WORD CONNOTATION AS A COMPONENT OF THE LANGUAGE CONCEPT SYSTEM

Perm State University

Relations between the vocabulary and the system of concepts

One concept – several lexemes: «death» – смерть, кончина, похороны…

One lexeme – several concepts: зеленый – «color», «immaturity»… бельчонок, ребёнок… – «cub»

бельчонок – «animal»

ребёнок – «human being»

Subject of conceptualization

Outer space Language

(including lexical connotation)

Components of connotation

Intralingual: diachronic etymological (motivational)

Extralingual: stylistic social idiolectal psycological (emotional, estimative) cultural

Connotation concepts - metalinguistic conceptual areas,

describing stilistic and social differentiation of language

Standard Colloquial speech Low colloquial speech Dialect Slang Scientific style Journalistic style …

Experiment

Informants (n = 60): students of 1, 3 and 4th years

Material – lexical items: • colloquial• low colloquial• slang

Dictionaries

Ermakova О.P., Zemskaja Е.А., Rozina R.I.  Slova, s kotorymi my vse vstrechalis: tolkovyj slovar russkogo obschego zhargona. М., 1999.

Mokienko V.М., Nikitina Т.G. Bolshoj slovar russkogo zhargona. SPb., 2000.

Ozhegov S.I. Slovar russkogo jazyka. М., 1988. Maksimov B.B.  Filtruj bazar: slovar molodezhnogo

zhargona g. Magnitogorska. Magnitogorsk, 2002. Slovar sovremennogo russkogo goroda / pod. red.

B.I. Osipova. М., 2003.

Dictionaries data about words, students listed as colloquial, low colloquial and slang, %

Words connotation according

dictionaries

Words of students connotation areas

colloquial low colloquial slang

Low colloquial 5,9 10,3 2,0

Slang 51,2 23,5 59,7

Colloquial 7,8 10,7 1,7

Local 0,5 7,4 0,4

Standard 9,3 13,2 0,2Different attribution 4,9 6,4 6,4Absent in dictionaries 20,5 28,5 29,5

Words with colloquial connotation (n = 205)

slang (51,2%): бабло ‘money’, абзац ‘we've had it’, ботан ‘diligent pupil or student’, универ ‘university’ etc.

standard (8,8%): буханка, беседа, еда etc.

low colloquial (5,9%): башка, морда, мысля, тетенька etc.

Words with low colloquial connotation (n = 281)

low colloquial (10,3%): больно ‘very’, айда ‘lets go’ etc.

slang (23,5%): мажорно ‘excellent’, обламывать ‘not to live up’ etc.

standard (12,5%): поганка ‘toadstool’, кулёк ‘mat-bag’, плясать ‘to dance’ etc.

colloquial (10,6%): болтать ‘to chat’, видно ‘it appears’ etc.

Words with slang connotation (n = 404)

slang (59,7%): беспонтовый ‘bad’, ваще ‘generally’, забубенить ‘to make something’ etc.

questionable attribution (40%): базарить ‘to speak’, обалдеть ‘to surprise’ etc.

absent in dictionaries (29%): падик ‘entrance hall’, компарашка ‘company’, задёр ‘one who mad of computer gaming’ etc.

Conclusion

The connotative concepts «colloquial», «low colloquial» and «slang» are interfused

Slang has more well-defined boundaries than colloquial and low colloquial speech