An Academic Concept ‘University’ in a Linguistic Perception of German and Russian Students

The relevance of the research problem is conditioned by a significant position, that take up the academic values based on their linguocultural concepts in the modern world, the intensification of Russian-German communication in the field of education generating the need to create a comparative academic conceptuary. The article is aimed at a determination of the comparative characteristics of the academic concept of ‘university’ in the German and Russian linguistic cultures. The leading method in carrying out of this study is linguistic experiment (free association experiment). As a result of the experiment, it was found that the list of associated attributes that make up the core of the concept of ‘university’ in the associative-verbal network of German-speaking and Russian-speaking subjects of academic activities, similar to, but different degree of relevance of these features. The only significant difference fixed in the association experiment is the presence in the German linguoculture associative relationship with the freedom of the student community and the absence of such a mutual relation in the perceptions of Russian students. The materials of the article may be useful in lexicology of the German and Russian languages, training courses on geography and linguocultural studies of Russia and Germany, in the practice of Russian-German academic communication.