Associative Image of the Moon in the Chinese Language Consciousness: Experimental Psycholinguistic Research

The article describes a psycholinguistic experiment that examined the associative image of the Moon in the Chinese language consciousness. The objective of the study was to determine the associative content of the image, as well as the national and cultural grounds behind the internalization of its meanings.  The free associative experiment was conducted in November 2022 and involved 550 students from 325 universities in China. The associative field was described using the semantic gestalt method developed by Yu. N. Karaulov. The data obtained were statistically processed using the SPSS 26.0 and Microsoft Excel 2016 software. These three methods combined provided a full description of the content and structure of the associative gestalt. The experiment confirmed the hypothesis that the Moon occupies a central position among the traditional symbols of art and literature. In the linguistic consciousness of Chinese youth, the type of association tends to be paradigmatic: they associated the image of the Moon with family and homeland. It also appeared to evoke a stable negative emotional evaluation. The association mechanisms were caused by both traditions and actual emotional states.