COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE IMAGE OF THE HORSE IN CHINESE AND RUSSIAN PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS

Abstract

The image of the horse in Chinese culture carries a special symbolism and expresses the collective identity of the Chinese nation, associated with notions of strength, speed, and the drive to move forward. Idioms, as stable expressions that function over long periods within the community, serve as an important means of revealing the cognitive models of an ethnic group. In both Chinese and Russian phraseology, the image of the horse is realized through various image-schematic structures, thereby reflecting differences in the ways of thinking of the two peoples. The topic of this study is the comparative analysis of the image of the horse in Chinese and Russian phraseology. The object of the research is the universal and language-specific features of conceptualizing this image. The objective of the study is to identify these features based on phraseological units in the two languages. The research is carried out with the use of a database of Chinese and Russian idioms containing the component “horse,” methods of cognitive-comparative analysis are employed to reveal the characteristics of the representation of this image and the existing cognitive differences, as well as to interpret the underlying national models of thought. The analysis identifies both universal and differential characteristics of the representation of the image of the horse in Chinese and Russian phraseology. While there is a common cognitive base and isomorphism of image-schematic structures, differences manifest in the value orientation of metaphorical models, the degree of their systemic organization, and the breadth of their semantic coverage. The results of the study aim to contribute to the comparative study of the Chinese and Russian languages, as well as to research in the field of intercultural cognition.