Modeling the associative-verbal Field of the Category "幸福 / xìngfú (happiness) in the Сhinese Language

The article is devoted to the study of the method of directed associative experiment as the main method of psycholinguistic research, which makes it possible to consider the associative meaning of a word as a specific state of an individual’s cognitive activity. The study was conducted within the framework of one of the leading areas of modern linguistics – cognitive linguistics, with the use of psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and linguocultural approaches to the analysis of the material. The relevance of the study is associated with recent trends in world and national politics, a change in the direction of relations between China and Russia, and the expansion of economic, diplomatic, and scientific contacts with speakers of Chinese and Russian languages. The purpose of this study is to model the associative-verbal field of the category 幸福 /xìngfú (happiness) in the Chinese language. The material for the study was the responses obtained from a conducted directed associative experiment, in which 200 Chinese-speaking participants aged 15 to 65 took part. The total number of responses obtained is 444 units. The study used the method of directed associative experiment, the method of classification, quantitative analysis, and semantic interpretation of associations. The method of interpreting associations, used in processing the results of our experiment, makes it possible to study not only individual responses but also semantic groups of responses, and thus more accurately model the content and structure of the associative-verbal field of the category 幸福 /xìngfú (happiness) in the Chinese language. An analysis of the Russian associative-verbal field was carried out against the background of the Chinese one, the structure of the field was determined, and the similarities and differences in the stereotypical perception of 幸福 /xìngfú (happiness) among Chinese informants were identified.