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LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL ASPECTS OF ASSOCIATIVE
WORDS IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK LANGUAGES
Nuriddinova Madina Raim Qizi
The Uzbek State World Languages University Master Student
One of the fundamental mechanisms of memory is association. They can be
thought of as natural classifiers of the conceptual content of the language’s
vocabulary. Ideas and concepts that are available to a man's memory are linked. This
relationship is based
on a man’s past experience and, in the end, more or less
accurately reproduces an objectively existing relationship between real-world
phenomena.
People have distinguished association since Aristotle by similarity, contrast, and
contiguity. The concept of association by similarity is based on the fact that the
associated phenomena share some characteristics. It is the result of the generalization
of the conditioned connection, in which similar stimuli elicit similar responses. Closely
related to association by similarity is association by contrast, the origin of which is
explained by the presence of opposite features in phenomena. By contrast, the
physiological nature of the association is in the “Mutual induction of neural processes
occurs when strong stimuli... cause intense excitement at first, followed by successive
inhibition in the same regions of the cerebral cortex. As a result, in the future, one of the
contrasting stimuli may cause something that was previously caused by another
stimulus (contrast
with given one)” (For example, consider the antonym phenomenon:
grief
– joy, happiness – unhappiness, and so on.)
Figure 1. The sample of associative words in this module.
Also, according to the scientific background of associative words in Uzbek
language
, it is well known that changes in social life are first reflected in linguistics’
lexical layer. Recent scientific research in modern linguistics has revealed that a
representative of a nation’s worldview, customs, and even dreams are reflected in
his speech. As a result, the direct scientific observations of industry representatives
lead to new milestones. We will look at a component of the “Associative Dictionary
of the Uzbek Language”, which was published as a result of years of observations
and surveys conducted by D. Lutfullaeva, R. Davlatova, and B. Tadjibayev.
Special emphasis is placed in Uzbek linguistics on the study of language units
in relation to external factors such as linguistic consciousness and thinking, psyche,
gender, age, national and cultural views, and profession. The inclusion of the
category of “language personality” in the scientific paradigm of linguistics in the
twenty-first century has resulted in the incorporation of previously excluded but close
to linguistic concepts such as personality, mind, thinking, activity, behavior, and
situation.
The problem of language-culture interaction emerged in the middle of the last
century at the intersection of sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, linguistic country
studies, cultural studies
– cultural linguistics. Modern cultural linguistics’ primary
tasks are to reflect national consciousness in language, verbalize cultural objects
through language, and transmit valuable cultural categories through lexical meanings
of words.
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The most word association literature focuses on two basic organizing language
principles: syntagmatic (chain) and paradigmatic (choice) relations. Syntagmatic
associations are those that are linked by a phrase or a syntactic structure.
Paradigmatic associations, on the other hand, involve other words that could be used
in place of the target word. Previous research has shown that native speakers
respond paradigmatically to word association stimuli, whereas non-native speakers
respond syntagmatically (Coulthard et al., 2000: 27; Meara, 1982).
According to Leech’s theory, Associative words can be classified with 5 types
based on their meaning, for instance, there are connotative meaning, stylistic
meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, and collocative meaning.
Connotative meaning is the communicative value of an expression based on what is
referred to, which is greater than the above contents, which are purely conceptual.
For example, the conceptual meaning of the word “woman” has three characteristics.
“Inson, Erkak, Kishi” (+HUMAN, -MALE, ADULT)’ can be further defined as the
connotative meaning of “the nature of putative” of reference, caused by the views
received by the individual, group, or all members of society. Stylistic meaning is the
information that a piece of language conveys about the social context in which it is
used. It is meaning that emerges as a result of the use of language. Through some
dimensions and levels of language use, we can explain stylistic meaning. The
conceptual or connotative content of the words used is frequently used to convey
Affective meaning. McDonald's, for example, has the slogan “I’m Lovin’ It”. The word
“Lovin’ It” serves as evidence that this sentence accurately describes the writer’s and
reader’s feelings about the product. Leech (2003:29) defines communication as
“what is communicated through association with another sense of the same
expression or the meaning that arises in the case of multiple conceptual meanings
when one sense of word forms part of our response to another sense
”. It means that
the understanding and usage of one sense of a word influences the understanding
and usage of all other senses of the world. This is Reflected meaning. The
associations a word acquires as a result of the meanings of words that tend to occur
in its environment are referred to as Collocative meaning. Consider the words pretty
and handsome. Pretty and handsome share the meaning “good looking”, but they
can be distinguished by the nouns with which they are likely to co-occur or collocate:
Pretty: girl, boy, woman, flower, garden, color, etc.
Handsome: boy, man, car, overcoat, airliner, etc.
All associative words in meaning and culture are classified with these five types
in linguistics. And these are extremely important when creating associative
dictionaries. Associative dictionaries are valuable dictionaries because they provide
a broad understanding of linguistic peculiarities specific to actively used lexical units
in the given language; they are particularly useful for general linguistics as a science.
Furthermore, as previously stated, they convey information about the cognitive
knowledge, personal characteristics, social life, national-cultural dignities, social and
religious orientations, and so on of native speakers.
REFERENCES:
1. Karaulov
Y., i dr. (2002) Russkiy assotsiativniy slovar. Moskva: Izd. “AST-
Astrel”.
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2. Karaulov Y., Sorokin Y., Tarasov Y. (1994-1999) Russkiy assotsiativniy
slovar (ATRYa) / Kn. 1-6. Moskva:
3. Leech G. 1974. Semantics. New York, U.S.A.: Penguin.
4. McNeill D. (1966). A study of word association. Journal of Verbal Learning
and Verbal Behavior, 5, 548
–557.
5. Meara P.M. (1983). Word associations in a foreign language: A report on
the Birkbeck vocabulary project. Nottingham Linguistic Circular, 11, 29
–38.
