The dissertation is devoted to the study of the Laziness concept, which reflects the consciousness of Russian speakers and is of particular importance for understanding the Russian mentality and national character. Relevance of the research topic is determined by the need to identify the universal and nationally specific content of the named concept, as well as trace the specifics of the combination of archaic and modern meanings in its semantics. In addition, from the point of view of the bearer of Chinese linguistic culture, the Laziness concept was not the subject of a special linguistic study. The relevance of the study of the phenomena of Russian linguistic culture by a representative of Chinese culture is determined by the fact that the ways of expressing conceptual meanings are fundamentally different in Russian and Chinese languages, since Chinese and Russian cultures are based on different worldviews, associated with different religions. In view of this, understanding the content differences of concepts is especially important for translators of Russian literary, philosophical, and religious literature into the Chinese language, as well as for teachers of the Russian language in the Chinese audience.
For the first time, the tasks of the conceptual analysis of the studied phenomenon are combined with the didactic tasks of teaching the Russian language in the Chinese audience. The relevance of the reconstruction of stereotyped ideas about laziness is due to the fact that in the process of studying the Russian language in a Chinese audience, the teacher has to replace some stereotypes that regulate the perception and interpretation of native speech with ones that reflect the content of a foreign culture.
The purpose of the work is to reveal the national and cultural specificity of the Russian Laziness concept in comparison with the Chinese one.
The research material is 5000 contexts from the National Corps of the Russian language, as well as data from etymological, historical, modern explanatory dictionaries, synonym dictionaries, phraseological dictionaries, collections of Proverbs and sayings of V. I. Dahl; texts of Russian folk tales from the collection of О. M. Afanasyev, works of Russian fiction (D. I. Fonvizin's comedy «Underachiever», I. A. Krylov's fables, poems by О. S. Рushkin, works by M. V. Gogol, novel by I. O. Goncharov «Oblomov», F. M. Dostoevsky's novellas «Notes from the Underground», short stories by A. P. Chekhov). The material for comparison is taken from historical and modern explanatory dictionaries of the Chinese language, a collection of Chinese proverbs, and a collection of folk tales.
The first chapter substantiates the theoretical and methodological foundations of the research: the task of comparative linguistic and cultural studies is clarified, the ethno-specificity of the Russian and Chinese national linguistic pictures of the world is considered, as well as the role of stereotyped ideas and conceptual metaphors in the formation of the linguistic picture of the world; the relationship of the terms «concept», «word», «notion», «internal form», etc. is considered.
In the second chapter, the complex semantic structure of the Laziness concept is clarified: the etymology of the representative words, the historical plan of the concept are investigated; changes in the semantics of Russian words were traced and compared with Chinese characters. On the basis of semantic and word-formation analyzes of words of different parts of the language, cognitive features that form the core of conceptual meanings – conceptual and evaluative components of the content of the concept – were revealed.
In the third chapter, a linguistic-cognitive analysis of the polysemy of the adjective lazy is carried out, the stereotypical image of a lazy person is reconstructed; stereotyped ideas about a lazy person, conceptualized in Russian and Chinese phraseology, were revealed, a linguistic-cognitive analysis of cultural models of the Russian and Chinese languages was carried out.
In the fourth chapter, based on the texts of Russian folk tales, D. I. Fonvizin's comedy «Underachiever», I. A. Krylov's fables, O. S. Pushkin's poems, M. V. Gogol's works, I. O. Goncharov's novel «Oblomov», F. M. Dostoevsky's novel «Notes from the Underground», A. P. Chekhov's stories from the cognitive and linguistic and cultural viewpoints, social and national stereotypes related to laziness are meaningfully understood. Sources of Russian and Chinese linguistic and cultural concepts are also considered: mythological, religious, national and traditional ideas; a comparative description of the Russian and Chinese concepts is presented.
