METHODOLOGY OF EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SOCIOCULTURAL MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS

METHODOLOGY OF EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SOCIOCULTURAL MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS

Author:  E.V. Troshchenkova

Affiliation:  Saint Petersburg State University

Abstract: 
The article discusses the problem of choosing an adequate method for studying sociocultural knowledge as a basis for language functioning. It describes the potential of experimental modeling of mental representations which allows taking into account both general tendencies and individual / group variation of knowledge that is distributed in a language community. As an example of what can be achieved with psycholinguistic experiments in this sphere, the article covers the results of an experiment on stereotypical role expectations with English-speaking respondents from the USA.

Keywords:  sociocultural mental representation, psycholinguistic experiment, modeling distributed knowledge, invariant / variation, stereotypical role expectations