Bilingual Consciousness and its Peculiarities

• Main Author: Natalya V. Ufimtseva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2019-12-01
• Series: Polylinguality and Transcultural Practices
• Subjects: language consciousness; associative experiment; image of the world; bilingual; semantic Gestalt; associative field
• Online Access: http://journals.rudn.ru/polylinguality/article/viewFile/21323/17043

To describe bilingualism, the author employs the approach developed within the Moscow Psycholinguistic School, i.e. the researcher investigates the language consciousness contents (picture of the world) of a bilingual in the first and second languages, with the free associative experiment acting as a tool to access the picture. The associative field of each word-stimulus is regarded a semantic gestalt, where one can define semantic zones, filled differently due to the language the bilingual uses during the experiment. The investigator assumes the picture of the world of any native language speaker or culture bearer is systematized, the systematicity differs from culture to culture, as well as the knowledge systems associated with the equivalent words.