Essential Characteristics of the Concepts of “Family” and “Marriage” in the Russian Worldview Across Four Generations

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of the concepts of “family” and “marriage” in the Russian worldview across four generations: children (41 respondents, with significant differences observed between the groups aged 5–7 and 10–13 years, as well as preschoolers (under 7 years) generally lacking a fully developed concept of “marriage”), young adults (24 respondents aged 19–24 years), middle-aged adults (32 respondents aged 42–55 years), and seniors (14 respondents aged 66–80 years). The respondents were asked about their five reactions (words and/or word combinations) to the stimuli family and marriage. The analysis of these reactions reveals that both concepts have a complex structure, which can be best described as a frame consisting of slots (groups of related semantic reactions), and unfold over time as a series of changes: preschoolers are normally concrete thinkers with a straightforward idea of family, a result of their age-specific naïve worldview → children aged 10–13 years attain an ability to abstract from reality, but still depend on their immediate experiences → young adults, starting to live on their own, have an abstract, idealized model of family and marriage → middle-aged adults and seniors associate family and marriage with their personal life experiences.

Keywords

• cognitive linguistics
• concept
• worldview
• family
• marriage