Playfulness as a Relevant Lexeme in the Bilingual Linguistic Consciousness of Ukrainian People

Abstract

The article describes the results of the free association experiment with the stimulus word “playfulness”. The total number of respondents amounted to 3,300 people. The analysis of the associations convincingly proved that in terms of its functioning “playfulness” is a relevant lexeme in the bilingual linguistic consciousness of Ukrainian people. The further step of the research was aimed at revealing common and specific features of respondents representing different “profession types”: “person-nature”, “person-person”, “person-sign systems”, “person-technology”, “person-artistic image”. The sample involved 500 people, with 100 people for each “profession type”, men and women being equally represented. The overall number of reactions amounted to 2,452 (including word combinations and sentences (88)), with 270 occurring more than once, and 503 singular reactions. The analysis of the most frequent reactions revealed certain common features in the verbal behavior of the respondents, reflected in the lexemes “merry-making” (96(3.915)), “delight” (80(3.262)), “flirting” (79(3.221)), “laughter” (70(2.855)), “champagne” (49(1.998)), “a young girl” (46(1.876)), “children” (43(1.754)), “mood” (42(1.713)), “coquetry” (37(1.509)), “happiness” (31(1.264)), “smile” (30 (1.223%)). The analysis of singular reactions revealed the impact of professional activity on the understanding of playfulness. The procedures of sememic attribution and semic interpretation made it possible to outline the meanings of the lexeme “playfulness” and formulate their definitions as a coherent enumeration of the identified semantic components.

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