Subject object actions result

Another method to describe cognitive associations connected with a word is to study the concept. Concept is “a discrete mental unit which reflects the object of real or imaginative world and is kept in the national memory of native speakers in the verbalized form” (A.P. Babushkin). The characteristics of concepts:

1. A concept has properties, possibly with some structure.

2. The structure encodes a statistical analysis of the properties the concept's members tend to have.

3. Membership in the concept is “a matter of satisfying a sufficient number of features, where some may be weighted more significantly than others”.

Example: the concept bird can be described using the following properties, among others: (1) bird: has feathers, lays eggs, flies, small, eats insects, sings, perch trees. An instance of a robin has all seven features. An instance of a chicken only has the first two: (2) a. robin: has feathers, lays eggs, flies, small, eats insects, sings, perch trees; b. chicken: has feathers, lays eggs. Thus, robins are more typical birds than chickens, although they are both in the extension of the concept bird.

Concepts are often viewed in terms of the “core – periphery” model. Thus, the core of the concept SUCCESS in the English language map is represented by components:

• result, happy outcome;

• accomplishment, attainment;

• fame, being known.

Peripheric layers of the given concept are the following ones:

• a high position in something;

• a lot of money;

• respect;

• to try to do (efforts);

• admiration;

• others: aim, purpose, wealth, social status, luck, something that people like, effect, to work in a satisfactory way, to intend, prosperity, advance, succession.