CONCEPTS FOR DESIGNATING CHARACTER TRAITS IN UKRAINIAN LINGUISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS: PSYCHOSEMANTIC MODELING OF THE CONCEPTUAL FIELD

Abstract

The study of concepts as a reflection of the features of linguistic consciousness is an important element of creating a complete picture of the national character. The conducted analysis demonstrates that scientists most often pay attention to concepts for the indication of socio-cultural phenomena, worldview phenomena, emotional states, etc. At the same time, there are almost no materials that would highlight concepts for character traits. The purpose of the article is to find out the features of concepts for character traits in the Ukrainian linguistic consciousness using psychosemantic modeling of the conceptual field. For this purpose, three main tasks are solved: 1) grouping of associative reactions to stimulus words to denote character traits by belonging to the nuclear, perinuclear, and peripheral zones; 2) distribution of reaction words by levels of psychosemantic modeling of the conceptual field; 3) analysis of the conceptual field of selected concepts. The subject of the research is psychosemantic modeling of the conceptual field of concepts for character traits, the object of the research is concepts for character traits in the Ukrainian linguistic consciousness (for example, the concepts "Carelessness", "Dignity", "Pride", "Kindness", "Laziness", "Mercy", "Courage", "Cunning", "Generosity"). The conducted research made it possible to reach the conclusions: the following is characteristic of the Ukrainian linguistic consciousness: 1) the concepts "Dignity", "Kindness", "Mercy", "Courage", "Generosity" have a positive semantic load; the concepts "Carelessness" and "Pride" are perceived ambiguously, depending on the context; the concepts "Laziness" and "Cunning" are mostly characterized by a negative semantic load; 2) the concept "Cunning" is associated mainly with a folklore character – a fox, the rest of the analyzed concepts are compared with a person; 3) the concept of "Mercy" has a tangible religious component, while other conceptual fields contain words to denote secular realities; 4) in most cases, concepts are correlated with corresponding synonymous concepts, to a lesser extent – with carriers of character traits.