Keywords: Estonian, WAT, mental lexicon, psycholinguistics
The paper addresses the changeable vs persistent part of the culturally constructed unconscious – the so-called “dark matter of the mind” (Everett 2016). Two sets of responses given to an identical list of Estonian stimuli in a word association test (WAT) are compared. The first set originates in the time when Estonia was ruled by the Soviet regime and the second (an excerpt from a larger database) in the 21st century during political independence. The aim was to detect which associations tended to survive and which did not. The quantitative results show that two-thirds of the primary associations have retained their position while their strength has weakened. Contrasting pairs like short → long, man → woman, woman → man, boy → girl, girl → boy, etc. are the most persistent. One-third of the primary associations have moved to a lower position or disappeared. The qualitative changes point to progress in the standard of living, to a change of the ruling ideology (from communism to capitalism), to changes in the implicit values (incl. the rise in openness and dynamism), and to the growing preference for eliciting individual and experience related responses. The latent dominants (recurring responses) were partly similar (e.g. water, sky, big), partly pointing to differences in the emotional tone (the “bright” words such as white and yellow were replaced by those usually associated with darkness (black, night, dream, and bed).
There were also changes in the preferred strategies of eliciting the responses – the ones gathered in the 20th century revealed a preponderance of paradigmatic relations, i.e. strategies relying on abstract semantic relations such as antonymy and co-hyponymy; while syntagmatic relations (such as complementing a compound or evoking a fixed phrase) showed a higher percentage among those gathered in the 21st century. The results were discussed in relation to changes noticed in other languages and in respect of differences in the methodology of carrying out the WAT tests (paper and pen vs internet; administered vs voluntary; controlled vs uncontrolled time of performing).
Ene Vainik (b. 1964), PhD, Institute of the Estonian Language, Senior Researcher (Roosikrantsi 6, 10119 Tallinn), ene.vainik@eki.ee
References
Aitchison, Jean 2012. Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon. 4. tr. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Barsalou, Lawrence W.; Santos, Ava; Simmons, Kyle W.; Wilson, D. Christine 2008. Language and simulation in conceptual processing. – Symbols, Embodiment, and Meaning. Toim Manuel de Vega, Arthur M. Glenberg, Arthur C. Graesser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, lk 245–283.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217274.003.0013
Cruse, Alan D. 2000. Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Deyne, Simon; Storms, Gert 2015. Word associations. – The Oxford Handbook of the Word. Toim John Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, lk 465–480.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199641604.013.018
De Deyne, Simon; Navarro, Daniel J.; Storms, Gert 2013. Better explanations of lexical and semantic cognition using networks derived from continued rather than single-word associations. – Behavior Research Methods, kd 45, nr 2, lk 480–498.
https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-012-0260-7
EIA 2019/2020 = Inimarengu aruande 2019/2020 põhisõnumid ja -järeldused. Eesti Koostöö Kogu. https://kogu.ee/2020/06/11/inimarengu-aruanne-2019-2020-pohisonumid-ja-jareldused (12. XI 2021).
Epicoco, Déborah; Mohr, Christine; Uusküla, Mari; Quiblier, Michael; Meziane, Maliha Bouayed, Laurent Eric; Jonauskaite, Domicele 2021. Making sense of free associations with PURPLE: A new coding scheme testing French speakers in three countries. – Proceedings of the International Color Association (AIC) Conference. Milan: AIC, lk 891–896.
Evans, Vyvyan 2019. Cognitive Linguistics: A Complete Guide. 2. tr. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Everett, Daniel L. 2016. Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226401430.001.0001
Feldman Barrett, Lisa 2018. How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Boston–New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Fellbaum, Christiane 2015. Lexical relations. – The Oxford Handbook of The Word. Toim John R. Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, lk 350–363.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199641604.013.028
Fitzpatrick, Tess; Playfoot, David; Wray, Alison; Wright, Margareth J. 2015. Establishing the reliability of word association data for investigating individual and group differences. – Applied Linguistics, kd 36, nr 1, lk 23–50.
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amt020
Galton, Francis 1879. Psychometric experiments. – Brain, kd 2, nr 2, lk 149–162.
https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/2.2.149
Jenkins, James J.; Russell, Wallace A. 1960. Systematic changes in word association norms: 1910–1952. – Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, kd 60, nr 3, lk 293–304.
https://doi.org/10.1037/h0042234
Jenkins, James J.; Palermo, David S. 1965. Further data on changes in word-association norms. – Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, kd 1, nr 4, lk 303–309.
https://doi.org/10.1037/h0021914
Jung, C. Gustav 1910. The association method. – The American Journal of Psychology, kd 21, nr 2, lk 219–269. https://doi.org/10.2307/1413002
Kent, Grace H.; Rosanoff, Aaron J. 1910. A study of association in insanity. – American Journal of Insanity, kd 67, nr 1–2, lk 37–96.
https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.67.1.37
Kiss, George R.; Armstrong, Christine; Milroy, Robert; Piper, James 1973. An associative thesaurus of English and its computer analysis. – The Computer and Literary Studies. Toim A. J. Aitken, R. W. Bailey, N. Hamilton-Smith. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, lk 153–165.
Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Kd I: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Levinson, Stephen C.; Majid, Asifa 2014. Differential ineffability and the senses. – Mind & Language, kd 29, nr 4, lk 407–427.
https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12057
Majid, Asifa; Roberts, Seán G.; Cilissen, Ludy; Emmorey, Karen; Nicodemus, Brenda; O’Grady, Lucinda; Woll, Bencie; LeLan, Barbara; de Sousa, Hilário; Cansler, Brian L.; Shayan, Shakila; de Vos, Connie; Senft, Gunter; Enfield, Nick J.; Razak, Rogayah A.; Fedden, Sebastian; Tufvesson, Sylvia; Dingemanse, Mark; Ozturk, Ozge; Brown, Penelope; Hill, Clair; Le Guen, Oliver; Hirtzel, Vincent; van Gijn, Rik; Sicoli, Mark A.; Levinson, Stephen C. 2018. Differential coding of perception in the world’s languages. – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, kd 115, nr 45, lk 11369–11376.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720419115
Mattheoudakis, Marina 2011. A word-association study in Greek and the concept of the syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift. – Journal of Greek Linguistics, nr 11, lk 167–197.
https://doi.org/10.1163/156658411X599992
Mohr, Christine; Jonauskaite, Domicele; Dan-Glauser, Elise S.; Uusküla, Mari; Dael, Nele 2018. Unifying research on colour and emotion: Time for a cross-cultural survey on emotion associations with colour terms. – Progress in Colour Studies: Cognition, Language, and Beyond. Toim Lindsay W. MacDonald, Carole P. Biggam, Galina V. Paramei. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, lk 209–222. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.217.11moh
Mägi, Maiken 2021. Ainult eestlased peavad musta lemmikvärviks. – Postimees: Teadus 25. V.
Nelson, Douglas L.; McEvoy, Cathy L.; Dennis, Simon 2000. What is free association and what does it measure? – Memory & Cognition, kd 28, nr 6, lk 887–899.
https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209337
Nissen, Henriette, B.; Henriksen, Birgit 2006. Word class influence on word association test results. – International Journal of Applied Linguistics, kd 16, nr 3, lk 389–408.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2006.00124.x
Pavlenko, Anetta (toim) 2009. The Bilingual Mental Lexicon: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Bristol, UK–Buffalo, NY: Multilingual Matters.
https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847691262
Postman, Leo; Keppel, Geoffrey (toim) 1970. Norms of Word Association. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Sutrop, Urmas 2001. List task and a cognitive salience index. – Field Methods, kd 13, nr 3, lk 263–276.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X0101300303
Toim, Kalju 1980. Estonian word association norms for the Kent-Rosanoff test. – Problems of Cognitive Psychology. (Tartu Riikliku Ülikooli Toimetised 522.) Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool, lk 60–76.
Toim, Kalju 1987. Eesti assotsiatsiooninormid Kent-Rosanoffi stiimulitele. Eksperimentaalpsühholoogia kursuse katsematerjal. Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool, loogika ja psühholoogia kateeder.
Vainik, Ene 2017. Oma meel ja Uku Masingu eksitus. – Oma Keel, nr 1, lk 3–10.
Vainik, Ene 2018. Compiling the Dictionary of Word Associations in Estonian: From scratch to the database. – Eesti Rakenduslingvistika Ühingu aastaraamat, nr 14, lk 229−245.
https://doi.org/10.5128/ERYa14.14
Vainik, Ene 2019a. Eesti keele assotsiatsioonisõnastik.
https://doi.org/10.15155/3-00-0000-0000-0000-07DF6L
Vainik, Ene 2019b. Eesti keele sõna-assotsiatsioonide andmebaas.
https://doi.org/10.15155/3-00-0000-0000-0000-07DF4L
Vainik, Ene 2019c. Huvipakkuvaid tähelepanekuid. http://www.eki.ee/dict/assotsiatsioonid/tahelepanekuid.pdf (3. IX 2021).
Vainik, Ene; Kirt, Toomas 2008. Kuidas me mõistame mõisteid? – Eesti Rakenduslingvistika Ühingu aastaraamat, nr 4, lk 225−245.
https://doi.org/10.5128/ERYa4.14
Vainik, Ene; Tuulik, Maria; Koppel, Kristina 2020. Comparison of collocations and word associations in Estonian from the perspective of parts of speech. – Slovenščina 2.0, kd 8, nr 2, lk 139−167.
https://doi.org/10.4312/slo2.0.2020.2.139-167
