THE CRISIS OF A LANGUAGE IN THE MODERN WORLD

Abstract

The sign, as a symbiotic unity of content and expression, undergoes a certain deconstruction in different directions in the modern world: 1. Modernism is characterised by the destruction of form caused by experiments related to the expression of abstractionism, cubism, futurism, dadaism, avant-gardism, symbolism, etc.; although the whole social discourse’s content is mostly preserved, it disrupts only within the framework of subjective interpretations. As for 2. Postmodernism, experimental manipulations are related to the content of a sign: eclecticism and intertextuality, deconstruction and decentralisation, disruption of solid content, chaos and hyper-reflection, breaking the boundary between the author and readers, temporal and supra-spatial projections, the ironic reflection of reality, and even its general rejection, etc. The logical end of this process is the disappearance of the unified content and
common discourse. The Credo of postmodernism is: Everything is possible! As a result of such divergence, the content of a sign is defined within sub-discourses, which actually create „virtual worlds”. Communication between people in these divergent,
virtual spaces is hindered and almost impossible. The language tries to escape from this crisis and to maintain the communicative function of the language. This is the main attempt of 3. Metamodernism. It tries to fill the „empty” content by keeping
plurality, sometimes uniting opposite meanings into one oxymoronic concept: hero-cowardly, evil-God, sunny-night, dead-alive, etc. It encompasses the paradoxes, alternate realities, and emotional swings accompanying life. However, on the other hand, metamodernism promotes the setting up of ambivalent and mentally problematic concepts and factually creates the illusion of communication: Such oxymoronic meanings make possible communication, but only between the „virtual” realities