Language symbolization of sensory perceptions (Slavic-Turkic correspondences)
Authors:   Tomsk State University, Rezanova Zoya I. , Vladimirova Valeriia E. ,   Tomsk State University, Makhmudov Umid R. ,   Tomsk State University
Published: November 2024

The article discusses the assesments of the contribution of perceptual modalities (hearing, sight, smell, touch, taste) to the noun semantics in the Russian and Uzbek languages in a comparative aspect. The research is based on the actively debated theory of embodied cognition (Lawrence W. Barsalou, Margaret Wilson, Lotte Metyard, etc.). One of its mostly discussed theoretical provisions is whether human sensory perceptions are communicated through language or whether the processes of linguistic symbolization allow for interpretability as amodal in nature. If perceptions are to be recognized as significant for the formation of linguistic semantics, researchers are to specify the forms and methods of symbolizing the modalities of perception in different types of linguistic units and their determining factors. When solving these problems, the scientific community turns to the practice of creating databases that contain collected subjective assessments by native speakers of perception modalities contributed to the semantics of lexical units. Nowadays, there is a significant number of such electronic collections and studies based on them. Among such are those primarily based on Indo-European languages: English (Allan Paivio, Dermot Lynott, Louise Connell, Marc Brysbaert, etc.), Italian (Piermatteo Morucci, Rorberto Bottini, Davide Crepaldi, etc.), Dutch (Laura J. Speed, Asifa Majid; Saskia van Dantzig, etc.), Norwegian (Hanne G. Simonsen, Marianne Lind, Pernille Hansen), French (Aurélie Miceli, Erika Wauthia, Laurent Lefebvre, etc.). Slavic and Turkic languages are involved to a lesser extent in this paradigm. The representative databases allows for comparative studies aimed at identifying general trends and differences determined by ethnolinguistic uniqueness. However, the databases differ by the number of lexical units, respondents, options of rating scales etc., which may reduce the effectiveness of a comparative analysis. Seeking to overcome these limitations, the authors compare assessments of the contribution of perceptual modalities to the semantics of two unrelated languages (Indo-European – Russian and Turkic – Uzbek) based on two databases built on common principles [16; 17]. The data were collected within the framework of the project using a unified methodology for material collection and processing. The article analyzes the related fragments of these databases: 135,240 assessments of 196 Uzbek nouns given by 138 Uzbek native speakers, as well as 109,000 assessments of 200 nouns given by 109 Russian native speakers. A comparison of the survey results using statistical methods (descriptive statistics, correlation, and cluster analysis) has revealed both common characteristics, such as the predominance of the contribution of visual modality to the semantics of words, a high level of intergroup correlation in assessments, and others, as well as differences, such as the relationship between modalities within classes in the compared languages.