Concept «Holy Fool» in the Linguistic World-Image of the Russian-Speaking Population of Ukraine Концепт «юродивый» в языковой картине мира русскоязычного населения жителей Украины

The aim of the article is to identify and analyze the semantic components of the verbalized concept «holy fool» in the linguistic world-image of the Russianspeaking population of Ukraine. The main method of the conducted research was the psycholinguistic experiment. The sample comprised 204 respondents aged 18–35, males and females being equally represented. The results of the conducted experiment allowed us to make a conclusion that in terms of Concept «Holy Fool» in the Linguis t ic World-Image. . . 119 © Iia Gordi ienko-Mytrofanova, Iul i ia Kobzieva the everyday linguistic consciousness of the Russian-speaking population of the eastern part of Ukraine the concept «holy fool» is reflected in three core (more than 10%) semantic clusters: 1) «behavior» (46.57%); 2) «appearance, looks» (21.57%); 3) «cognitive disorders» (16.67%). Therefore, holy fool is mainly represented by lexemes with behavioral semantics, lexemes referring to personal appearance, and lexemes semantically connected with deficient mental abilities of a person. The first cluster is represented by such core semes as «STRANGE» (20.59%) and «BLESSED» (8.82%). The second is represented by «UGLY» (17.64%) and the third cluster is represented by the core seme «FOOLISH» (16.67%). Theological associates are mainly represented by associates that describe a certain type of holiness («BLESSED»). The stimulus word «holy fool» is generally evaluated in three different ways: positively, negatively, and neutrally. 41% of respondents display repulsion to this stimulus, which is reflected in the following reactions: ugly 11, foolish, plain 7, insane, sick, ugly creature 4, fool, crazy, crippled 3, mentally challenged, abnormal, wrong, fearful 2 etc. The comparative analysis of the verbalized concept «holy fool» in the linguistic world-image of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine and Russia leads to the following conclusions: 1) the semantic charge of the word «holy fool» is bigger in the linguistic consciousness of the Russianspeaking respondents from the eastern part of Ukraine; 2) the core of the verbalized concept «holy fool» have different components («HUMAN BEING» – «STRANGE»). Most Ukrainian and Russian respondents tend to treat the concept «holy fool» as something negative or neutral, which testifies to the ambivalence of this concept; theological associates are represented in the periphery; emotive associates are only reflected in singular reactions.

We defi ne ludic competence as a system of inner resources, resorted to by a person in order to balance their personality against outer conditions of social environment on the basis of positive emotions, i.e. interest and joy, which are frequently expressed in a very emotional way, accompanied by tension or excitement.
Ludic competence is formed alongside with the development of playfulness, which is a stable personality trait in the modern world of gamifi cation (Gordienko-Mytrofanova & Kobzieva, 2017a, 2017b. Understanding the nature of playfulness with the help of the psycholinguistic experiment happens via reconstructing its essential characteristics as semantic components that are actualized in the linguistic consciousness of the native speakers, both core and peripheral reactions. We have undertaken the most extensive free association experiment that has ever been conducted with the stimulus word «playfulness» (4,795 respondents). 19 psycholinguistic meanings of playfulness were described as a result of the psycholinguistic experiment with a sample of 1,600 respondents (Gordienko-Mytrofanova, 2015;Gordienko-Mytrofanova & Kobzieva, 2017а, 2017bGordienko-Mytrofanova & Sauta, 2016).
The components of playfulness as an integral personality trait are also the components of ludic competence. These are defi ned as «motivated abilities» (Raven, 2001), that help individuals to achieve personally meaningful goals. In this case, the goal is to develop individual identity to the extent which ensures successful socialization, i.e. successful psychological functioning (Gordienko-Mytrofanova & Kobzieva, 2017а).
Ludic positions are manifestations of ludic competence in various standard and nonstandard situations, i.e. the behavioral aspect. Thus, mastering ludic positions involves mastering particular behavioral patterns.
As it can be seen from here, fugue is one of the components of ludic competence. In the coaching session devoted to ludic competence we considered «fugue» as the ability to «deliberately pretending to be stupid or insane» which is considered by the players themselves and observed by the other participants of the interaction in order to enhance the feeling of identity. This component corresponds to the ludic position «holy fool». One of the objectives of our research is to provide the description the behavioral patterns of various ludic positions, including the ludic position «holy fool», taking into considerations the meanings that refl ect the reality of the linguistic consciousness of Russian native speakers.
For the time being, we are aware of only one questionnaire of playfulness where fugue is present as one of the scales of playfulness. This is Five-Factor Personality Questionnaire (FFPQ) developed by Heijiro Tsuji and his colleagues in 1996 (Tsuji et al., 1996). «Playfulness» factor consists of the following facets: curiosity, fantasy, sentiment, sensitivity to internal experience, and fugue.
As far as the free association experiment with the stimulus word «holy fool» is concerned, we are not aware of any scientifi c works that were accomplished on the basis of the Ukrainian or English languages. However, we are also aware of the studies conducted by Russian scholars, particularly. Yu.N. Karaulov, G.A. Cherkasova, N.V. Ufi mtseva, Yu.A. Sorokin, Ye.F. Tarasov (Karaulov et al., 2002a(Karaulov et al., , 2002b who presented the results of the free association experiment with the stimulus word «holy fool», and N.L. Chulkina and V.B. Gomes Dias (Chulkina & Gomes Dias, 2016) who explored and described the ambivalent nature of the concept foolishness for Christ/holy fool with the help of free association experiment and the method of test associative fi eld.
The article presents the results of the collaborative research (2015-2018) into the stimulus «holy fool» conducted by I. Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, S. Sauta, A. Silina, Iu. Kobzieva, at the Department of Practical Psychology, H.S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University.

