Crisis as a Relevant Lexeme in the Linguistic Consciousness of Ukrainian People

Abstract. The article presents the results of the psycholinguistic experiment whose aim was to reveal universal and specific features of the verbal behaviour of respondents when studying the stimulus word “crisis” as a relevant lexeme in the linguistic consciousness of Ukrainian people, as well as to single out various sememes that were actualised in the course of the experiment. The total sample comprised 297 respondents: 170 females and 127 males of different ages (“juvenility” – 17–21, “youth” – 22–35, “maturity” – 36–60, “old age” – 61 and above). The universal features of verbal behaviour displayed both by males and females are reflected in such lexemes as “money”, “age”, “economy”, “country”, “problem”, “poverty”, “unemployment”, “war”, “depression”, “misery”. The respondents of all age groups, both males and females, show negative evaluative and emotional attitude to the stimulus word in question. The specific features of the verbal behaviour of the respondents are reflected in the following lexemes: “bankrupt”, “panic”, “ruin”, “deadlock”, “chaos”, “Ukraine”. Among other things, both males and females associate crisis with the state of mental tension, anxiety, and fear, which manifests itself in such reactions as “depression”, “panic”, “negative”, “deadlock”, “bad”, etc. Individual features of verbal behaviour are reflected in the following negative emotional reactions: “pain”, “mess”, “mayhem”, “panic”, “fear”, “alarm”, “mix-up”, etc., with an obvious prevalence of female reactions.  Associative reactions to the stimulus word "crisis" yield the following sememes: “lack of money”, “unemployment”, “problem”, “age”, “depression”, “opportunity”.