Concept of TRAITOR in National Consciousness of Native Speakers of Russian and Chinese Languages (according to Data of Associative Experiment)

Abstract

The results of two associative experiments are presented. Russian-speaking respondents were presented with the word-incentive predatel’ ‘traitor,’ Chinese respondents - with the word-incentive 背叛者 (bèipànzhě / traitor). The psycholinguistic experiment involved 300 subjects aged 18-45. The aim of the study is to compare the ways of linguistic representation of the concept of TRAITOR in the Russian and Chinese linguistic cultures. The associative fields of the Russian concept of TRAITOR and the corresponding Chinese concept are modelled. The interpretation of the results of the experiment in the Russian-speaking audience shows that the core of the associative field of the concept of TRAITOR is formed by the symbols of values and military vocabulary, and its near periphery consists of semantic groups “violation of norms,” “historical memory,” “religion.” Based on the data of the experiment conducted with Chinese informants, the associative field of the TRAITOR concept was modelled, the core of which includes associates representing the conceptual features of “historical memory” (names of parties, names of politicians, designations of events) and “war.” It is found that the basic layer of the concept, relevant to the Chinese linguoculture, is formed by the concepts of “anti-value” and “violation of norms.” It is reported that the near periphery includes associations of semantic groups “feelings and emotions” and “a bad person.”

Keywords

• concept
• traitor
• national worldview
• language worldview
• chinese language
• russian language
• associative experiment