Prestige as indicator of values in linguistic consciousness

The paper deals with a regulative concept “prestige” treated as a reputational indicator of an object reflecting its social status assessment. The material of the study comprises the data taken from explanatory dictionaries, National corpus of the Russian language, associative dictionary and the texts given in the Internet. Methods of semantic and interpretative analysis have been used. We argue that exemplifications of prestige describe types of activity (work and studies), habitation place, participation in certain competitions, free time spending and kinds of property. Prestige is closely connected with a personality type of a recognizable representative of a social group. Indicators of prestige are shown as emblematic signs. Prestige is opposed to its antipode (anti-prestige), is dynamic in time and is correlated with emotional evaluation expressed as pride or shame.