The Empirical Research of Understanding Contemporary Poetry by Future Philologists

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to conduct the empirical study of understanding contemporary poetry by future philologists, which helps us to distinguish psycholinguistic mechanisms of such understanding.

The methods of the research. The research was carried out using a sample method (using a questionnaire developed by us (Mykhalchuk, Ivashkevych & Nabochuk, 2020). This questionnaire we use to assess the psychological specifics of understanding of contemporary poetry by future philologists. In order to establish the peculiarities of the content of the associative series of the word “poetry”, we organized an associative experiment. Also we used the method of annotated reading (Illyashenko, 1980). The application of this technique involved solving the following tasks: 1) to develop the criteria to understand poetry for students; 2) to determine the levels of understanding of future philologists of poetic texts.

The results of the research. We single out some special psycholinguistic mechanisms of understanding of poetic texts by students-philologists, such as: 1. The mechanism of actualization of “emotions of form”. 2. The mechanism of harmonization of meaning. 3. The mechanism of amplification of poetry. 4. The mechanism of acquiring aesthetic experience. We proved, that the subject of understanding is an active communicative person with multifaceted personal qualities. The subjective component of understanding is specified in two main groups of factors: 1) the factor of the activity of the understanding the subject, generalized in target conditions of understanding; 2) the factor of individual-personal conditionality of understanding: the assessment by the subject of understanding of his/her own moral, volitional, emotional-communicative qualities, personal aggression, a tendency to reflection, etc.

Conclusions. The success of improving readers’ perception and understanding of the poetry depends on the activation of the latter. Readers focus more on direct intentions than on their own feelings and ideas about poetry, although the latter determines their different perceptions. The development of the perception and understanding of the poetic form of the reader is due to the realization of the increasing complex of emotional connections of the semantic elements of the text, and emotionality is one of the main criteria for assessing poetry.

Keywords: psycholinguistic mechanisms of understanding, “emotions of form”, amplification of poetry, acquiring aesthetic experience, the subjective component of understanding, emotional-communicative qualities, a tendency to reflection