I.R. Peretyatko1, M.V. Trichik2
1student, A. Baitursinov Kostanay State University A.Baitursinov, Kostanay, Kazakhstan, e-mail:
ilona_peretyatko@mail.ru
2Ph.D, A. Baitursinov Kostanay State University A. Baitursinov, Kostanay, Kazakhstan, e-mail: m.trichik@mail.ru
PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH ON GENDER PECULIARITIES OF
PERCEPTION OF THE WORD “FEMINIST”
Aim of this article is to research gender peculiarities of perception of the word “feminist”. Free associative experiment is applied for investigation. For conducting of the experiment 50 male- and 50 female participants, students of European higher education institutions in the age group 18 to 25 are chosen.
To achieve the aim of the investigation we identify males’ and females’ mental lexicon, classify words-reactions into thematic groups, consider associative field of the word “feminist” and recognize words common for mental lexicon of both men and women and unique words.
The results received and described in the article play significant role in subsequent psycholinguistic study of the perception process.
Key words: psycholinguistics, perception, associative experiment, gender, mental lexicon.
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays in the sphere of the research there is a tendency to integration of disciplines since this scientific approach makes it possible to clarify many unanswered questions within a specific research field and to consider the object of study more deeply, in a multidimensional perspective.
One of such integrated science is psycholinguistics.
Psycholinguistics is a branch of cognitive science in which language comprehension, language production and language acquisition are studied. It tries to explain the ways in which language is represented and is processed in the brain [1].
One of the problems studied in the field of psycholinguistics is the process of perception of the text. However, the problem of gender peculiarities of text perception is not fully considered. That is why we have decided to study this issue and to identify similarities and differences between
men’s and women’s processes of perception.
Processes of production and perception inextricably linked with mental lexicon of individual. The mental lexicon is a mental dictionary that contains information regarding a word’s meaning, pronunciation, syntactic characteristics, and so on. It is words that we store in our cognitive system throughout our life experience and that we access for comprehending spoken or written language, or texts [2]. Therefore, the study of mental vocabulary is an integral part of our research of gender peculiarities of the process of perception.
One of the most common social phenomenon of recent times, which is widely covered by mass media, is the feminist movementreferring to a series of political campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women’s suffrage, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. That is why the word “feminist”, which is relevant for today’s time, was chosen for the investigation.
Goal of the research is to analyze gender peculiarities of perception of the word “feminist”. In accordance with the aim we have the following objectives:
1) to conduct free associative experiment;
2) using the results of the experiment to identify mental lexicon of men and women;
3) to classify words-reactions into semantic groups;
3) to characterize associative field of the word “feminist” identifying its core (the most frequent reactions) and periphery (single reactions);
4) to recognize words common for mental lexicon of both men and women and unique words.
MAIN PART
Method of the research is associative experiment.
For investigation of gender peculiarities of the process of perception, the word “feminist” was chosen since this term is rather relevant for 21st century. The evidence of that is the widespread usage of the word in magazines’ articles. For instance:
“I am a feminist, and I think all of us should be” (ELLE USA September 2019 p.86).
“She doesn’t describe herself as a feminist, but she echoed the movement she pointed out that a woman’s election is not its own success” (GLAMOUR USA September 2018 p.122).
“From the very first episode, Jessy prove herself as a smart, staunch feminist who called out unfair societal norms and was quick to confront her ridiculous boyfriend” (GLAMOUR USA October 2018 p.24).
“My mother was involved in the women’s movement. In third or fourth grade, I remember one of the boys saying, “You’re such a feminist”.” (ELLE USA May 2019 p.164),
“You can be strong, you can be a feminist, you can be an incredibly hardworking woman-and still like pretty!” (GLAMOUR USA May 2018 p.54).
Using of associative experiment in order to study the gender peculiarities of the text perception is connected with the fact that the experimental situation allows identifying how the objects and phenomena of the external world are reflected in the mind of the individual. Associative technique fixes the «momentary» perception of the stimulus, provides an opportunity to explore the individual consciousness and is characterized by simplicity and convenience of application, possibility of attraction of a large number of examinees at the same time [3].
For conducting the experiment we have chosen free associative technique — the respondent is asked to write the first word or word-combination that comes to his/her mind.
For the experiment 100 participants have been chosen: 50 are men, 50 are women. Target audience is students of European higher education institutions in the age group 18 to 25.
Analysis of the results received
Females’ reactions
The most widespread words — associations of female respondents are woman (11 reactions), equality (5 reactions), equal rights (2 reactions), girl’s power (2 reactions). Therefore, they form the core of the word-stimuli.
Image of feminist is associated predominantly with positive qualities, such as strong (2), strength, good (2), girl’s power (2), assertive, and only one characteristic is negative – aggressive.
Some reactions are connected with image of feminist. For example, female respondents view feminist as woman (11 times), person who against inequality (2 times), female, girl, strong woman, my friend.
For many women the word “feminist” evokes associations with words belonging to the group society: Movement (2), women’s movement, empower, equality (4 reactions), pro-women’s equality, equal rights. Association misogyny is deserves attention. It is neologism describingfeelings of hating women, or the belief that men are much better than women.
Regarding personal relations to the word-stimuli, there are such answers as: yes (8 reactions), you should be, no.