Aim and tasks
The goal of the present paper is to use the method of applied psycholinguistic experiment in order to determine semantic components of the stimulus word «holy fool» in the linguistic world-image of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.
As it was mentioned above, the results will be applied later to describe the behavioral pattern of the ludic position «holy fool», into considerations the meanings that refl ect the reality of the linguistic consciousness of Russian native speakers. The ludic position corresponds to «fugue» which is one of the components of ludic competence.

Research methods
The main method of the conducted research is a psycholinguistic experiment, whose main goal is to single out the semantic components of the stimulus word «holy fool» as the component of ludic competence. The main stage of the research was the free association experiment with the word-stimulus «holy fool» as the most elaborated technique of semantic analysis.
As additional methods, the surveys have been applied (in order to refi ne the results of the free association experiment); questioning (in order to specify the characteristics of the sample). As a mathematicalstatistical method to analyze the results of the research, we used frequency and cluster analysis, which allowed us to identify tendencies in the distribution of associations produced by the experimental group.
The free association experiment with the stimulus word «holy fool» was conducted in the written form.
According to the instruction, the respondents were supposed to state their gender, age, education/specialization, occupation/position, marital status, and write down fi rst fi ve words that came to their minds and that were somehow associated with «юродивый».
The total number of respondents who took part in the experiments was 204 young people (18-35), males and females being equally represented. As far as the education criterion is concerned, 51.5% had not fully completed their university education, 36.7% of the respondents had a university degree; 9.3% -secondary education, 2.5% -did not indicate their educational background. As far as the marital status is concerned, 19% of the respondents were married, 77.6% were single, 7% were in some sort of relationship, 1% were divorced, 1% were engaged; 3.4% did not indicate their marital status.

