Nobility in the linguistic consciousness of Russians and Kazakhs

Abstract

Of special interest is two-fold nature of the “nobility” concept, which includes both a noble origin and a high standing in society, as well as moral qualities of a person, and the fact that there is not a single word in the Kazakh language that exactly corresponds to the Russian word “nobility.” The purpose of the study is to describe ways of conceptualizing nobility by speakers of different languages, modeling the associative field of the stimulus NOBILITY in the Russian and Kazakh languages, identifying similarities and differences in the conceptualization of nobility among representatives of the Russian and Kazakh cultures. The article presents the results of a psycholinguistic study, within the frame of which a mass associative experiment was conducted with groups of Russian and Kazakh respondents from the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan. The obtained associative data were distributed according to the frequency criterion, followed by modeling the associative field and its cognitive structure. The common and specific components identified in the associative meaning to the stimulus NOBILITY are due to differences in the structures of languages and the ethnic specificity of the Russian and Kazakh cultures. While comparing associative fields in the Russian and Kazakhs languages, the quantitative asymmetry of semantic zones and their associates is revealed. The most voluminous semantic zone in both languages is that of moral personal qualities. The results of the study can be effective in further exploring of the linguistic consciousness and ethnic specificity of different nations, and cross-cultural research.