Language Picture of the World and Associative Lexicography

Abstract

Conceptually, the language picture of the world is defined as the representation of the real world in the system of concepts and categories of the language. Language processes (e.g., nomination) are inextricably related to the processes of identifying objects from the outside world and their understanding. The three interdependent basic concepts, culture, activity, and language consciousness, are implied to reflect the activity which is preconditioned by the system of cultural regulators and the expression of these relations in communication by means of units and language categories. The Moscow psycholinguistic school, grounded in the speech activity theory, regards the world picture as a system phenomenon in the consciousness of a language speaker / culture bearer, interprets meaning as an ideal form for the objective world to exist, and specifies optimal methods to register the knowledge behind the word in ordinary consciousness of a native language speaker / culture bearer are specified. Among the methods applied, the authors use the free associative experiment to collect data from numerous respondents, speakers of the national language / members of a cultural community. The associative and verbal network, built on mass associative experiments, reflects the systematic connections between its elements, i.e. words, each of them, in its turn, has its meaning and systematicity. The comparison of the language picture of the world fragments, the model components allows to make conclusions on the discrepancy both between meanings (knowledge behind the words) of components and their systematicity. Thus, the associative and verbal network as an integral model of the language picture of the world is capable of reflecting elements in the system at micro and macro levels estimating the meaning and significance of each system element. The advent of associative lexicography has made it possible to obtain the first ever comprehensive model of the world picture from a "naïve" native language speaker / a culture-bearer, and to observe the real interaction and interdependence between the meaning and significance of a separate word within the entire associative verbal network and the associative field. The data of mass associative experiments reflect the real state of everyday consciousness of a speaker / bearer of a certain language / culture. This evidence is used to analyze the synchronous state of consciousness, as well as to register changes that develop diachronically, given the data were collected at definite time periods. The observed changes indicate shifts in the associative verbal network structure along with the changes in the content of the knowledge associated with the word stimulus, thus reflecting the evolution of the society.