THE CITY THROUGH THE PRISM OF LINGUO-CULTURE

A city is an object of reality, having its geographical coordinates and architecture, but it is also an organizational social phenomenon with inherent internal dynamics, pulsating in its rhythm, reflecting and transforming the pattern of civilization and culture. Placed in the context of linguculturalology, the city is defined as a relatively stable structure existing in mass and individual consciousness, a set of emotional-evaluative and rational ideas about a given space, formed based on various sources, and the individual, emotional and practical experience of a person. The purpose of this poster is to present in a synthesized form the results of the complex analysis of the "city", understood as a multifaceted element of human existence, a complete diverse cultural organism, which is characterized by a certain structure, preserves specific symbolism and has its face and spirit. In particular, attention has been paid to the axiological interpretation of the city by the individual, and the outline of its national nuances in the Bulgarian language. Through the prism of linguculturalology, the city is culturally constant, one of the universal concepts of the social structure, which includes a set of images, perceptions, and values, and a fragment of reality, the complete description of which requires turning to the immediate reactions of the individual. This is the reason why we chose the complex approach – directed chain associative experiment. 97 students, aged between 18 and 45, studying in various specialties at Plovdiv University "Paisiy Hilendarski", city of Plovdiv, took part in the associative experiment. During the experiment, the respondents were given the word – stimulus – city , to which they had to indicate a minimum of three associations. And then indicate characteristics with which they associate the same stimulus word. The total number of associations given by the respondents is 467, and we can summarize them in 73, which are repeated with different intensities. The results are presented in a synthesized form in this poster. The conducted associative experiment leads us to the conclusion that in the modern image of man, the city is predominantly perceived as a bearer of the negative, has moved aside its main function of identifying the individual, and has taken a particular position of an enemy - repulsive, ugly and alienated.

The authors express sincere gratitude to the Scientific Research Fund at the Ministry of Education and Science and the "Scientific and Project Activity" Division at Plovdiv University "PaisiiHilendarski" for the assistance provided.