Semantic‐Functional Approach in Presenting the Linguistic Picture of the World of Ukrainians, the English, and Germans

Abstract

The article focuses on the semantic‐functional representation of the basic concepts of the linguistic picture of the world of Ukrainians, the English, and the Germans. The relevance of the research is determined by the need for a deeper understanding of cultural and value differences in the perception of the concepts of home, freedom, work, future, and success in the modern multicultural space, especially in times of social crises and war. The aim of the study was to identify cross‐cultural differences in the structuring of key concepts through associative reactions. An associative experiment, content analysis, and the method of assessing emotional valence were used. The study involved 300 respondents (100 from each language group: Ukrainians, English, Germans), who provided over 1,500 associations. The method of free associative experiment, content analysis, assessment of emotional valence (scale from 2 to +2), statistical processing in SPSS, as well as analysis of semantic groups of associations in six categories, was used. According to the results, Ukrainians demonstrated the highest emotional (34.3%) and collective patriotic (18.5%) orientation; the English — social (30.7%) and material (22.3%); Germans — material (28%) and social (29.8%). It was found that the concept of freedom in the linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians has the highest positive emotional valence (+2.0), while among Germans, the concept of success is estimated at +1.7, and among Englishmen, success and home received +2.0 and +1.8, respectively. The academic novelty lies in integrating emotional valence analysis with cross‐cultural associative data to model the semantic‐functional structure of key concepts under contemporary crisis conditions, specifically the ongoing war in Ukraine. Prospects for further research are related to the study of the functioning of key lexemes in real texts — in particular, in political speeches, educational materials, and media discourse.