Culture as a verb: the case of grammatical metaphor

Abstract

The article considers the possibility of understanding culture as a verb instead of a noun. The idea of culture as a verb is used as a grammatical metaphor, which allows us to look at possible approaches to defining culture in a different way: to move from statics to activity, from heritage to processes, from artifacts to the practice of their creation. The article shows the possibility of rethinking the word «culture» as a verb in accordance with the views of the times of Antiquity. The works of such researchers as V. L. Abushenka, G. Simmel, Katon, I. Ya. Matsevich-Dukhan, and B. V. Street are used as a theoretical foundation. This text is not about parts of speech, but about the possibility of rethinking within the framework of the discourse of cultural studies as a scientific discipline. Studying culture as a verb is a search for an explanation for oneʼs own actions. Identity is explored not as a degree of conformity to oneself or to some normative pattern in the past, but as a consistent series of answers to a wide range of questions.