Concept «England» and its Subconcepts in the Consciousness of Respondents: Psycholinguistic Analysis
Description
Results and discussion Most of the linguistic units named by the respondents were paradigmatic associations. We have recorded 54 words, which are definitions expressed by an adjective. The distribution of the average used lexemes (the frequency of occurrence in the sample is more than 1%) of the verbalization of concept ENGLAND named by the respondents is shown in Fig. 1. The analysis allows concluding that there is no characteristic reaction of each of the respondents. The most frequently used lexemes are rainy (23.2%), interesting (22.7%). There are many lexemes that are used very rarely (frequency of usage is less than 1%): ancient (relatively), contrasting, correct, desirable, diverse, educated, exciting, fascinating, grey-red-black, ideal, luxurious, prim, refined, strict, white-blue-red. The latter is easily explained by the large number of respondents and the fact that the survey was conducted among university students. To test this assumption and determine the attitude of the respondents to the concept ENGLAND, we carried out the statistics of the semantic distribution, shown in Fig. 2. The authors of the article coded lexemes as positive, neutral or negative based on Russian dictionaries that provide information about the emotional connotations of words (Dal, 2011; Ozhegov, Shvedova, 2011; Ushakov, 2008; Efremova, 2000). The agreement between researchers was 97%. Negatively connotated lexemes were classified (number of lexemes 4, 7.7% of the total number of lexemes, 11% frequency of usage of lexemes in the questionnaire): rainy (51), cold (4), strict (2), prim (1). Neutrally connotated lexemes include (10 pcs., 19.2%, 25%): insular (37), distant (34), foggy (21), reserved (15), large (8), small (5), cool (4), old (4), white-blue-red (2), grey-red-black (1). Positively ones comprise (38 pcs., 73.1%, 64%): ancient (40), ancient (relatively) (1), aristocratic (5), beautiful (8), civilized (9), contrasting (1), correct (1), democratic (7), desirable (2), developed (17), diverse (1), domineering (15), educated (2), exciting (1), exquisite (13), fascinating (2), great (7), highly cultured (3), highly developed (25), historical (7), ideal (2), independent (3), interesting (50), luxurious (1), majestic (30), modern (6),monarchical (4), mysterious (8), picturesque (5), powerful (12), prosperous (11), refined (2), rich (5), royal (3), successful (9), traditional (3), well-mannered (20), well-to-do (3). The obtained results of the semantic distribution show that the respondents’ attitude to England (both country and culture) is definitely positive. Among these associations, it is possible to distinguish such frames as the size of the country, its state structure, age, colour, geographic location, weather, character traits (probably of inhabitants) and some others.