Comparative Analysis of Associative Fields Safety and Sicherheit in the Representation of Russian and German Speakers

Abstract

Safety is an integral component of everyone’s life. However, this concept remains elusive to comprehensive linguistic research. The present article focuses on the concept of safety as one of the most important ideas for modern humanity. The authors believe that this research helps to cast light upon some social processes that are reflected in language. During an uncontrolled associative experiment, Russian and German respondents gave verbal reactions to words besopasnost (safety) and Sicherheit. The content and subject of reactions were not limited. The purpose of the research was to identify the associative meanings of these concepts in each of the languages. The article presents the most frequent and typical verbal reactions, as well as their comparative analysis and semantic classification. Both German and Russian respondents shared such meanings as protection / means of protection, home / housing , internal qualities / feelings of security. Only Russians respondents gave such reactions as calmness / peace, comfort; only German respondents mentioned power / public institutions and money / finance.