THE CONCEPT OF THE NORTH AND ITS PERCEPTION BY RUSSIAN STUDENTS (ON THE EXAMPLE OF STUDENTS FROM MURMANSK AND ST. PETERSBURG)

The article studies linguistic representation of the North concept. The authors present an argument for its significance in the linguistic picture of the world of Russian speakers, due to the fact that the Russian North is a unique cultural space, a repository of living folk traditions and monuments of folk art. The article gives a brief characteristic of linguistic studies of the North concept, which, along with other concepts and micro-concepts make up the conceptosphere of Arctic discourse. The article describes in detail the results of a free associative experiment conducted by the authors among the students of Murmansk Arctic University and The Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. The article characterizes the image of the North in the linguistic consciousness of modern Russian students, obtained by generalizing verbal reactions to the words ‘North’, ‘Arctic’, ‘Northerner’. The authors reveal similarities and differences in the essential characteristics of the North proposed by the respondents of these universities. According to the results of the experiment, students of both universities most often associate the concepts ‘Arctic’ and ‘North’ with natural and climatic conditions. However, the students of St. Petersburg are in the position of an ‘external observer’ in relation to the North, while Murmansk students feel themselves a part of the North. Therefore, they have rich and diverse associations that convey certain realities of northern nature, fauna and flora. The attitude of Murmansk students to the North is more emotional: there are evaluative adjectives reflecting antonymic series (‘cold’ - ‘warm’, ‘native’ - ‘distant’, ‘dangerous’ - ‘kind’, etc.). There are also associations related to the homeland, reflections on the fate of the North. The difference in the perception of the microconcept of the northerner by the students of the two universities is quite significant. When characterizing a northerner as a resident of a certain area, the primary associations are those related to nationality, profession, and appearance. The associative series also reflects the stereotypical perception of a northerner as a person who lives by labour and is immersed in work. For the majority of Murmansk students, a northerner is, first of all, a person with excellent character traits and high moral qualities. The associative field reflects the connection with the small Motherland, the manifestation of ethnic identity - the identity of a northerner: ‘native’, ‘close person’, ‘one of us’, ‘me’. The other indicators are not significant and rare