Symbolic Forms within the Structure of National Culture

Abstract

The article explores signs as fundamental elements of national culture that encode collective experience, transmit values and shape ethnocultural identity. Drawing on semiotic, cultural and ethnolinguistic approaches, the study analyses the nature of cultural signs, their structural and functional characteristics, and their operation in everyday practices, rituals and contemporary media discourse. Particular attention is paid to the role of signs as depositories of cultural memory, as markers of identity and as instruments of social regulation. The empirical basis of the article consists of illustrative examples from Slavic and Uzbek cultural traditions, including ornaments, ritual behaviour, forms of greeting, and national symbols used in public communication. The analysis shows that cultural signs form a multilayered symbolic system in which visual, verbal and behavioural codes are tightly interrelated. It is argued that signs not only reflect the worldview of an ethnic group but also actively participate in constructing it, mediating between individual consciousness and collective tradition. In the context of globalisation, signs of national culture become tools of cultural diplomacy and branding, while at the same time remaining key mechanisms for maintaining cultural continuity and resisting homogenising tendencies.