Scholarly record

THE CONCEPT ÇÀÊÎÍ/LIKUMS (LOW) IN THE LANGUAGE CONSCIOUSNESS OF RUSSIANS AND LATVIANS

E. Isajeva, A. Stankevica, E. Vasiljeva

Abstract

The present research is an attempt to analyze a fragment of the language consciousness of the modern youth of Latvia through the prism of the concept “law” in a contrastive aspect. The basic method of the research is a free associative experiment, which involved students whose native language was either Russian or Latvian. Language is one of the ways of forming concepts in the human consciousness. The language situation in Latvia is interesting in socio-political and linguocultural respects. The theory of E. T. Hall about high-context and low-context cultures is one of the components of the theoretical framework of the research. At the present stage, the general cultural model of Latvia can be defined as a model of a dual structure, in which there are preserved pronounced characteristics of high-context culture, and, at the same time, some features of low-context culture are starting to manifest themselves. This can be explained be a greater intercultural communication with the Northeastern Region. The perception of the concept “law” and the changes, which are taking place in the perception, demonstrate the specificity of this model. The analysis of the associative field of the concept “law” allowed to state some gender stereotypes in the language consciousness of the individuals tested. Most of the associates of the Russians and the Latvians differ greatly among different respondents and have additional personal component. In total, during the experiment there were revealed 6 directions of response by which it is possible to consider the conceptual convergences and divergences in the Latvian and the Russian language consciousnesses; it was reflected in four formulas.

Publication details

Back to publication list