THE STRUCTURAL MODEL OF THE CONCEPT ‘FRIENDSHIP’ IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE UKRAINIANS

Abstract

The main results of the experimental research of the concept FRIENDSHIP in the Ukrainian language are given in the article. On the base of the received data, the concept’s model was built and the main cognitive signs were analyzed. The description of the structure of the concept is also proposed. The method of semantic and cognitive analysis of concepts was chosen. The latter was proposed and multiply used by Russian linguists Z. Popova and J. Sternin. The free, directed, receptive, and symbolic experimental techniques were used as main ones. The first stage of building the concept’s model is the description of its macrostructure. The found cognitive signs of the given concept are distributed according to its main structural components – image component, informational sense and interpretation field. Thus, the informational sense of the concept includes cognitive signs that characterize its essence and defining components. The interpretation field is usually very large and includes many cognitive signs, which characterize the attitude of the folk to the given concept and various encyclopedic knowledge about its features, functions, and they are usually gained from the individual’s experience. The phraseological zone of the interpretation field is analyzed separately. It describes the understanding of the concept by the folk’s consciousness mainly in historic perspective. The results of researching proverbs and sayings are included into the concept’s model. The structure of the concept’s model is build in a way of different fields and it depicts the hierarchy of separate cognitive signs in the structure. The division of separate cognitive sign in to the fields (nuclear, periphery) was made on the basis of their “brightness” (the quantity of association proposed during the experiments). It is worth noting that dictionaries give only small part of such sighs, which does not depict the whole structure of the concept. Proposed experimental research of the structure of a separate concept gives the opportunity to describe them more effectively.