A study of psycholinguistic meanings of the toponym "Vladikavkaz" (through linguistic associative experiments)

Abstract

The study reveals ways to identify and describe the psycholinguistic meanings of lexical units (on the example of the toponym "Vladikavkaz"). Psycholinguistic meaning is one of the types of meanings along with the traditional type of meaning such as lexicographic meaning. The lexicographic meaning consists of a small set of logically meaningful features that reflect described phenomenon. The lexicographic meaning is presented in classical explanatory dictionaries. It is formulated on the basis of the principle of reductionism (minimization of features included in the meaning). The psycholinguistic meaning is the meaning in the minds of native speakers. This type of meaning is presented in psycholinguistic dictionaries. The psycholinguistic meaning can be identified by various methods. An effective method for identifying and describing psycholinguistic meanings is a psycholinguistic experiment, in particular, an associative experiment that involves native speakers. Associative experiments were carried out by the Russian Voronezh theoretical and linguistic school in the Russian Federation. The subjects were native Russian speakers in the North Caucasus and Voronezh. Toponyms of the Russian language were used as stimulus materials – "Derbent", "Dagestan", "Moscow", "St. Petersburg", etc. The experiments identified a lot of associative reactions, the distribution of which made it possible to construct associative fields. The semantic interpretation of associative fields revealed the psycholinguistic meanings of toponyms. This article presents the results of semantic interpretation of associative reactions to the stimulus "Vladikavkaz", obtained in the experiments. The associative fields of the toponym are described. The semantic components of the toponym are identified. The psycholinguistic meaning of the toponym "Vladikavkaz" is formulated in two regional variants.

Keywords

• psycholinguistic meaning
• toponym
• associative field
• associative experiment