Mesoanalysis as an Interdisciplinary Methodology in Social and Humanitarian Research

The paper discusses the prospects for the inclusion of meso-level research methodology in interdisciplinary methodology in social and humanitarian research. The meso-level approach focuses on the rules (meso-structures) according to which individuals act at the micro level, the consequences of which extend to the macro level. In the social sciences the meso-approach is represented, in sociology, in the conception of methodological institutionalism (S. Kirdina-Chandler), in economics, it is displayed within the framework of evolutionary economics (K. Dopfer et al.). The author propounds the idea that the meso-approach is utilised in psycholinguistic research based on mass association experiments (Moscow psycholinguistic school). Both social and linguistic approaches demonstrate common methodology in relation to features of the topic under consideration. Such features may be described as inherent properties of meso-structures, three of them being the key issues discussed in the paper: first, meso-structures are systems ruled by an external factor; second, meso-structures are constructed by different methods, among them network and field methods being acknowledged by both social sciences and linguistics; third, bimodality is characteristic of meso-structures. The paper also discusses the prospects of «mesolinguistics» becoming a new direction of psycholinguistic research. Mesolinguistics centres not on personal meanings determined by individual psychological characteristics, but rather on the dominant verbalised meanings of the generalised model of «average» language consciousness determined by collective social and cultural experience.

Keywords

interdisciplinary methodology, psycholinguistics, social institutions, associative verbal network, dominants, cultural universals, meso approach, methodological institutionalism, mesolinguistics

Acknowledgment

The article is part of the project of the Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences «Cultural universals of verbal traditions of the peoples of Siberia and the Far East: folklore, literature, language» supported by a grant from the Government of the Russian Federation for the promotion of research conducted under the guidance of leading scientists, contract № 075-15-2019-1884.

Received

17.04.2020

Publication date

15.09.2020

Number of characters

27543

Cite

GOST	Kuzmina M. Mesoanalysis as an Interdisciplinary Methodology in Social and Humanitarian Research // Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya – 2020. – Issue 8 C. 27-36 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/socis/s013216250009297-9-1-en (circulation date: 20.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013216250009297-9
MLA	Kuzmina, Maria A "Mesoanalysis as an Interdisciplinary Methodology in Social and Humanitarian Research." Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya 8 (2020):27-36. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250009297-9
APA	Kuzmina M. (2020). Mesoanalysis as an Interdisciplinary Methodology in Social and Humanitarian Research. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya (8), pp.27-36 DOI: 10.31857/S013216250009297-9

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