Associative Dictionary Entry as a Format of Knowledge

Bachelor’s graduate qualification work is devoted to the format of knowledge reflected in an associative dictionary entry. As a part of the research we carried a free associative experiment. The participants had a word stimulus and should give their reactions on it. Among the respondents were teachers of Russian and Literature from Nizhniy Novgorod, teachers of Russian from Moldova and 9–11 year pupils. Associative dictionary entries Америка, Молдова, Россия, постсоветский, советский, лингвист, филолог, я were created on the basis of the associative experiment results. Pairs “stimulus – reaction” are cognemes, units of knowledge, for each of which we determined five parameters of a figure of knowledge: language sign, meaning, way of meaning formation, branch of knowledge and its function. These parameters organize a model of how the consciousness works – cognizer. Thereafter we received a table with cognemes for each associative entry. We developed a program by means of Python 3.2 calculating absolute and relative frequencies of every way of meaning formation and branch of knowledge. Applying this program to the tables of cognemes helped to describe the received data. The interpretation of a free associative experiment results gives an opportunity to research a language in the format, in which it exists in memory. The format of knowledge of an associative dictionary entry is various in terms of both structure and content: elementary concepts are included in complex structures, which are interrelated.