Research results
The results of the free association experiment with the stimulus word «holly fool» yielded 204 associations. 108 reactions out of these were unique reactions, including 11 word combinations or complete sentences, 33 reactions with the frequency higher than 1, 75 individual reactions, and 0 refusal s.
First of all, let us present all the results of the associative fi eld of the stimulus word «holy fool» provided by the Associative Thesaurus of Russian (Karaulov et al., 2002a(Karaulov et al., , 2002b. HOLY FOOL: human being 11;boy,pauper,ancient 4;blessed,sick 3;pity,cripple,literature,opera,saint,crippled,ugly creature 2;hippopotamus,pious,twin,big,Boris Godunov,Boriska,Basil the Blessed,Vasya,master,dirty,kind,friend,fool,bridegroom,Zosima,name,goat,small coin,wry,chap,to implore,bloke,on the square,in Ancient Rus,in the street,boss,abnormal,unhappy,not an ugly creature,monkey,to offend,disadvantaged,shouts,calling to order,fellow,fella,buffoon,parrot,prophesy,jackass,empty,sufferer,fearful,happy,son,sobbed quietly,the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed,church,crank,youngster 1; 102+67+4+53. The reactions are listed in the decreasing order of their frequency. The fi nal fi gures are given in the end: the fi rst fi gure (102) refers to the total number of respondents; the second one (67) summarizes the number of different responses to this stimulus; the third one (4) shows the number of «refusals»; and the fi nal fi gure (53) indicates the number of singular reactions (Karaulov et al., 2002a: 744).
Let us also provide some examples from the associative fi eld of the reverse dictionary (from the reaction to the stimulus): BELONGING TO HOLY FOOL ← chains; HOLY FOOL ← crippled 6; blessed, divine 2; cripple, psycho 1; 5+12 (Karaulov et al., 2002b: 972).
Similarly to direct dictionary, the fi gures after the stimulus indicate the number of representations of this particular word form in the entry devoted to this stimulus. Two fi nal fi gures separated by a slash at the end of the entry of the reverse dictionary (5+12) refer to the overall number of its appearance in the dictionary (5) and the number of stimuli (or entries from the direct dictionary) where this word form is present (12).
As it can be seen, unlike the Russian linguistic world-image where «HUMAN BEING» (2.94%) is the most frequent reaction, which actually refers to the generic term and actualizes the archiseme of subject (лицо), the associates produced by the Russian-speaking respondents of Ukraine tend to describe the behavior of the holy fool as «STRANGE».
Russian-speaking respondents from Ukraine and Russia evaluate this notion in a similar way. Having analyzed the associative fi elds of the stimulus word «holy fool» from the direct and reverse Associative Thesaurus of Russian by Yu.N. Karaulov et al., N.L. Chulkina and V.B. Gomes Dias came to the conclusion that «holy fool» is generally evaluated in three different ways: positively, negatively, and neutrally. Their percentage (12%, 32% and 44.5% respectively) shows the dominance of negative and neutral reactions (Chulkina & Gomes Dias, 2016: 299). The results of our research testify to the dominance of neutral and negative reactions (41% account for negative reactions).
Theological associates are represented in the periphery both in our research and in that of our Russian counterparts. Emotive associates are only refl ected in one singular reaction (hard, pity) in our associative fi eld and the one built by Yu.N. Karaulov respectively.

Conclusions
The main goal of the conducted psycholinguistic research was to identify the major semantic components of the word «holy fool» in the linguistic world-image of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. This is expected to facilitate the further description of the behavioral pattern of the ludic position «holy fool» that would refl ect the reality of the linguistic consciousness of Russian native speakers.
The results of the conducted experiment allowed us to make a conclusion that in terms of the everyday linguistic consciousness of the Russian-speaking population of the eastern part of Ukraine the concept «holy fool» is refl ected in three core (more than 10%) semantic clusters: 1) «behavior» (46.57%); 2) «appearance, looks» (21.57%); 3) «cognitive disorders» (16.67%).
Therefore, holy fool is mainly represented by lexemes with behavioral semantics, lexemes referring to personal appearance, and lexemes semantically connected with defi cient mental abilities of a person.
The stimulus word «holy fool» is generally evaluated in three different ways: positively, negatively, and neutrally. 41% of respondents display repulsion to this stimulus, which is refl ected in the following reactions: ugly 11, foolish, plain 7, insane, sick, ugly creature 4, fool, crazy, crippled 3, mentally challenged, abnormal, wrong, fearful 2 etc.
The comparative analysis of the verbalized concept «holy fool» in the linguistic world-image of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine and Russia, leads to the following conclusions: 1) the semantic charge of the word «holy fool» is bigger in the linguistic consciousness of the Russian-speaking respondents from the eastern part of Ukraine; 2) the core of the verbalized concept «holy fool» have different components. Most Ukrainian and Russian respondents tend to treat concept «holy fool» as something negative or neutral, which testifi es to the ambivalence of this concept; theological associates are represented in the periphery; emotive associates are only refl ected in singular reactions.