Specifics of Structuring Ideographic Word Classes Representing Social Spheres (Example of “Education” Sphere)

Abstract

The sphere of “Education” can be understood in terms of culture, knowledge, axiology, etc. This indicates the integrative and multi-aspect nature of the content behind lexemes such as education, learning, teaching, and studying. The main aspect of this article is lexicographic, with the aim of determining the scope and structure of the lexical set of words comprising the ideographic sphere of “Education” in modern Russian language. The work was carried out as part of the development of the project “Universal Ideographic Dictionary-Thesaurus of the Russian” by the Ural Semantic School under the guidance of L. G. Babenko. Materials from various dictionaries prepared by this team of researchers were used. Methods used included component analysis of lexical meaning and ideographic classification. Various types of relationships organizing this lexical set were identified in order to present a modeling of the “Education” sphere as a fragment of the denotative-ideographic world map. Examples of words and word groups related by hyper-hyponymy, meronymy, synonymy, and antonymy within the denotative-ideographic groups of this sphere are provided. It is shown that the lexical set of words representing the sphere of “Education,” like many other similar classes of words denotatively linked to human social life, is structured not hierarchically, but in accordance with components of represented situations.