2019, Vol. 10, No. 1. - go to content...

Permanent address of this page - https://sfk-mn.ru/en/06flsk119.html

Метаданные этой статьи так же доступны на русском языке

Full article in PDF format (file size: 380.6 KB)

For citation:

Orlova T.G. [Comparative structural-semantic analysis of English and Russian proverbs about friendship as a reflection of the national-cultural specificity of thinking and mentality of native English and Russian speakers] World of Science. Series: Sociology, Philology, Cultural Studies, 2019, Vol. 10, No. 1. Available at: https://sfk-mn.ru/PDF/06FLSK119.pdf (in Russian).

Comparative structural-semantic analysis of English and Russian proverbs about friendship as a reflection of the national-cultural specificity of thinking and mentality of native English and Russian speakers

Orlova Tatiana Gennadʹevna
Peoples’ friendship university of Russia, Moscow, Russia
E-mail: orlova_tg@rudn.university

Abstract. The article is devoted to a comparative structural-semantic analysis of English and Russian proverbs related to the concept of “friendship”. Comparison of fragments of this proverbial field allowed us to reveal the cultural specifics of thinking and the mentality of two non-closely related peoples. The relevance of research is determined by insufficient knowledge, which suggests that the images and motivational bases that form the imagery means (comparison, opposition, comparison, metaphor, allegory); semantics of lexical components, syntactic structures (repetitions, parallelism, ellipsis, compression); emotional expressive means; as well as rhythmic organization. As a result of the research, deep generalized data were found that have similar and unique values. Despite some similarities, the proverbs of the English and Russian reflect national-cultural information, the idea of a person, his relationship with other people and mutual assistance. The analysis revealed that this difference is largely due to the different origins of the English and Russian proverbs. Thus, a significant part of the English proverbs is the maxims, short sentences that have been formed under the influence of Latin expressions, quotations of the Bible and sayings of famous people. They reflect the mentality of urban residents, merchants, business people. Russian proverbs reflect the peasant mentality and are more connected with a concrete-shaped worldview. Their emotional component is much higher than the use of folk art and folklore. This analysis allowed us to determine the role of linguistic means in expressing the mentality of native English and Russian speakers.

Keywords: paremia; proverb; structural-semantic analysis; comparative analysis; concept of “friendship”; figurative meaning; lexical components; syntactic structure; figurative means; expression; mentality

Download article in PDF format