Basic cognitive features of the concept of SPORT in the minds of native speakers of modern Russian

Ershova Irina PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Department of Russian Language Instruction in Other Language Media, National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603000, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Bolshaya Pokrovskaya str., 37, office 223 imilashevskaya@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Sport is an important component of an individual's life and the existence of society as a whole. The expression national sports, illustrating an article with the heading unit sport in the explanatory dictionary of S. I. Ozhegov ^{[1, p. 746]}, shows that sport acts as a factor that unites people living in the territory of one country, thanks to which popular, beloved by all "national" sports appear. Sport contributes to the internationalization of human society, as evidenced by the catch phrase "Oh sport! You are the World!" (the title of the ninth and last chapter of the same name from the "Ode to Sport" written by Pierre de Coubertin in 1912). These facts indicate the high social significance of the concept of SPORT and make its study relevant in linguistics.

Russian Russian linguistics has a number of studies covering the formation and development of the concept of SPORT in the Russian conceptual sphere ^[2], the history of its verbalization in the Russian language ^[3], as well as devoted to identifying the metaphorical potential of this concept ^{[4; 5]}. However, the issues of linguistic objectification and speech representation of the concept of SPORT, its semantic content in the minds of native speakers of modern Russian did not receive detailed study in them, which led to the novelty of our research.

The main means of objectification of a concept in a language is its name — the key lexeme nominating the concept. The lexeme sport is a borrowed noun (internationalism) with an abstract meaning. According to the Word-formation dictionary of A. N. Tikhonov, it is the top of the word-formation nest, which includes 40 derivative words, including complex adjectives such as sports-mass, educational-sports and complex nouns such as sports equipment ^{[6, pp. 155-156]}, which indicates a sufficient degree of assimilation of the lexeme in the Russian language. In the Small Academic Dictionary (MAS), the main meaning of the polysemant sport is defined as follows: "Physical exercises (gymnastics, games, wrestling, tourism, etc.) aimed at developing and strengthening the body. Speed skating. Water sports. Parachuting. || The system of organizing and conducting competitions and training sessions on various types of such physical exercises. To achieve success in sports. The development of Soviet sports" ^{[7, p. 229]}.

The analysis of the given dictionary definition makes it possible to detect part of the semantic content of the concept in the process of cognitive interpretation, which is understood as "a mental generalization at a higher level of abstraction of the results of describing the meanings of linguistic units nominating the concept, in order to identify and verbally formulate cognitive features represented by certain meanings or semantic components of these linguistic units, in order to finally model the content concept" ^{[8, p. 45]}. The cognitive interpretation of the results of the component analysis of the given dictionary meaning makes it possible to formulate the following cognitive signs (KP) of the concept of SPORT: "type of physical activity, physical activity of a person" (KP1); "method / means of development and strengthening of the human body" (KP2); "type of physical activity having varieties" (KP3); "the system of organizing and conducting competitions and training sessions" (KP4).

In order to verify the identified cognitive features, a free associative experiment with the incentive lexeme sport was conducted from June 2022 to May 2023. The participants of the experiment were 200 male and female Russian speakers aged 18 to 65 years. During the experiment, more than 80 different reactions were received from the respondents (reactions are given in descending order of their absolute frequency): health (26), running (16), life (9), strength (9), pain (8), movement (8), Olympics/ Olympic Games (7), football (7), healthy lifestyle/ healthy lifestyle (6), competitions (4), training/ workouts (4), labor (4), gym/ gym/ school gym (3), yoga (3), skiing (3), sweat (3), stadium (3), fatigue (3), uniform/ athletic uniform (3), physical education (3), basketball (2), sneakers (2), laziness (2), medal/ medals (2), load (2), Soviet Union/ USSR (2), effort (2), pool, treadmill, diseases, uneven bars, bicycle, water, air, volleyball, will, endurance, dumbbells, gymnastics, mountain, dynamics, achievements, game, cripples, hard labor, porridge, sneakers, team, beautiful figure, beauty, athletics, skier, world, muscular legs, drill, ball, Olympic rings, push-ups, playground, victory, fit, professional, fortitude, speed, difficult, athlete, suffering, dancing, TV, injuries, horizontal bar, turnstile, hard, street, exercises, fencing, fitness tapes, choreography, goal, school, barbell (total 200 answers).

