Differential and empirical model for describing psycholinguistic meanings

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the problem of semantics of proper names. Nowadays, in linguistics, there are different points of view on the nature of the semantics of proper names. This paper states the discovery of a new kind of meaning of proper names - psycholinguistic. This concept is based on the use of experimental methods for studying the meanings of words, which involves an appeal to the consciousness of native speakers. Psycholinguistic experiments were carried out by us in Voronezh. Subjects - 330 students. The method of free and directed associative experiment was used. Various toponyms (“Moscow”, “St. Petersburg”, “Volgograd”), including “Voronezh”, were used as a stimulus material. According to the results of experiments on the stimulus “Voronezh”, a total of 1,055 verbal associative reactions were obtained. Then the semantic interpretation of associative reactions was carried out, which consists in understanding the reactions as linguistic representations of certain signs of the denotation - semantic components. As a result, the psycholinguistic meaning of the toponym “Voronezh” was formulated, which is very different from its meaning in toponymic dictionaries. We call this new kind of meaning psycholinguistic.