Associative Potential of Lexemes – Designations of Emotions

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to determine and present the associative potential of words denoting emotions. The object of the study is the associative fields of stimulus words joy and hate. The empirical material was obtained as a result of two stages of the trend psycholinguistic research (2002 and 2020), the centre of which was a free associative experiment, carried out among the teenagers. When comparing the core of associative fields that were modelled employing the material of two experiments, cultural stereotypes were identified. They are assimilated in the process of adolescent socialization. An analysis of various reactions (nuclear, low-frequency and single) in associative fields, identifying the level of association stereotyping led to the conclusion that this indicator was reduced in the associative fields of the experiment conducted in 2020. A deduction is made about the factors that influence the dynamics of the associative potential of stimuli, which denote emotions. These include an increase in the number of different reactions in associative fields due to single associations, the diversity of their meanings and relations with the stimulus word, the combination of communicative tactics of the subjects in experimental conditions. The material and outcomes of the trend research conducted in the teenage audience expand the idea of the associative potential of emotion designation and can also be useful for solving various didactic and psychological problems.