PERCEPTION OF RUSSIAN SPEAKERS OF PHONETICALLY MOTIVATED UNITS OF ENGLISH LITERARY DISCOURSE: EXPERIMENTAL DATA

Veselova Marina Vladislavovna

In connection with the development of the anthropocentric scientific paradigm, the experimental method of research is gaining popularity and relevance in linguistics. This experiment is a continuation of a large-scale research work on the study of verbs of motion in the English language and is devoted to the peculiarities of the perception of sound-visual units of a foreign language. The basis for the experiment was a questionnaire for native Russian speakers who do not speak English, or who speak it at a minimum level. During the study, a group of respondents (111 people) were offered 20 contextual word usages of phonetically motivated verbs of motion in Russian. The total number of answers was 2220. During the survey, the participants were asked to choose one of two foreign words that best matches the sound of the selected Russian word. The conducted perceptual experiment confirms the proposition about the existence of a stable, primarily motivated correlation between the signifier and the signified. Russian-speaking respondents, when choosing a verb out of 15 word usages in which only one verb is sound-figurative, with great confidence (in some cases more than 80% of respondents) chose 10 sound-figurative verbs of motion.

Keywords:experiment, phonosemantics, verbs of motion, iconicity, onomatopoeia, sound symbolism