of the conceptual and language worldview of a certain linguocultural community, and can be defined as their structural component.