Yashchyk N. Linguocultural aspect of German ethnosymbols.

The proposed research is dedicated to the study of German ethnic symbols, which are one of the means of verbalization of culturally important information and a way of conceptualizing of extralinguistic reality. The topicality of the thesis is the general direction of our work on the analysis of language units, the semantics of which is related to the history, culture and peculiarity of the people, and the establishment of linguocultural characteristics of German ethnosymbols. The thesis highlights the philosophical understanding of the symbol and stages of the development of this term in linguistic. The terms "ancient ethnosymbol" and "modern ethnosymbol" are interpreted in the work. The paper outlines the main approaches to the study of ethnosymbols, effective methods for material research and their study in linguocultural aspect. Within the framework of the research an ethnosymbol has been determined as a motivated, polysemic, conventional language sign, the semantics of which is formed on the basis of national associative relationships, common in certain linguistic society arrangements; it is an important conventional marking of culturally significant concepts. Semantics of an ethnosymbol is formed on the basis of associative rethinking of direct, indirect, connotative wordmeanings and motivated by the social function of the denoted word. The associative experiment is used to determine relationships of word-symbols with the national-cultural context. It is one of the most effective methods for studying specific functioning of words in linguistic consciousness. The complex of ethnosymbols in a particular language forms the system of symbols. This system functions along with the system of linguistic signs and concepts and it is dynamic: in the result of socio-cultural changes new symbols can be formed, and the existing symbols can lose their meaning or receive a new meaning.