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RUSSIAN LINGUISTIC BULLETIN 2 (2) 2015
It is necessary to state that twois a very important number for the perception, description and interpretation of the world. As L.L. Conant writes the ideas of oneand two were the first to be formed (Conant 1931 // http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16449/16449-
h/16449-h.htm). A person has two eyes, two ears, two hands, two legs and learns the idea of this number very early both in ontogenesis and phylogenesis. L.L. Conant supplies the evidence that the knowledge of numbers revealed by some primitive tribes did not extend beyond oneand two. The importance of twois also confirmed by the existence of so-called dual nouns in the grammatical structure of English and other languages, like trousers, scissors, scales.
The most frequent cognithemes relevant for the concept of two are “two of the same kind cannot be in the same space”, “two is required for some things to happen” “two of the same kind cannot make one of a different kind”, “two is/is not good”, “two is better than other numbers (one, three, many)”.
Two sparrows on one ear of corn make an Ill agreement. It takes two to make a quarrel
The next numbers - threeand seven - are represented in much fewer proverbs than the first two numbers. A. Dundes states the existence of the law of three in American English- one of fundamental laws governing the composition of folk narration (Dundes :134). Trichotomy could be found in jokes, folk songs, superstitions, traditional games and Christian texts (Ibid : 137149). This law of three could be also discovered in British English as well as other languages, e.g. Russian. In proverbs, however, the concept of three is not that important.
In 5 proverbs out of 11 we can see the correlation of trichotomy with folk tales, where there are three magic objects, three competing characters, three paths to choose from, three difficult situations on the way to success, etc. The cognitheme “three matters” can be traced.
Three things are insatiable, priests, monks and the sea.
Three women, three geese, and three frogs make a market.
Three is opposed to two and six.
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. Three helping one another, bear the burden of six.
Seven found in 12 proverbs is mostly used to denote a long period of time (the cognitheme “seven is a big number”).
Keep a thing seven years and you will find a use for it. He that lives not well one year sorrows seven after.
It is opposed to one, on one hand, and five, six, eight
proverbs about sleep.
Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a
fool.
As far as other numbers are concerned, their representation in proverbs is very scarce.
Four eyes see more than two.
A man at five may be a fool at fifteen. A stitch in time saves nine.
One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
Nineand ten are mostly associated with a long period of time or a big number of objects. (Rhyme also plays its role in the above proverb with nine) Fourhas the latter meaning only in the proverb above, fiveand six do not take on any other meaning apart from the precise number they denote.
It is necessary to say some words about the associations with a long period of time or a large number of objects, characteristic of seven, nineand ten. In the proverbs they have the same function as the words “hundred”, “thousand” or “many”. They denote a large quantity, as a rule in an opposition to a small quantity, but not necessarily.
As L.L. Conant writes, experiments and observations prove that people have a very vague idea about big numbers, like 10000, e.g. (Conant 1931// http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16449/16449-h/16449-h.htm). Going by this judgement it is possible to suggest that the idea of the last numbers in the first ten may also become vague, especially when they are contrasted with small numbers like one or two. In many cases the exact number, say, tenor seven could be not so important, the main thing being that it is bigger than the other small number.
Summing up the conducted analysis it is possible to say the following. Numbers in proverbs are often opposed to one another, with bigger numbers taking on the additional meaning of a large quantity. Oneand twoare by far more widely represented in proverbs than other numbers, which coincides with the statements of scholars concerning the importance of these numbers in the conceptualization and perception of the world. Cognithemes constituting different concepts of numbers are varied and very much dependent on the nature of objects being counted.
This paper did not trace the possible connection between the proverbial usage of numbers and their symbolic meanings in culture. This could be the subject of a separate investigation. Another interesting direction of research is seen in the comparison of the concepts of number in English and Russian proverbs.
andeleven , on the other, the latter opposition occurring in the
References
1. Иванова Е.В. О единицах когнитивного анализа семантики: Глава в коллективной монографии «Язык человека. Человек в языке»/ Под. ред. А.В. Зеленщикова, Е.Г. Хомяковой. СПб, СПбГУ, 2012, С.70-92.
2. Conant L.L. The number concept. Its origin and development. Macmillan and co., N.Y. L., 1931
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16449/16449-h/16449-h.htm (last visited 20.02.15).
