On How “Individual Speech Systemˮ and “the Language Systemˮ Relate in Lev Shcherba’s Conception

The article discusses the relationship between the concepts of “individual speech systems” and “language system” in the linguistic conception of Lev Shcherba. As shown by Shcherba, the most important resource that ensures human speech activity is not an abstract knowledge of the language system, but the language material, which is the totality of everything spoken and understood in a certain specific situation in one or another era of life of a given social group. To the extent that language material is reflected in the memory of each individual speaker, it forms individual speech systems that provide each person with the ability to receive and produce speech. Considered in its entirety, the linguistic material creates the basis for describing language systems, i.e., for compiling dictionaries and grammars of a given language. Individual speech systems are a psychological phenomenon; therefore, the content of these systems’ units includes, on the one hand, sets of sensory images aroused in the minds of individual native speakers by these units, and on the other hand, the knowledge of these speakers about the designated objects. As for language systems, then, according to Shcherba, these are verbal descriptions of language, and therefore the description of content of elements of language systems should be predominantly verbal. The article shows that any attempts to describe the language system on the basis of all existing language material are unattainable in practice. Usually dictionaries and grammars are compiled on the basis of limited number of uses of language units that reflects the individual speech systems of a certain number of native speakers. When compiling explanatory dictionaries, this circumstance causes the appearance of not quite correct interpretations of words, due to the insufficient amount of language material used or errors made in its generalization.