According to the typology of concepts proposed by A. P. Babushkin ^[9], SPORT is a kaleidoscopic concept, or a concept gestalt, the content of which can be modeled, represented as a set of frames. In the classification used by the Voronezh School of Cognitive Linguistics, gestalt is defined as "a complex, integral functional mental structure that organizes the diversity of individual phenomena in consciousness. Gestalt (the term X. Ehrenfels, an Austrian art critic of the late 19th century) is an integral image combining sensual and rational elements, as well as combining dynamic and static aspects of the displayed object or phenomenon" ^{[8, p. 14]}.

The peculiarity of gestalts is their ability to verbalize by figurative, metaphorical means of language, as well as lexical units with varying degrees of abstraction of semantics — from abstract nouns, which is usually the name of a gestalt concept, to units with the most specific lexical meaning. The key lexemes nominating gestalts cause native speakers to associate "with sensually perceived phenomena that are linked by consciousness into a certain complex picture" ^{[10, p. 83]}. Sport, obviously, is a kind of human social activity that has a purpose and result and takes place under certain conditions, which is reflected in the content of the modeled concept.

The frame "Sport as a process" is verbalized by the associates movement (8), dynamics, speed, exercises, push-ups, explicating KP1. Reactions pain (8), labor (4), fatigue (3), sweat (3), effort (2), load (2) indicate that the process Playing sports is usually associated with significant physical and mental stress. This fact is also noted in encyclopedic sources, in particular in the Great Medical Encyclopedia ^[11]: "In physical education, C. is one of the most important components, covers very diverse physical sciences. exercises that often require maximum tension and achieving a certain perfection at one time or another." The life reaction (9) allows us to define sport as a vital process, an activity of great value in the life of a modern person (cf. Aristotle: Movement is life!). The reactions of injury and mutilation reveal the potential danger of sports as a type of human activity, especially big sports, the so-called sports of higher achievements.

The frame "The purpose of sports" is represented by the reactions health (26), strength (9), beauty, explicating KP2. The respondents' answers indicate that sports are perceived by native speakers of the Russian language primarily as a means of strengthening human health and is an integral part of a healthy lifestyle (healthy lifestyle/ healthy lifestyle (6)). Sport improves a person's physical condition, has a positive effect on their appearance (beautiful figure, muscular legs, fit) and allows them to be socially successful. Reactions endurance, willpower, fortitude, and purpose prove that sports develop strong-willed personality qualities, strengthen not only the body but also the spirit, and form goal-setting skills. The Large explanatory dictionary of D. N. Ushakov also contains an indication that sports, among other things, are a means of improving the emotional state, development and strengthening of the human psyche: "SPORTS, sports, many, no, husband. (eng. sport). Physical exercises, preim. in the form of various games or competitions aimed at strengthening the body and developing mental vigor. Water sports. Skiing. To play sports" ^{[12, p. 1001]}.

The "Sports" frame is represented by reactions running (16), football (7), skiing/skier (4), yoga (3), basketball (2), volleyball, gymnastics, athletics, dancing, fencing, choreography, explicating KP3. The names of specific sports form a hyper-hyponymic series with the lexeme sport, or, according to C. Fillmore, a taxonomy, while running becomes the prototype of the sport. It is the most "democratic" sport available to most, which has led to the frequency of the corresponding reaction. Football is also popular among native speakers of the Russian language, which was confirmed during the associative experiment. Skiing is represented by the responses of several respondents, which is related to the popularity and accessibility of this winter sport. The physical education associate (3) indicates that the sport that the participants of the experiment are familiar with is massive. Despite the low frequency of this reaction (only 1.5% of the total number of responses received), it reflects the systemic connections of words in the vocabulary: information that the lexemes sport and physical education are synonymously related in the lexical system of the Russian language is presented in the Dictionary of Synonyms by Z. E. Alexandrova ^{[13, p. 478]}. The reaction of the team reflects the fact that sports are divided into team and individual, the professional associate actualizes the opposition of professional (entertainment and commercial) sports to amateur (non-commercial) sports.