3. Dundes A. Interpreting folklore. Indiana university press, Bloomington, 1980, 304 P.
4. Wierzbicka A. Semantic primes and universals. Oxford university press, Oxford - N.Y., 1996, 500P.
5. Fergusson R. The Penguin dictionary of proverbs. Claremont books, L., 1995
Psycholinguistics. Psychology of language (UDC 81'23)
Габдуллина Венера Рамилевна
Кандидат филологических наук, ГБОУ ВПО "Башкирская академия государственной службы и управления при Президенте РБ" ЭМОЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ КОМПОНЕНТ В МАНИФЕСТАЦИИ СМЫСЛА СЛОВ ДЕТСКИХ АССОЦИАЦИЙ
Аннотация
Статья посвящена возрастным изменениям способа идентификации слова с опорой на чувственно-эмоциональные и оценочные переживания. Ассоциативные эксперименты проводились на русском, татарском и башкирском языках в 4 разных возрастных группах от 4 до 17 лет. В ходе анализа выявились как количественные, так и качественные изменения в способе идентификации слова. Распознавание слова и доступ к его значению проходит по эмоциональному и сенсорному каналам не зависимо от языка исследования.
Ключевые слова: ассоциативный эксперимент, значение слова, эмоционально-оценочный компонент слова.
Gabdullina Venera Ramilevna
PhD in Filology, Bashkir Academy of Public Administration and Management under the President of Bashkortostan EMOTIONAL COMPONENT OF THE WORD MEANING MANIFESTATION IN CHILDREN ASSOCIATIONS
Abstract
The article is devoted to age change of word identifying way on the base of feelings, emotions and evaluation. Association experiments were held in Russian, Tatar and Bashkir languages in 4 different age groups from 4 to17. The materials' analysis showed growth of this word identifying way with the increase of years. Qualitative and quantitative changes of the word identifying way are observed. Word recognition and access to its meaning go through emotional and sensory canals and do not depend on language.
Keywords: emotional and evaluative component of the word, the word meaning, association experiment.
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The human language is interfused with feelings. Emotions as a form of cognition and reflection of reality are connected with human needs and are the basis of the motives for his work. Human’s emotions and feelings are not aware by him and are not amenable to direct observation completely. In our research, we faced the responses, in which the feelings and emotions with different degree are manifested. The term "emotional yield of the word" first introduced by E. Myagkova means any manifestation of the individual’s relationship to what refers to the word perceived or used by him [2, p.37].
From the linguistic view, emotions are expressed through language, when the dictionary has a specific class of the so-called “emotional vocabulary” which is different from the rest of the neutral words for its value. Psycholinguistic view assumes that the emotional component is presented in the meaning of all the words of a language without exception, but it is very difficult to fix this component, as it "escapes" from the researcher for different reasons. The result of the constant "creating" the word meaning is more or less permanent and immediate elements in the structure of the word meaning that make the process of describing emotional component even more complicated.
According to A. Zalevskaya, vocabulary units are impossible without the emotional and evaluative context, and the word’s ability to save link with different sensitive characteristics denies the validity of the popular view that semantic units are some abstract entity, absolutely deprived of emotional and evaluative nuances which appear in some mysterious way from nowhere due to the context, situation, etc. [8, p. 8].
Today it is an uncontested fact that cognitive and emotional processes are inseparable from each other. As S. Rubinshtein noted, the word is included in a variety of psychical processes where emotional and intellectual are inseparable, as human emotions represent the unity of emotional and intellectual, as well as cognitive processes usually form a unity of intellectual and emotional [5, p. 141].
S. Rubinshtein’s view is shared by A. Zalevskaya, believing that the word, functioning as a way to access a human single information thesaurus, is included in a variety of psychical processes in which emotional and intellectual are inseparable [9].
L. Vygotskyi thinks that the isolation of thought from affect makes impossible the explanation of thinking, because the deterministic analysis of thinking supposes opening the driving motives of thought, needs and interests, motives and tendencies that direct the movement of thought in one or another way [7,
p.14].
