The conceptual pair “Life” and “Death” in the Chinese linguistic picture of the world: an explanation of the meanings of precedent texts for representatives of Russian linguistic culture

This article is devoted to the analysis of the conceptual pair “Life” and “Death” in the Chinese linguistic picture of the world. The relevance of this study is due to the growing need for successful intercultural cooperation between Chinese and Russian cultures. Due to objective extralinguistic factors, there is an intensive exchange of knowledge between China and Russia. The flow of Chinese students to Russia is increasing; In the learning process, they are interested not so much in mastering the functioning of the Russian language system, but in understanding the “Russian world.” This process can be difficult due to the discrepancy between the original and the target cultures. The purpose of this work is to study the conceptual complex “Life – Death”, implemented in the Chinese linguistic picture of the world, on the basis of precedent texts widely known to recipients. The subject of the study is the differential characteristics of the conceptual dyad, identified in the process of analysis. The material for the work is precedent texts, in particular, poetic and paremiological units containing the lexical component “Life” and “Death” in the Chinese language. Research methods: descriptive method, conceptual analysis, linguocultural commentary method, contextual analysis, questionnaire. The analysis showed that in the system of social relations the role of each person is determined from birth. Death in the Chinese linguistic picture of the world is the other side of life; It becomes grief and loss only if the individual fails to realize his best qualities. In a certain sense, life for speakers of Chinese language consciousness is a moral achievement. The parameters of the Chinese linguistic picture of the world that we have considered constitute the fund of knowledge that will allow us to begin to comprehend the Russian linguistic picture of the world either by “comparing” mental spaces or by eliminating gaps.

linguoculturology, linguistic picture of the world, concept, conceptual pair, Chinese linguistic culture, precedent text, association experiment, values, model, explanation