The article deals with the linguocultural potential of associative fields of stimuli divchyna, divchynka, divcha, divulya, divaha, that are important ethnocultural signs for Ukrainians. As a result of the free‑association experiment, it has been established that the reactions obtained can be distributed to three groups: universal (available in each stimulus), frequency reaction (occur as answers to three or more stimuli) and unique (are relevant for one or two stimuli). It was discovered that among the universal and frequency reactions there predominates the stereotypical characteristics of the object that reflect the positive, idealized qualities of a young woman and that these are basic components of the Ukrainian language picture of the world. It has been found that unique reactions arise as a result of the actualization of the nucleus of the objective‑conceptual semantics of the word, behind which stands a denotation, and that this may also be the result of stylistic stimulus colour. The linguistic‑cultural analysis of reactions confirmed the statement on the multidimensionality of human memory, which certifies the existence of words‑stimuli simultaneously in three planes – verbal, subject, and actional. The study has demonstrated that the word in this man‑centric dimension has a marked information potential, and constitutes a sign of folk culture, which retains its own linguistic, linguocultural, and encyclopaedic information.

The article presents the results of a psycholinguistic study of the concept JOY based on the materials of the Ukrainian Associative Dictionary by S. Martinek. The associative meaning of the word joy has been identified and a comparative analysis has been conducted, juxtaposing the obtained results with the lexicographic definitions and survey data provided by the sociological group “Rating”. The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the major psychological theories of emotions and various linguistic approaches to studying emotions. All reactions of the conducted free associative experiment to the word-stimulus joy were classified according to the structures of knowledge representation, with their quantitative ratio determined. The research has shown that the emotion of joy is described by the hyperonyms emotion, feeling, mood. The core of the associative field of the concept JOY in Ukrainian linguaculture is formed by happiness, cheerfulness, merriment, satisfaction, pleasure. The most frequent characteristics of joy are great and sincere, and the most typical oppositions – sadness and sorrow. Joy is most frequently associated with laughter and smiling as an outward expression of emotion, with the colours yellow and white as well as with light and sun. Among the reasons for joy, life draws the greatest number of reactions while family, friends, home are of significant importance for Ukrainians.