Experiment as an Integral Part of the Methodology of Comparative Research

Abstract

The author offers an associative experiment as an effective means for identifying the psychologically relevant content of the word and its specificity in various languages. The comparative study of lexical units is usually based on explanatory dictionaries, which cannot fix the dynamics of language units connected to the oral activity of individuals. The author theoretically justifies the identification of a set of features of association, which make it possible to effectively compare the structure and content of associative fields of different words and languages. It is highlighted in the article that it is important to interpret the relation between stimulus and reaction, rather than the content of a particular associate. It allows us to offer fundamentally different parameters for creating associative fields of compared languages. The field is based now only on frequency of associates. The "stimulus – reaction" relation that is regarded as a verbal action makes it possible to actualize the motive of the verbal action in the semantics of associates. This allows us to clarify methods of identifying the personal meaning represented by the associate and to find out dominant features of the association that may become the basis for determining the semantic difference between meanings. The author sets parameters by which one can estimate how the meaning of a word of the compared languages changes. The parameters help to define: a decrease in the number of actualized semantic signs in different zones of the associative field; reduction of the diversity of reactions and the number of single reactions in the associative fields; the prevalence of the number of conceptual and operational reactions over emotionally evaluative reactions and reactions-conceptions; a decrease in the number of metaphorical and nationally specific or culturally significant reactions; changing of the positive connotation of a lexeme to neutral and negative; the number of rejections (in percentage correlation with the total set of associates).