Lexical means of identity description

Identity is a conscious sense of belonging to a certain socially significant category of people. Thepresent research models the dictionary of identity that is a particular group of words describing thepersons belonging to a certain social category (for example, gender, age, trade, marital status etc.).The question on intersection and differentiation of lexical means of characterization and identity hasnot been investigated till now, at the same time the latter conveys a high potential in representation ofthe traits of character and estimations of the person.Criteria of selection of lexemes with semantics of identity become both their language features,and a parity of conceptual and language pictures of the world in the field of categorization of humancommunity. In other words, the scientific social-psychological description of identity, being a referencepoint in linguistic research, is corrected by language data. It seems possible to allocate obviousand implicit, the most and the least important, key and additional identities. The identity dictionaryrepresents a set of words with lexemes designating obvious, key identity (teacher, librarian, eighthgrader,Catholic) in the centre. On the periphery of the given set there are means of characterization(wonder child, rich man, oligarch) and nominations of implicit groups of human community (faredodger, neighbour in a compartment, claimant, sponsor, witness, respondent, newlywed, patient).Intersection of social practice in the field of identity of native speakers of Russian and its reflectionin language causes the development and application of the so-called semantic formulas of identitycarrying out test function: the more mentioned below semantic formulas the analysed word belongs to,the more probable that the word is a word-name of a key identity. Restrictions in lexical compatibilitywithin the given formulas give a chance to analyse the semantic components of language units thathave not been fixed in lexicographic sources. These formulas, in turn, are typified contractions, clichelikephrases widely used in speech: 1) Are you (Is he) Х? Yes, I am (He is) X/ No, I am not (He is not)X...; 2) The meeting of X will take place …; 3) A group/a part/a collective/a community of Х took partin …; 4) The seat in the hall/the table/the hall/ the carriage … for Х; 5) The concert is for/ the meetingis with/ the forum of Х. The lexemes that have passed all tests are classified as key identities, and thewords that have passed only the first test - as characterizations.

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