Grapho-Semantic Modelling Of Concept Society: Case Study Of Russian Newspaper'S Headlines

Component analysis of the headlines in order to distinguish the conceptual component of the unit shown in the example of the “Russian newspaper” №42 (5715) February 28, 2012

1) 55 headlines were allocated by the method of continuous sampling in this issue of the newspaper (for example, “Fighting for reform”, “For Pushkin”, “On a solid platform”, “Away with television servility”, “Preparing for change”, “The cat in a bag”, “Investment: step by step”, “Attracting young people”, etc.).

2) Respondents singled out key words (component-units) in each headline (40 people from Orenburg, Russia), the semantic orientation of which, in their opinion, is associated with the essence of the concept “society”. For example, the headlines:

- “The clock stopped the attack”, the respondents divided into 3 conceptual component units: safety, time, attack;

- “Oil extrude atoms” - 2 component-units: science, process;

- “Collection past the cash register” - 4 component-units: problem, fees, finance, economy;

- “Disputes of patriotism” - 5 component units: state, love, patriotism, homeland, person;

- “Danish time” - 5 components-units: time, state, history, period, etc.

In 17 headlines respondents did not see the connection with the concept under study (“Deep approach”, “No surprises”, “Risks of opportunity”, “Bets are made”, etc.) (Anpilogova, 2015).

Thus, after analyzing the 169 headlines of the three numbers of the “Russian newspaper”, 217 conceptual component units were allocated by the respondents.

Field analysis of headlines contributing to the formation of conceptual (semantic) fields of the selected component units

From the allocated 217 component-units we have constructed semantic fields. It was taken into account that one unit can belong to more than one field. Thus, the conceptual component - the security unit - is a component of two conceptual fields: state and law.

The analysis of the headlines resulted in 7 semantic fields bearing the main characteristics of the concept “society”:

- the largest field is the state field which includes 111 components united on the basis of the political form of organization of society, carrying out its management, protection of economic and social structure, ensuring the unity of the people and its national security: unity, group, society, business, elections, security, president, etc.;

- the structure of the field of jurisprudence includes 87 components drawn up on the basis of a set of rules that determine the mandatory relationship of people in society (Brockhaus & Yefron, 2008), based on legal ideas about the possibility of making progressive changes in the mechanism and methods of regulation of society (Anpilogova & Yakupova, 2016): status, knowledge, protection, problem, agitation, laws, etc.;

- no less important is the field of economy, which includes 78 units connected on the basis of the totality of relations developing in the system of production and activity in the society (Raizberg, Lozovskii, & Starodubtseva, 2017), which represent the economy as an economic activity of the company: process, development, technology, finance, market etc.;

- the field of society includes 72 components made up of a set of people, historically united by the social forms of life and work (Yefremova, 2006): state, nation, group, person, patriotism, etc.;

- policy field consists of 66 components associated with the course of action of people to address issues relating to public life, defining the system of internal and external relations (Ozhegov, 2016): the status of the president, patriotism, nation, unity, etc.;

- 57 units are included in the field of culture, grouped according to the characteristics of historical processes, human development, reflecting the views of culture in the aspect of human activity, including any forms and ways of self-expression and human self-knowledge (Pelipenko & Yakovenko, 1998): science, history, period, talent, Internet, changes, human etc.;

- in the field of mass media there are 33 components drawn up on the basis of information exchange in the society in need of special means of information exchange, in the establishment and maintenance of permanent relations between its subjects: knowledge, technology, problem, agitation, etc.

Grapho-semantic representation which includes determining the number of connections between fields within the semantic space of headlines and counting the total number of their interactions

1) The number of connections between fields within the lexical-semantic space of each headline, reflecting the essence of the concept “society”, was determined. For example, the conceptual space of the headline “Communal's oath” connects 4 semantic fields: state, society, economy and culture.

2) In all definitions of the concept “society” the total number of fields interacting with other fields was calculated.

3) The discovered connections between the conceptual fields passed the phase of graphic representation (construction of semantic graph).

Only those fields of the model that have passed the threshold of statistical significance were subjected to further analysis (the number of components with less than the average value were not taken into account). Using the data of statistical methods we determined that the following fields are significant: state, politics, law, society, economy, media and culture. The conceptual components designated by these words are most demanded for the society concept's interpretation. This is reflected in the grapho-semantic model presented in figure 01 .

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It is important to take into account the thickness of the lines presented in the model, which shows the probability of dependence of the connection of one component in relation to another: ordinary lines indicate the average connections (values greater than the average); dotted lines show weak connections (values equal to the average); bold lines show strong connections (values greater than the sum of the average and the standard). There are only strong and weak connections in our model.

The nuclear components of the model are the state and economy fields with valence 6 (the number of connections formed with other fields) and the largest number of significant connections.

The number of significant connections of the state field is 2, which indicates the thematic focus of the newspaper in favour of social structure and economic relations:

1 State ↔ society. The relations arising between the society as a historical result of naturally developing relationships between people and the state as an artificial political construct, managing these relationships, show that historically society is primary and the state is secondary, as it occurs at a certain stage of development of society to protect the interests of citizens (Kravchenko, 2013).

2 State ↔ economy. This type of relationships reveals the interaction of the state, creating and protecting the conditions for the normal functioning of economic entities, and the economy, constantly reproducing the means of existence of the state. The state acts as a regulator of the economy seeking to change the conditions of functioning of all subjects of economic relations. In all existing economic systems, there is a close intertwining of market relations with elements of state control and regulation in order to influence economic processes to achieve certain results (Bogolyubov, 2018).

Fields: state↔culture; state ↔ media; state ↔ policy; state ↔ law – identifies weak connections that proves insufficient coverage of these themes in the "Russian Newspaper".

The field economy also has valency 6. The most significant connections of this field show the interest of the newspaper in covering the issues of economy and legal relations in the field of the state:

1. Economy ↔ state (discussed above in the description of the field relations of the state).

2. Economy ↔ jurisprudence. This connection is due to the fact that in the economic life of society, economic and legal relations are closely intertwined as the economy can function effectively only on a legal basis (a set of rules governing the activities of economic entities) at the micro and macro levels (Pelipenko & Yakovenko, 1998).

Weak connections are also distinguished in the fields: economy ↔ media, economy ↔ politics, economy ↔ culture and economy ↔ society, which indicates the underrepresentation of these thematic areas in the analyzed issue of the newspaper.

The society field is connected with 5 components with one significant connection: society ↔ state, considered by us in the analysis of the state field. Less important when society↔ culture, society↔ media, society↔ politics, society↔ law, society↔ economy. The law field also has one significant connection which is studied in the description of the economy field. The remaining connections are marked as weak.

The valence of the culture, media and politics fields is 6 but no significant connections are revealed there. These fields have weak connections in the grapho-semantic model that means lack of disclosures in these numbers of the newspaper.