Representation of the Conceptual Field “Education” in National Variants of the French Language

Abstract

The paper presents an onomasiological analysis of the conceptual field "Education" exemplified by the vocabulary of the national variants of the French language of France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada (Province of Quebec) with the aim to establish the basic nomination principles and identify inter-variational differences within the framework of three sectors of the conceptual field "Education": "Educational institutions (établissement d'enseignement)", "Teaching staff (personnel enseignant)", "Students (étudiants)". The basic principles of nominating in the field of education are identified by considering the internal conceptual structure of the language units under analysis; inter-variational differences and alterations are stated by categorical-and-semantic comparability of the differentiation semes in the nominations of three sectors of the conceptual field "Education". The analysis allows to conclude that there exist generic categorical-and-semantic instances within nomination structures that indicate location of training or teaching, specialty, disciplines studied or taught, age, status of the teacher or student, level and methodology of training. In designation of objects in the sectors of the conceptual field "Education" lexical units get into hypernym-and-hyponym relations, thus categorically every sector is formed around some basic concept that is explicated in a hypernym, general nomination for four territorial variants of French, and a set of hyponyms that are more specific and not alike in the exemplification of general semes. The onomasiological analysis of the conceptual field "Education" reveals intervariational concomitant or alternating features, especially in sectors of "Educational institutions (établissement d'enseignement)", "Students (étudiants)" due to certain social-and-institutional reasons.