Article
Philological role of the upper limb and other parts of the body
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Authors
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Igor Golubev
- Priorov State Medical Research Centre, Moscow, Russia
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Bella Gazimieva
- ECSTO, Moscow, Russia
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Maksim Sautin
- ECSTO, Moscow, Russia
| Published: | February 6, 2020 |
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Outline
Text
Objectives/Interrogation: Human perception of the body directly affects the formation of language. The significance of certain body parts can be represented by the actions and verbs associated with them. Knowing this connection can help assess their value.
Methods: We compiled a questionnaire with one hundred of the most frequently used verbs of English according to Linguasorb.com and five body parts: eyes, ears, upper and lower limbs, and the heart. The interviewees were asked to select which verbs they associated with the given body parts. By association we considered subjective - rational or intuitive - opinion that certain body parts logically relate to actions described by the verbs.
It was necessary to indicate participants' age, gender, level of proficiency in English and native language.
Results and Conclusions: Overall 40 people participated in the survey. Average age was 30 years, from 19 to 48. The percentage of males was 42.5%, females - 57.5%. The native language for the majority (36 people) was Russian, one each for German, French, Spanish and Karachai. The level of English was determined as A1 by 3 people, as A2 - by 4, as B1 - by 9, as B2 - by 10, as C1 and C2 - by 7 for each.
We analyzed the answers to the questionnaire. There were no verbs for which respondents would uniquely give a single answer, although for each verb the answer was predominant. We estimated the most frequent body part-verb connection. For example, for the verb "be" the most frequent association was with heart, for "go" - legs, for "put" - hands. Then we evaluated body parts that were chosen more than others for each verb. Thus, 40 verbs were associated with hands, 20 - eyes, 19 - legs, 17 - heart, 4 - ears.
Human perception of organs, segments and parts of the body has a natural reflection in the use of verbs. From philological point of view, amongst different parts of the body, upper limb and especially hand has been considered a unique and indispensable tool, being the most functional one, whereas the sense organs can be referred to as specific and monofunctional.