Connecting emotions and language, A. Leontiev notes that emotions can be generalized in communication; a person has not only individual emotional experience, but also an emotional experience that he had acquired in the process of communication of emotions [1, p.260]. Explaining his point of view, the author points to a distinct ideational nature of emotions, that is the ability to anticipate situations and events, which have not come yet, and appear with representing the past or imaginary situations. The emotions’ most important feature is their ability to generalize and communicate; therefore, the human’s emotional experience is much more than his individual experience of feelings; it is also formed as a result of emotional empathy while communicating with other people and, in particular, by means of art. The scientist says that expressing emotions acquires the features of socially formed and historically changeable “emotional language”, as numerous ethnographic descriptions and such facts as, for example, facial gesture poverty that congenitally blind people have
[1, p. 266].
In S. Rubinshtein’s research we also find confirmation of the emotions’ nature duality, forming during human activity directed at satisfying his needs; thus, appearing in the human activity, emotions and needs experienced in the form of emotions, are also the motivation for activity [6, p. 247].
E. Myagkova considers emotional component of the word to be inherent part of the psychological structure of the word meaning. The peculiarity of the emotional component as a unit of the lexicon the author traces in the complex of feelings associated with the word that reflects a compound system of human’s
relations to the object of the external/internal world and to himself. According to the researcher, the main features of the emotional component of the word meaning will be its integrity, different level of components’ coherence and social and ethno-cultural indirectness, as well as individual peculiarity of the information representation. Thus, every word imbibes a whole complex of feelings connected with it and involved in the process of word meaning formation [3, p.92-93]. Besides, the word can capture the variety of the supporting elements and strategies that provide access to the linguistic and encyclopedic knowledge and subjective experience stored in the human’s memory.
To study age dynamics of the word meaning identification strategies we carried out free association experiments in Tatar and Bashkir languages in four different age groups of children: the preschool age (4-6 years), the primary school age (7-10 years), the secondary school age (11-14 years) and the senior school age (1517 years); analyzed and compared the materials of association experiments with the Russian children of the same age groups, carried out by T. Rogozhnikova [7, p.101]. It should be noted that the differentiation of the identification strategies of the word meaning is relative, since they are closely interrelated and often combine each other.
The analysis of experimental material showed that, the number of responses identifying the word meaning based on emotional and evaluative experience grew with age, and in some cases even prevailed among all the identification ways in all three studied languages. The Tatar word-incentive i^HP(GROUND) served as an example. In the preschool age, the Tatar subjects identified the word meaning, based on the following emotional experience: суык (cold), зур (large), тугэрж (round), кара (black ), матур (beautiful), тигез (smooth). The percentage of responses with this way of identification was in the pre-school age only 7% of 100%.
In the primary school age the following responses appeared: чиста (clean), кара (black), туган (native), щуеш (wet ), чэчкэлэр матур (flowers are
beautiful), матур (beautiful), пычрак (dirty), зур (large), туган ил (native country), яшел (green), оло (large) and others. The number of responses increased from 7% to 37%.
In the secondary school age the following words were added to the above responses:
уцдырышлы (rich pasture),
туган як (native land),
эйбэт (good),
йомры (round),
тYгэрэк (globe-shaped),
йомошак (soft),
кжре (curve),
щан иясе (soul),
мин (I) - 40% of the responses.
In the senior school age we had the largest number of responses identifying the word meaning based on emotional and evaluative experience - 58% of all the responses: кара (black), тYгэрж (round), йомры (round), зур (large), оло (big),
туган як (Motherland), каты (firm),
туган щир (native land),
комлы (sandy),
эйбэт (good),
туган ил (native country),
Яркей (Yarkeevo-village), йэшел (green), йомшак (soft), уцдырышлы (rich pasture), матур (beautiful), яраткан (my love), сафлык (purity), ашламалы (fertilized), ярату (to love).
Moreover, starting from the primary school age the identification of the word meaning based on emotional and
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RUSSIAN LINGUISTIC BULLETIN 2 (2) 2015
evaluative experience became the dominant way of acknowledging the meaning of the word ^BP(GROUND).
In the Bashkir language, we took the word-incentive КЕШЕ (MAN) as an example. In the pre-school age, the number of responses received on the word with the way of the word meaning identification based on emotional and evaluative experience amounted to 30% of 100%. The following responses demonstrate emotional and evaluative coloring: зур (adult), оло (adult), матур (beautiful), якшы (good), hэйбэт (well), дуд (friend), дудтар (friends), йэн эйэhе (soul), робот (robot), надар (bad),
ысын кеше (realperson (man)),
Аллах 63Hdohe (God's creature), куп (a lot), акыллы (clever),
бэхет барыЛынала (happiness to all people).