The "Sports competitions" frame is represented by the reactions Olympics / Olympic Games (7), competitions (4), training / training (4), medal / medals (2), achievements, game, victory, explicating KP4. Judging by the frequency of associations, native speakers of modern Russian consider the most significant event in the world of sports The Olympic Games. Also, the above group of reactions allows us to interpret sports as a competitive activity, an activity of a competitive nature aimed at achieving high results, which is confirmed by data from encyclopedic sources. Thus, in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia ^[14] it is stated that sport "aims, along with strengthening health and general physical development of a person, to achieve high results and victories in competitions." A similar interpretation is presented in the New Dictionary of Foreign Words ^[15], where sport is defined as "complexes of physical exercises aimed at developing and strengthening the human body, its moral education and achieving high results in competitions, as well as the system of organizing and conducting classes and competitions in these complexes." The inextricable link between sports and achievements is also reflected in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary ^[16] in an article with the heading lexeme sport: "Initially, this word denoted the desire to achieve something particularly outstanding in the field of bodily exercises."

The frame "Place of sports" during the experiment was verbalized by the associates gym/ gym/ school gym (3), stadium (3), swimming pool. More general, broad in meaning are the associates playground, street, school. This group of reactions is also supplemented by the names of natural facts: water, air, mountain. The "Sports equipment" frame is represented by the reactions of skis (3), treadmill, uneven bars, bicycle, dumbbells, ball, horizontal bar, fitness bands, barbell. The "Sports equipment" frame is represented by the reactions uniform/ sports uniform (3), sneakers (2), sneakers. The frame "Athletes" is verbalized collectively by 3 single reactions: skier, athlete, turnstile man. The "Sports Nutrition" frame is represented by a single porridge reaction (0.5%).

As a result of the conducted research, it was possible to establish that the base layer of the analyzed concept includes 4 cognitive features represented by 10% or more of the reactions obtained during the free associative experiment. KP1 "type of physical activity, physical activity of a person" (49 responses, 24.5%) is verbalized by associates, explicating the fact that sport is a tangible load, which in various situations can be both necessary, vital, and excessive, exhausting: life (9), pain (8), movement (8), labor (4), sweat (3), fatigue (3), load (2), effort (2), dynamics, cripples, hard labor, drill, push-ups, speed, suffering, injuries, hard, exercises. KP2 "a way/ means of developing and strengthening the human body" (53 associates, 26.5%) is represented by the reactions of respondents who position sport as a tool for self-improvement, self-improvement, overcoming shortcomings and acquiring advantages: health (26), strength (9), healthy lifestyle/ healthy lifestyle (6), laziness (2), illness, will, endurance, beautiful figure, beauty, muscular legs, fit, fortitude, difficult, purpose. 43 reactions (21.5%) represent KP3 "a type of physical activity having varieties": running (16), football (7), skiing/skier (4), yoga (2), physical education (3), basketball (2), volleyball, gymnastics, team, athletics, professional, dancing, fencing, choreography — and 20 units (10%) explicate KP4 "system organization and conduct of competitions and training sessions": Olympics / Olympic Games (7), competitions (4), training / training (4), medal/ medals (2), achievements, game, victory. The first three of these cognitive features, judging by the frequency of their representative reactions (more than 20% of the total), are included in the core of the analyzed concept.

The results of the associative experiment obtained during the study were subjected to the procedure of seminal interpretation, in which associative reactions are interpreted as verbalization of individual semes of the stimulus word ^{[8, p. 38]}. This allowed us to conclude that the dominant, most vivid seme in the meaning of the noun sport in the collective consciousness is the seme of health (health (26)). Thus, for native speakers of modern Russian, sport is primarily a way or means of maintaining and strengthening human health, such is the psycholinguistic (psychologically real) meaning of the key lexeme according to the conducted experiment.

The prospects for further research of the content of the concept of SPORT are associated with the expansion of the idea of its field organization: the periphery of the studied concept can be analyzed and described in detail based on data from a non-directional chain (chain) associative experiment, which will be an optimal complement to the results already presented in the work.