Stereotypes about word «кость» in Russian (Школьные сочинения)

In Russian word «кость» has at least some different meanings. People can understand it as “dice” or as “bone” or as “bead of an abacus”. The first meaning is “bone”.

The aim of this paper is to study if playing games with dices can change first association with word «кость». The results of this research may be used as materials for further studies.

The age range of the respondents was 18-30 years old. There were two different groups, 10 people in each group: people who play tabletop role-playing games and people who do not play them. In such games as “Dungeons and dragons” or “Vampire: the Masquerade” players very often role their dices.

Respondents were told to ask from one to five questions to a given situation: «Я вчера купила кости».

All respondents were asked orally but they had to type their answers using their smartphones or computers.

This way should help respondents to enunciate their answers more precise and, moreover, escape mishearing their answers. After they gave their answers they were asked if they play tabletop role-playing games or board games. All people were asked in a neutral conversation which was not about any kinds of games.

The first group, people who do not play the games, mostly asked questions connected with cooking («Ты собираешься варить суп?», «Ты собираешься делать холодец?»), dogs («Это для твоей собаки?», «Ты завела собаку?») or handmade («Ты купила их для рукоделия?»). There also were very general questions as «Зачем?» and «Когда?». Only two people shown that they are not sure if there were meant dices or bones («Ты имеешь ввиду куриные кости или игральные?», «О каких именно костях ты говоришь? ») but other their questions were about previous themes.

The second group, people who play the games “Dungeons and dragons” or “Vampire: the Masquerade” asked such questions as «Покажешь?», «Тебе они нравятся?», «Где брала?». They also asked about design. There were no general questions and no questions about themes of the first group.

None of the respondents shown understanding of word «кость» in any other different meanings such as “bead of an abacus”, for example.

The answers of the respondents show that people who play tabletop role-playing games firstly think that word «кость» means “dice” even if they are not playing or discussing games at the moment of conversation. Thus, other people usually think that word «кость» means “bone” and meaning “dice” rarely comes to their minds. The understanding of the word is connected with their interests: people who often use dices think about dices.