Semantic differential is a method developed by the American psychologist Charles Osgood in order to measure the connotative meaning of words, things, concepts, cultural values. It is used in various sociological studies, as well as in marketing, user experience research, and therapy.
There are two meanings of a linguistic unit (word): denotative and connotative. Denotation is its lexical meaning. Connotation is the suggestive meaning of a 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 dictionary Thesaurus Roger to compile a bipolar scale depending on semantic opposites: “good-bad”, “fast-slow”, “clean-dirty”, “valuable-useless "," Fair-unfair "," soft-hard "and so on. Osgood called these scales as follows: semantic differential, since they are differentiated by an intensity ratio based on a person's subjective understanding of the connotative meanings of words.
The research team was able to use computer technology and factor analysis , which became available at that time, to study large volumes of data with the help of numerous “judges” (ordinary people invited to express their attitude) who evaluated more than a thousand concepts on numerous scales of semantic differential. The result was the discovery of semantic space - the existence of three measuring fundamental philosophical aspects, for each in their social environment, regardless of language or culture. Subsequent experimentation by many researchers around the world has confirmed the validity of semantic space and its intercultural validity.
The semantic differential measures people's reactions to stimulating words and concepts in terms of estimated coefficients in bipolar scales defined by verbal antonyms from each end of the scale.
After studying the connotative meaning of many concepts, Charles Osgood and his colleagues identified three basic seven-point grading scales: “grading”, “strength”, “activity”:
- Good _3 ___: __ 2 __: __ 1 __: __ 0 __: _- 1 ___: __- 2 __: __- 3__ Bad;
- Strong _3 ___: __ 2 __: __ 1 __: __ 0 __: _- 1 ___: __- 2 __: __- 3__ Weak;
- Active _3 ___: __ 2 __: __ 1 __: __ 0 __: _- 1 ___: __- 2 __: __- 3__ Passive:
Position “0” means a neutral attitude, “1” means “little”, “2” means “completely”, “3” means “to the highest degree”.
As a rule, a person is interested in a certain concept, for example, "Red China", and is asked to rate it on a number of such scales. To analyze individual associations, scales can be combined in various ways.
The semantic differential method is used for many reasons.
Bipolar adjective pairs are a simple, economical tool that makes it possible to obtain certain data based on the subjective understanding of people of the connotative meanings of words. These three dimensions, apparently, form a kind of “socio-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 semantic differential method are market research, media analysis , social research, primarily those products, enterprises, people whose image should be analyzed.
For semantic differential, smart respondents are required. In addition, they must understand the language well, be able to "grasp" its subtle differences. As a rule, it is not suitable for children, but there is a developing diagnosis of students' perceptions of teachers by the method of semantic differential. The tool gives interesting results in the border area between linguistics and psychology.