The Zipf’s Law and Other Ways of Identifying Culture-Specific Linguistics Units

Abstract

Every language contains a number of linguistic units that serve as a key to understanding the culture of its language speakers. Therefore, they bear specific information that helps to reveal cultural similarities and dissimilarities. Taking into account contemporary studies and focus of the science, this information can be very critical and relevant in intercultural communication. In this paper, we name such linguistic units as cultural keywords. So, we claim that cultural keywords can serve as a tool for intercultural communication. They are indicators for describing and understanding cultures. This can help to study, learn, discuss and describe the cultures of different nations all over the world. In the paper we suggest methodologies to identify cultural keywords. We claim that a methodological basis for the study may consist of three methods: semantic analysis, argumentative analysis and the Zipf’s law. However, these are not comprehensive methods for discovering the keywords. Findings of the research can be applied to intercultural and cross-cultural studies as well as other interdisciplinary cultural studies.