The idea of "evil" in Russian, French and Chinese

The subject of this article is the concept of "evil" in the linguistic worldviews of three different cultures – Russian, French and Chinese. As part of the contrastive analysis, the authors study and compare various aspects of this concept, while using a well-defined algorithm. The study covers the etymology of the word in each of the languages, mythological roots, as well as its compatibility with other lexical units. Special attention is paid to the allocation of material connotation, as proposed by V. A. Uspensky, and the comparison of dictionary definitions. The main purpose of the work is to identify the unique and common features of the concept of "evil" in the semantic fields of these cultures, which allows for a better understanding of the ideological specifics of the Russian, French and Chinese peoples. The scientific methods of research are : the comparative historical method, the method of generalization, the method of semantic analysis. This topic is poorly studied and relevant, because there were no early linguistic and cultural studies of the West-Russia-East coverage analyzing this concept in Russian, French and Chinese languages and cultures, which is the scientific novelty of the work. The findings of the study emphasize the diversity of perception and representation of the concept of "evil" in different cultures. In Russian, evil is the antonym of good, it is embodied and animated in the form of a hostile principle, against which a person actively fights. In French, "mal" originally had a religious meaning associated with the devil, but in modern language the emphasis has shifted to the meanings of "pain" and "illness". At the same time, the fight against evil is more evident in philosophical and religious contexts than in everyday life. In Chinese culture, the roots of the concept of "恶" are associated with ancient ideas about ancestral spirits and are opposed to goodness through associations with dirt, diseases and weeds. In addition, the influence of Christianity during the late Qing Dynasty was reflected in the perception of sin in modern Chinese.

the linguistic picture of the world, contrastive examination, ethics, Linguoculturology, semantic analysis, the national mentality, the material connotation, Russian, Chinese language, French language