ASSOCIATIVE FIELD AS A MODEL FOR WORD MEANING ANALYSIS

Abstract

Based on the material of the Udmurt language, the article considers a field approach to the study of a word meaning from psycholinguistic positions. The relevance of addressing the study of word semantics in this perspective is determined by the fact that such studies with native speakers of the Udmurt language have not been conducted before. Also, the material of this study will provide an opportunity for further cross-language comparative work. The main method of research is the free associative experiment (FAE), which allows a researcher to identify the most relevant lexical and semantic variants of a word for the experimental group of the Udmurt language speakers. The task of this type of work is to study the collective consciousness, which makes it necessary to conduct a mass survey in order to obtain a representative sample. The associative field obtained during the experiment is represents a model and tool for analyzing the semantics of a word. The composition of the associative field, the nature and ratio of reactions in it can significantly change the idea of the meaning of the word as a communicative unit. In order to communicate successfully, it is necessary to have not only a common code, but also a common knowledge about the associative environment of the word, i.e. its associative-verbal network. Associative field of any word has a core with the most frequent reactions and a periphery and is manifested in a variety of semantic, thematic-situational and evaluative-pragmatic relationships. This article presents an analysis of the associative fields of the Udmurt lexemes KORKA/HOUSE, ADYAMI /HUMAN and ULON/LIFE in order to identify the most relevant components of the word meaning for spea-kers of the Udmurt language. The experimental data obtained were consistently compared with the data from lexicographic sources in order to establish the psychologically relevant meaning of the studied words and their designated concepts.