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The modern academic structure of sociopsychological field manifests itself in a rising tendency to revise the traditional axioms of classical science and develop neoclassic (post-neoclassic, postmodern) ideas in social studies and humanities. The new approach postulates the principle of subjectness (Subject-involvement) in representing the scientific world-view, which results, in general, in the transition from passive reflection of reality to construction of reality by a subject. Methodological analysis of theoretical foundations for the role of the subject in the conceptualization process suggests a possibility for an integral approach to dealing with issues of explaining physical reality, independent of the field of study.
Describing principles of psychic structuring of reality, different approaches, have a diverse treatment (both theoretical and empirical) of the key question. It is the nature of subjective representation of the object in the mind of the subject. Trying to solve that major problem, all the above mentioned approaches leave other important questions open for discussion, such as the problems of subject and object, the subjective and objective, the conscious and subconscious, meaning and sense, demand and motive as behavior determiners. Interaction of sociopsychological knowledge with other branches of science and social studies makes it possible to reach a complete understanding and explanation for a number of problems untreatable from the classical point of view, including the laws and deviations within the paradox of subject activity.
First attempts to "reanimate" the subject in science are related to the fundamental discovery of ‘phenomenological reduction “ as a way of mental representation of reality by the subject, i.e. concepts of external reality, created by the individual by way of designing a subjective "world view" in the process of adaptation. The main issues of "subject studies" have been treated in the context of social cognition. (S. Fiske, Sh.Tajlor., A. Tashfel, C. Fraser, J. Habermas); the phenomenon of social design and interpretation of reality (P. L. Berger, Pullberg, J.R. Searle); problems of routine and social perception (J. S. Вruner, F. Heider, E. Jones, К. E. Davis, M. Lerner); the rules of person-to-person perception (A. A. Bodalyov, V.S. Ageyev, G.M. Andreyeva), mechanisms of sign mediation (L.S. Vygotsky, A. P. Luria, E.D. Chomskaya); activity analysis (A.N. Leontyev, A.G. Asmolov, V.A. Petrovsky, S.L. Rubinstein, D.A. Leontyev); culture-historical determinants of thought and speech (L.S. Vygotsky, G. Piaget, M. Cole, S. Scribner, Y.M. Lotman); motivational determinants of behavioral activity (K. Lewin, Н. Heckhausen, J. Nuttin); requirement and emotional link (V.K. Vilunas, P.V. Simonov); interface of scientific and customary reflection of reality (A.V. Yurevitch, E.V. Ulibina); peculiarities of cognitive and semantic categorization (G.A. Kelly, F. Fransella, D. Bannister, V.P. Zinchenko, V.F. Peterenko, A.G. Shmelyov); presuppositions, stereotypes and concepts of routine thinking (D.N. Uznadze, Lippmann, P.N. Shikhirev, M.A. Rousina, S. Moskovisi); subjective semantics and sense-formation (E.Y. Artemyeva, D.A. Leontyev, V.F. Peternko, V.I. Pokhilko); the phenomenon of mentality and mental organization (K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, D. Peabody, E.A. Klimov, I.G. Dubov, O.V. Mitina and others)
The basic axioms of the subject-determined mentality have been formulated within the context of the above mentioned lines of research. There also have been determined the rules for categorial cognition structuring; meaning and sense formation; understanding and perception in the structural, genetic and functional aspect of analysis of "psychical reality as a person's subjective world" (V.V. Petukhov).
The most promising from the standpoint of empirically verified contexts (adequacy of methodology to method, procedure and technology) are meaning-oriented models of subjective reality conceptualization. They take into account all strata of sign organization of psychical reality: sensory-perceptual; representational; conceptual (significance); semantic (sense), by virtue of which these research models present a claim to total subject analysis of mentally represented reality in a shape of "mental world view" or "mental map". That environment itself sets the formula for subject-world interface.
One of the ways to model a fragment of mental map is building a mental space. The elaboration of specific procedures and experimental patterns for constructing mental spaces belongs to three neoclassical research lines: subjective semantics, experimental psychosemantics and semantic analysis, each of them presenting a different problem-setting in the field of semantics of mental representation, having different notions and terminology, experimentation approach. All of them provide great scope of methods for adequate object description: completeness of explanation and forecasting precision in situational and dispositional behavior of the subject, whether individual or collective. Construction of semantic spaces is carried out as part of mathematical modeling of the mental map (the system replacing a modeled object, patterned by mathematical structures of arbitrary set with definite relations).
The efficiency of semantic models of mental representation is proved, in the first place, by the prime of semantic regulation in perception (perceptual analysis starts with semantic analysis). In the second place, by the semantic unity of physical reality (a two-step object perception; pre-object emotional-estimative selectiveness on the level of semantic coordinates and their organization into categorial-conceptual space - on the level of categories of meaning). And thirdly, by the valid object representation through reconstruction of the object's full meaning (system of requirements and motives in Subject-Object relations).
In this respect there has been a more obvious gap between traditional psychosemantics that studies individual meaning systems, and semantic analysis that researches individual and collective subjectivity.
Studying the ways a subjects cognizes the world as a structured and organized unit and inquiring into the sense units of cognition with their effect on subject-world interface, psychosemantics deals with the category of subjectivity. The category of subjectivity is a meaning-defined interpretation of reality by the subject as an individual, and it is limited by the reconstruction of systems of subjective meanings related to mental categorization.
