Associative Experiment on the Material of Abstractness / Concreteness Ratings: a Comparative Aspect

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Abstract

An important parameter in the studies of associative fields is the characterization of words by concreteness and Abstractness. In a recently published article we analyzed associations to 100 Abstract and concrete stimuli. The associations were selected from the Russian associative dictionary of Yu.N. Karaulov (hereinafter referred to as RAS), which was created during the period from 1988 to 1990. It should be noted that, at the moment, Yu.N. Karaulov’s dictionary is the only nonregional associative thesaurus of the Russian language with a voluminous vocabulary of stimuli. There is a question: has the nature and structure of associative fields changed over more than 30 years? This article compares associations from the Russian Associative Dictionary with associations that were obtained in the new experiment. The list of stimuli included the same 100 Abstract and concrete words on the basis of which association analysis was performed in the work. The experiment described in this work makes it possible determine whether there are any systemic changes in associations, and, since the stimuli are Abstract and concrete substantives, to analyze possible changes in the perception features of nouns which refer to two lexico-grammatical groups.The paper analyzes quantitative indicators of associations on the basis of statistical methods and considers the peculiarities of associations in terms of their semantic content and the type of connection with the word stimulus. For a detailed analysis all associations are classified into groups, the comparison of the data obtained in the experiment with the data of Yu.N. Karaulov’s dictionary is carried out on the basis of the created classification. The analysis reveals a number of important changes in the structure of associative series, which indicate not only the development of new linguistic world image, but also some transformations in the system of mental lexicon of native speakers. The article also proves the tendency to preservation of the difference between associations to Abstract and concrete nouns, which confirms the theory of context accessibility in dynamics.

About the authors

Yuliya A. Volskaya

Kazan (Volga region) Federal University

Author for correspondence.
Email: kovaleva95julia@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8276-5864
SPIN-code: 7085-6726
Scopus Author ID: 57204786678

PhD in Philology, Assistant at the Department of Applied and Experimental Linguistics, Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication

18, Kremlevskaya St., Kazan, Russian Federation, 420008

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Supplementary files

Supplementary Files
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1. Fig. 1. Quantile plots of the numbers of associations for Abstract (left) and concrete (right) words

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