National and Cultural Specificity of the AMI/FRIEND Concept in French: Objectified and Subjectified Content

Abstract

This work is a study of the content of the AMI/FRIEND concept in the French language consciousness through the use of the method of macro- and micro-component analysis and experimental analysis of the “naïve” definitions of the lexeme “ami”. Both the collective, culturally and nationally conditioned understanding of this concept, as well as the originality of its interpretation by native speakers under the influence of individually lived experience, are studied. The aim of the study is to identify the semantic similarities and differences of the AMI/FRIEND concept in the French language consciousness at the level of objectified and subjectified content. Language semantics is considered as a verbalized embodiment of an ethno-specific understanding of the surrounding reality by representatives of a particular linguo-cultural community, and the meaning of an individual lexeme is considered as a microparticle of the linguistic worldview. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the identification of national-specific semantic micro-components of the AMI/FRIEND concept through a combined analysis of the objective meaning of the lexeme “ami” and its associative-subjective meaning obtained experimentally. As a result, the objective essential features of the AMI/FRIEND concept are revealed at the macro- and micro-component semantic levels, the subjective field structure of the meaning of the lexeme “ami” is presented, and its core and peripheral features are classified.