Offering a wider interpretation and comprehension of the subject, semantic analysis treats the category of "subjectness" or "subject involvement" as both an individual (an individual mental map) and collective subject attribute. This is grounded on the vitalist principles of analysis of psycho-social systems, thus converging the sociological and psychological focus on subjective categorization of reality. In this way subject-involvement should be viewed as a general determinant for subject activity that sets a track for achievement of adaptational equilibrium within the functional system of the subject's vital forces on different evolutionary stages of bio-, psycho-, socio- and other systems. It is acceptable for the selection of the subject activity dominant, unlike the choice of tools and preferences, to be arbitrary and subconscious in most cases.
The above interpretation of subjectness or subject-involvement immediately requires addressing the motivation issue, which, in its turn, encompasses the sphere of requirements, motives, dispositions, interests, attitudes, positions, which is true both for a separate individual and for social groups. Motivation is one of the main determinants for the subject's activity. That is why any choice of individual and collective subject (political, national, family, professional, consumer, ...) is always proved to be determined by vital needs and motives under definite conditions of sociocultural discourse. As a result, the construction of sense (semantic) space for realization of social activity on the individual or collective level is impossible without considering motivational forces and their impact on behavioral activity and sense-foundation for a certain activity. No forecast, diagnosis and correction of the state of social systems is possible without the estimate of motivation and goal (demand) impact on structuring of modern social networks. Therefore, taking into account the motivational vector as a tract of subject's activity would yield accurate forecasts for identification of the optimum and social multiple choice. The semantic solution to the problem of predicting a social/ individual choice is possible for a whole range of problems of social context, for example, rating forecasts, social tension and conflict assessment, social management, problems of individual and group adaptation-misadaptation. Norm-deviation issue in relation to values, legal problems of public verdicts, various problems of diagnosis and expert activity plus a lot more. It should be added that Semantic Analysis can function both on the micro- and macro-level of social intercourse, from a separate individual's psyche to diverse-size social groups.
It is also important that attempts to apply traditional models of semantic space construction for determining the scope and structure of needs and motives (I.L. Solomin, 2001) have proved to be inadequate in the context of experimental psychosemantics that deals with estimation of activity, relations and social conditions. The reason is limitation to the widely known method of factorization. This work presents the explanation for the corresponding limits of the psychosemantic method, as well as offers an alternative to the application of Semantic Analysis technique for description, explanation and forecast of stratification and interrelation of individual and group mental systems from the standpoint of a new subject concept in humanities.
Materials placed on this server present the basics of Semantic Analysis as a new approach to subject-involvement analysis. They contain descriptions of procedures of semantic approach, not as a meta-theory, but as a meta-tool that reveals conceptualization of any theory in classical science. Besides that, all necessary mathematical foundations have been given to support the logic of Semantic Analysis as a research method with all its application opportunities in all fields of social studies. It's also explained that the new method of object representation and description through its properties reflected in a new model of semantic space, works toward the common operation with "laws of conservation" independent of a scientific field - even in the sphere of humanities, all that making its prediction capabilities almost identical to those of natural sciences.
All possible reasons and psychological grounds for the basics of Semantic Analysis are being discussed in the process of formalization and construction of a new model of semantic space.
The on-line materials contain a partial non-discrepancy test for semantic representation, using the examples of physical objects. There is also a discussion on applying Semantic Analysis in spheres of sociology, psychology, psychophysiology, politics, advertisement, marketing, gender studies, law, pedagogy, ethnic studies in a number of pilot research projects conducted at the Department of Communication Psychology and Psychotechnology of the Faculty of Sociology at Altai State University.
The authors focused primarily on complete coverage of both theoretical and practical aspects of Semantic Analysis.
The material is grouped into four parts:
We recommend starting with the special section where one can find description and analysis of basic terms used in the above listed parts. The same part contains critical comments on traditional research methods.
The first part dwells on methodology of subject-oriented approach. There is a discussion of such an issue as non-discrepancy of subject involvement in the theory. As there can be only one specific subject correlated to any specific subjective reality, one of the major categories of this approach is subject space that encompasses all subjective realities. The second important question is the subject's creativity as his main attribute. Since the evolutionary progress changes the matter of object reality, thus violating the causation principle of any formal theory, introduction of the subject into any classical theory hardly seems to be possible. Any attempt of this kind brings it back to the object.
The second part covers the problems of formalization within Semantic Analysis. There's a definition of semantic space as a basis for mentality description and modeling, alongside the complete description of object space. As an object of any nature could be a formal part of object space, there is an opportunity for theoretical test of the method through semantic space description of natural science objects. It is stressed that laws of conservation are virtually the effect of sense conservation in a system, and they can find an effective application in the humanities, assuming that an object for study is correctly selected. The same part contains definitions of basic notions, such as: state, motivation vector and others. It is demonstrated that with this method mentality is viewed as an integral unit to be analyzed probabilistically through superposition of states not derived from single components of mentality.
The third part contains detailed descriptions of semantic research technique. It is supported by specific examples of the project.
The fourth part offers materials of different research projects in the following spheres:
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