7.2. Universal object code

A very substantial psycholinguistic peculiarity of speech, which is very im­portant for language instruction, is existence in Man's language conscious­ness of a speech-mechanism which scientists called the Universal Object Code. It controls speech and functions in the mind of every person. Visual images of all things and phenomena a person has come across in his/her life are kept in the Universal Object Code.

It is the Universal Object Code owing to which it is possible for participants of communication to imagine and visualize things, phenomena and events which are touched upon in conversation: the visual images of the words ac­cepted in speech are identified with those which are available in the Universal Object Code [11, 54].

The visual images of things, phenomena and events are not kept in the Universal Object Code as isolated ones. On the contrary, the visual image of every word is presented in Man's mind with the help of a great lot of meaning­ful socially backgrounded situations: a situational visual image of the direct (primary) meaning of a word is completed with a number of other visual im-iiges which present objects, things, concepts denoted by the word in a number of other visual generalized integrated situations and are inherent in the set of meanings of the word. The number of visual generalized integrated situations of the Universal Object Code is limitless. Their number can change during the life of every person. In a rather approximate and hypothetical way the UOC can be imagined like it is shown in fig. 10.

It is a person himself/herself upon whom the number of visual generalized integrated situations contained in his/her UOC depends. The higher stand­ard of mental development and knowledge a person has the greater number of visual generalized integrated situations is contained in his/her UOC.

Fig. 10

A fragment of hypothetical representation of the word "cup " in the Universal Object Code

Speech would be impossible for any person even in the native language if it were not for the UOC. The little children who were lost in the jungle and lived there for a number of years are not able to learn how to speak because they have been grown up by wild animals and don't have the UOC corresponding to the social life experience of Homo sapiens. The social experience of these children is that of the animals they have lived with.

The UOC is called universal because it is a distinctive mental mechanism of the brain of Homo sapiens and it is common for representatives of all na­tionalities.

The UOC is a junction of speech and intellect [11, 54]. The UOC is a kind of language common to every person irrespectively of the nation he/ she belongs to. Another kind of language every person has is his/her national language. The difference between these two kinds of languages is evident. The language of the UOC is a language of thoughts which are not worded and have only visual representation while any national language is a language in which thoughts are worded. It is the UOC where translation of the UOC lan­guage into a human language of every person takes place.

Taking all the above into account it can be stated that in language instruc­tion any language form or item should be introduced in a speech situation or context whose visual images are presented to learners, so that while accepting a language item they would be able to immediately compare it with the visual generalised integrated situations of the UOC and find out what it is without any worded translation into the native language.