In the primary school age the percentage of responses remained the same - 30%, however, the responses became more abstract and generalized: hэйбэт (good), якшы (good), насар (bad),
матур (handsome, beautiful), сибэр (beautiful), тере йэн (human being), акыллы (smart), йэн эйэсе (soul), ярдам (aid), личность (personality), бэхетле (happy), ярата (he/she loves), кеше инде (people too), тырыш (diligent), белемле (educated).
In the secondary school age emotional and evaluative responses increased to 56%, having changed not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively:
hэйбэт (good),
якшы (good),
матур (beautiful),
насар (bad),
яман (bad),
йэн эйэhе (soul),
ят кеше (stranger),
изгеле (holy, kind),
бэхетле кеше (happy person),
хврмэт (respect),
узебеззен кеше (our person),
тврлвсэ (different),
бвтэhелэ hэр береhенэн айырыла (all differ from each other),
личность (personality), тизкэре (stubborn), гражданин (citizen), квслв (strong), куп (a lot),
ышаныЛыц (hard to believe),
кунелле (funny, jolly),
яраткан (loved one),
просто кеше (just a person),
зллз купме кеше (very many people),
тыныс (calm),
бай (rich),
хужа (host),
яратырга (to love),
тере (alive),
тырыш (careful).
The remarkable thing is that the way of the word meaning identification based on emotional and evaluative experience was the dominant way of the identification in the secondary and senior school ages. In the senior school age responses to the word КЕШЕ (MAN) amounted to 50% and were represented by the following words:
яцшы (good), hэйбэт (good),
hэйбэтлец (some good, something good), матур (beautiful), шзхес (personality), йэн (soul),
бэхетле цеше (happy man), цешелецле (humane), насар (bad),
яцын цешелзр (hostages to fortune), гумер (life),
hайуандар да аламарацтары була (there are people, who even worse than animals),
кзшене цешелецле итеп цуреу (to see human being in the man),
hэйбэт зшлзр зшлзу (to do some good deeds),
hэйбэт цеше - йзмгизт (good man is the society),
усал (angry),
унган (hard-working),
берззн-бер (the only one),
оло бер шзхес (a great personality),
йзш (young),
югары белемле (clever / those, who know much),
тере (alive),
зиян (harm, damage),
хисле (emotional).
Thus, the examples given above clearly illustrate psycholinguistic concept of A. Zalevskaya, considering the identification of the word meaning as a complete set of processes running in human’s verbal and cogitative activity, the product of which is the subjective knowledge experience linked with the word in a human’s unified information base, taking into account the emotional and evaluative nuances in the interaction of the conscious and the unconscious, verbalized and beyond verbalization.
References
1. Leontiev A.N. Needs, motives and emotions // Psychology of emotions. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2004. - P. 257-267.
2. Myagkova E.U. Emotional yield of the word: the experience of psycholinguistic research: Monograph. - Voronezh: Voronezh State University, 1990. - 110 p.
3. Myagkova E.U. Emotional component of the word meaning / E.U. Myagkova. - Kursk: Kursk State Pedagogical University,
2000. - 110 p.
4. Rogozhnikova T. M. Spiral model of the child’s word meaning development // Psycholinguistic problems of semantics and text comprehension: Collection of research papers - Kalinin: Kalinin State University, 1986. - P.100-105.
5. Rubinshtein S.L. The principles of general psychology.- St. Petersburg: Peter, 1989. - 720 p.
6. Rubinshtein S.L. Emotions // Psychology of emotions. — St. Petersburg: Peter, 2004. - P. 244-256.
7. Vygotskyi L.S. Human development psychology / L.S. Vygotskyi. - Moscow: Smysl; Eksmo, 2004. - 113 p.
8. Zalevskaya A.A. Peculiarity of units and means of person’s lexis // Psychological research of the word meaning and text comprehension. - Kalinin: Kalinin State University, 1988. - P. 5-15.
9. Zalevskaya A.A. The word in human’s lexis: psychological research / A.A. Zalevskaya. - Voronezh: Voronezh State University, 1990. - 206 p.
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