Experience Experimental Research Socially Significant Concepts in Modern Russian Language Consciousness (Concept DEMOCRACY)

Abstract

An experimental research of the reception features of socially significant concepts in the linguistic consciousness of modern native speakers of the Russian language is described on the example of the concept DEMOCRACY. The results of a comparative analysis of the semantic content of this concept based on the materials of dictionaries and the results of a chain associative experiment are presented. It is shown that on the basis of lexicographic interpretations of the word democracy as a basic representative of the concept of the same name, eight significant cognitive features of the concept can be identified. The procedure for verifying the identified cognitive features through a chain experiment made it possible to detect significant conceptual and connotative-evaluative innovations in the semantic content of the DEMOCRACY concept in comparison with the results of the analysis of lexicographic sources. Reflexes of the negative-evaluative perception of this concept were found in the linguistic consciousness of the speakers of the modern Russian language, associated with ideas about the imaginary nature, the illusory nature of this concept for the Russian world, the manipulative nature of its discursive implementation, etc. It is concluded that the negative-evaluative reception of this concept in the modern Russian linguistic consciousness is associated with its inorganic nature, with psychological and cultural alienation in relation to the traditionally Russian models of linguistic conceptualization of the world.

Keywords

• concept democracy
• chain association experiment
• socially significant concepts
• conceptual analysis in linguoculturology
• modern russian linguistic consciousness