Prototypical linguistic worldview and word semantics tacito consensus: experimental studies

The research is devoted to the study of implicit features of word semantics that are due to speakers' representations of what state of things is considered as natural in the worldview of their ethnic and cultural community. The research hypothesis is that the picture of the prototypical features of an object or a process, representing a definite fragment of linguistic worldview, is implicitly included into the semantics of the noun or verb which denotes it, predetermining the pragmatic meaning and function of the feature lexical units (e.g. adjectives) which constitute its immediate syntagmatic context. The theoretical framework of the research includes notions of "subjective" or "ideal norm" [Ury-son 2015], broadly discussed in Russian semantic studies, and the phenomenon of "linguistic argumentation" that is actively investigated in French semasiology as a part of lexical and semantic structure of a word [Ducrot 1995]. The research employs the following methods: the method of semantic valuation experiment and qualitative-quantitative analysis. The experiment design included four stages. At the first stage, an experiment was conducted. In the experiment, informants (group 1) produced an argumentative text in response to a stimulus text. At the second stage, the most frequent feature lexical units which appeared as part of an argument in the texts of informants were identified. At the third stage, these feature lexical units (adjectives and verbs) were presented to informants (group 2) within semantic valuation experiment (e.g.: which statement do you think sounds more natural: a person, but the bright one; a person, and of course, the bright one). At the fourth stage, qualitative-quantitative analysis was carried out. The results of the experiment were ranged according to age and gender groups. In the experiment the informants were presented with the lexical units which had not been frequent in argumentative text-responses at the first stage of the experiment. The results of the research showed that the adjectives and verbal syntagms identified at the first stage of the experiment and included in the process of verbalization of the arguments in the texts of the informants (group 1) happened to appear in the semantic valuation experiment (group 2) as denominations of prototypical characteristics of the objects/processes in the focus of the first group informants' argumentative discourse; but the author has noticed that the degree of prototypicality of the object or process feature depends on age and gender of informants. A conclusion is made that there is a necessity for development of a special linguistic worldview -"prototypical worldview" - and that this worldview influences the pragmatics of linguistic units in discourse.

Keywords

Authors

References