General and nationally specific in the realization of the concepts "Lernen" and "Учеба" (on the material of the experimental data)
This article attempts to determine through free association experiment in what semantic volume the lexical meanings that represent the concepts “Lernen” and “Учеба” / “Learning” in the German and Russian languages are kept in consciousnesses of their carriers. The pupils of various types of German and Russian intermediate school took part in the experiment. These word-associates revealed a general and national specific in conceptual sphere of pupils determined the attitude of German and Russian schoolchildren to learning. Scientific novelty consists in the fact that the concept “учеба” / “learning” has been first analyzed from the perspective of identifying national specificity of language means of verbalization in the German and Russian language picture of the world. The relevance of this article is determined by high importance of the concept “learning” for the German and Russian linguistic cultures, as well as the need to study vocabulary from the perspective of representation of cultural values, since language fixes the system of representation of the world and is thus a reflection of the mentality of the native people of language. Using the experimental method, it has been found that in conceptual sphere of German students, first of all, lexical-semantic variant of the lexeme Lernen - human activities is realized, which consists in knowledge acquisition and skills and abilities mastery. Learning a profession, a specialty as a variant of lexical-semantic meaning of the lexeme Lernen is viewed by the pupils of German schools much less, and the perception of this concept in the sense of “to be a student of a educational institution” is represented quite insignificant and implicitly in the conceptual sphere of German pupils.