Расширение границ синонимического ряда в сознании носителей русского и польского языков (на примере лексем «жизнь» и «życie»)

This article analyzes the borders of synonyms of the Russian and Polish lexeme “life” in the ordinary consciousness of native speakers. The analysis of theresults of interviews, as well as the electronic dictionary of synonyms, which is formedby the users themselves, demonstrate that in the consciousness of native speakersthere are broader synonymic groups compared with those that are fixed in traditionaldictionaries. Synonymic groups which are proposed by native speakers show that themain criterion for establishing the proximity of the meaning of words for a person isthe ability to correlate on the basis of identity, similarity or inclusion certain fragmentsof reality denoted by these lexemes. The synonymy of sеnse, rather than of meanings,is the determining factor for the native speaker in the formation of a synonymic group