Place: America and details of appearance: armpits hair.
Male’s reactions
Core of the word “feminist” is represented by the wordswomen (6 words) andequality (5 words), warrior (2 reactions). Big part of answers indicates personal reaction to feminist and the movement: no (7 words) and yes (4 words) and right thing.
According to the results of the experiment, men associates image of feminist with the following qualities: angry, ridiculous, rude, female supportive, entitled, hype, one perspective, exaggerated, too much saturated, current, phenomenal
Next group we want to distinguish is reactions connected with images. Thus, men associates feminist with woman, girl, women defending their rights, warrior (2 reactions), gay and leftists.In addition, there are names of concrete people among answers, specifically Emma Watson and Simone de Beauvoir. Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was a French writer, existentialist philosopher and political activist. She had a significant influence on both eminist existentialism and feminist theory. Emma Watson is British actress who supports women’s right actively –for example, she launched the UN Women campaign “HeForShe”, which calls for men to advocate for gender equality.
Another group of word-reactions, connected with society: prejudice against men, movement, protest, revolt empowerment, equality (5 reactions) and cancer Place: Europe
Table 1
Core of the word “feminist”
Males’ reactions
Words
Words
Word-
Word-combinations
combinations
12%
Statements
Statements
Table 2
Characteristics of the reactions: Grammatical features
Females
0%
positive connotation negative connotation neutral
connotation
4%
Males
negative connotation positive connotation neutral
Table 3
Characteristics of the reactions: Types of connotations
CONCLUSION
Applying an associative experiment, we have considered mental lexicon of males and females and have identified gender peculiarities of the perception of the word “feminist”.
The associative field of the reactions obtained during the experiment is rich in content, diverse in semantics and grammatical features. Word reactions in the answers of informants prevail over word combinations.
Words-reactions of male respondents can be classified into following groups: Image, qualities, social movement and place; female associations are divided into groups: Image, qualities, social movement, place and details of personal appearance.
The most frequent associations in both groups of respondents are woman and equality.
Therefore, they belong to the core of the word “feminist”.
The peripheral zones of the word-stimuli according to the male and female associations are not the same. Thus, analyzing males’ reactions we can notice – words with negative semantic meaning (for instance, rude, aggressive, angry, ridiculous, hype, one perspective) prevail over positive ones. Female reactions, on the contrary, mostly consist of words with positive and neutral semantic meaning, while only one reaction to the word-stimuli is negative.
Moreover, quantity of words common for mental lexicon of both men and women is extremely small: woman, girl, equality, movement, while other words-reactions belong to unique.
Based on the above information, we can summarize –the perception of the word “feminist” by male and female respondents differs considerably.
REFERENCES
1 Barnwal, Tiwary. Using Psycholinguistic Features for the Classification of Comprehenders from Summary Speech Transcripts/ Intelligent Human Computer Interaction2017.
2 Jackendoff, Ray. Foundations of language: Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. – Oxford University Press. – 2002.
3 Выговская, Д.Г. Ассоциативный эксперимент как один из методов в психолингвистике//Наука ЮУрГУ: материалы 66-й научной конференции секции социальногуманитарных наук. – 2014.
И.Р. Перетятко1, М.В. Тричик2
«Феминист» сөзін қабылдауың гендерлік ерекшеліктерін психолингвистикалық тұрғыдан зерттеу»
1,2А.Байтұрсынов атындағы Қостанай мемлекеттік университеті, Қостанай қ., Қазақстан
Мақаланың мақсаты – «феминист» сөзін қабылдаудың гендерлік ерекшеліктерін зерттеу. Зерттеу үшін еркін ассоциативті эксперименті таңдалды. Эксперимент қатысушылары – 18-25 жас аралығындағы Еуропаның жоғары оқу орындарының студенттері, 50 әйел және 50 ер адам.
Зерттеудің мақсатына жету үшін біз ерлер мен әйелдердің ментальды лексиконын анықтаймыз, тақырыптық топтар бойынша сөз-реакцияларды жіктейміз, «феминист» сөзінің ассоциативті өрісін қарастырамыз және ерлер мен әйелдердің ментальды лексиконына ортақ сөздерді, сондай-ақ бірегей сөздерді айқындаймыз.
Мақаладағы алынған және сипатталған нәтижелер қабылдау процесін одан әрі психлингвистикалық тұрғыдан зерттеуде маңызды рөл атқарады.
И.Р. Перетятко1, М.В. Тричик2
Психолингвистическое исследование гендерных особенностей восприятия слова «феминист»
1,2Костанайский государственный университет им.А. Байтурсынова,
г.Костанай, Республика Казахстан
Цель статьи – изучение гендерных особенностей восприятия слова «феминист». Для исследования был выбран свободный ассоциативный эксперимент. Участники эксперимента – 50 женщин и 50 мужчин, студенты Европейских высших учебных заведений, в возрастной группе 18-25 лет.
Для достижения цели исследования мы определяем ментальный лексикон мужчин и женщин, классифицируем слова-реакции по тематическим группам, рассматриваем ассоциативное поле слова «феминист» и выявляем слова, общие для ментального лексикона мужчин и женщин, а также уникальные слова.
Полученные и описанные в статье результаты играют важную роль в дальнейшем психолингвистическом изучении процесса восприятия.