Concept HEALTH in linguistic consciousness of 8-11-year-old children

Abstract

The study is devoted to the specifics of the semantic features of the concept of HEALTH in the linguistic consciousness of children. The purpose of the study is to understand how the concept of HEALTH is structured in the language awareness of younger schoolchildren between the ages of 8 and 11. The novelty of this work lies in its linguistic approach to understanding the concept of HEALTH as perceived by younger schoolchildren. The data of the associative experiment are correlated with the results of the analysis of dictionary and encyclopedic definitions, proverbs and sayings, as well as with the data of the lexical compatibility of the word "health". The results showed that encyclopedic definitions remove responsibility from the individual for maintaining their own health, since this condition depends on a number of external factors, and not on the person himself. In proverbs and sayings, health is not a process or a condition, but a valuable object that exists in constant dichotomy with disease. According to the analysis of lexical compatibility, health is seen as a person with its own will, as well as a valuable asset that the owner is responsible for preserving. In the worldview of children, the notion of health has more in common with the simple and intuitive worldview captured in proverbs and everyday language than with the more precise definitions found in dictionaries.