Semantic Differential

The semantic differential is a method developed by the American psychologist Charles Osgood to measure the connotative meaning of words, things, concepts, cultural values. It is used in various sociological studies, also in marketing, research of user experience, therapy.

There are two meanings of the linguistic unit (word): denotative and connotative. Denotation is its lexical meaning. The connotation is the suggestive meaning of the word. For example, consider the words "tiger" or "eagle". They denote animals, but their connotative meaning is strength, power.

In the early 1950s, Charles Osgood and his colleagues used the ideographic vocabulary "Roger Thesaurus" to compose a bipolar scale depending on the semantic opposites: "good-bad", "fast-slow", "clean-dirty", "valuable-useless "," Just-unfair "," soft-hard "and so on. Osgood named these scales as follows: the semantic differential, because they are differentiated by the ratio of intensity on the basis of a subjective understanding of the connotative meanings of words by man.

The team of researchers was able to use computer technology and factor analysis available at that time to study large amounts of data with the help of numerous "judges" (ordinary people invited to express their attitude), who evaluated more than a thousand concepts on multiple scales of the semantic differential. The result was the discovery of a semantic space - the existence of three measuring fundamental worldview aspects, for everyone in their social environment, regardless of language or culture. Subsequent experimentation by many researchers around the world has confirmed the validity of the semantic space and its intercultural validity.

The semantic differential measures the reactions of people to stimulating words and concepts from the point of view of the estimated coefficients in bipolar scales determined by verbal antonyms from each end of the scale.

After researching the connotative meaning of many concepts, Charles Osgood and his colleagues identified three basic estimated seven-point scales: "score", "strength", "activity": "

- Good _3 ___: __ 2 __: __ 1 __: __ 0 __: _- 1 ___: __- 2 __: __- 3__Bad;

- Strong _3 ___: __ 2 __: __ 1 __: __ 0 __: _- 1 ___: __- 2 __: __- 3__ Slight;

- Active _3 ___: __ 2 __: __ 1 __: __ 0 __: _- 1 ___: __- 2 __: __- 3__Passive:

The position "0" means neutral attitude, "1" - "little", "2" - "completely", "3" - "to the highest degree".

As a rule, a person is interested in some concept, for example, "Red China", and ask him to evaluate a number of such scales. For the analysis of individual associations, scales can be combined in various ways.

The method of semantic differential is used for many reasons.

Bipolar adjective pairs are a simple, economical means, enabling to obtain certain data based on subjective understanding of people of connotative meanings of words. These three dimensions, apparently, form a kind of "social and emotional characteristics" of people.

In psychology, the semantic differential is used in client-centered psychotherapy to define the "I-concept." Other areas of application of the method of the semantic differential are market research, media analysis , social scientific research, especially those products, enterprises, people whose image should be analyzed.

Skeptical respondents are required for the semantic differential. In addition, they must understand the language well, be able to "grasp" its subtle differences. As a rule, it is not adapted for children, but there is an evolving diagnosis of pupils' perception of the teacher by the method of the semantic differential. The tool gives interesting results in the border area between linguistics and psychology.