The concept “love” in Russian and Chinese language worldview

• Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service. Institute of foreign languages
  Vladivostok. Russia
  Senior lecturer

The article documents research of concept “love” in Russian and Chinese linguistic worldview with the aim of identifying points of cultural and linguistic contacts between the two nations. The study analysed the interpretation of the words given in Russian and Chinese dictionaries, defined cognitive signs of the proverbs that make up the scope of the concept, and identified national and cultural specificity of conceptual fields on the basis of the conducted associative experiment. The specificity of the selected material required the use of descriptive, comparative and quantitative method, and the method of associative experiment, the cognitive method. In the study, it was found that Russian and Chinese explanatory dictionaries give almost identical interpretation of the word, and the differences can be traced only to the individual components. Analysis of Russian and Chinese Proverbs has allowed to establish that Russian and Chinese people often associate love with suffering. The results of associative experiment showed that modern native Chinese speakers primarily associate love with a feeling, which occurs between a man and a woman, and the modern Russian speakers associate it with the family. These data allowed to conclude that there is high degree of similarity of Russian and Chinese linguistic worldview in terms of notions of love despite some specific differences. However, the large number and diversity of concepts requires further attention to this issue.

Keywords: concept, Russian language, Chinese language, Russian linguistic worldview, Chinese linguistic worldview, love.