Elena A. Popova

Professor, Doctor of Philology, Head of the Chair of Russian Language and Literature of the Institute of Philology

Lipetsk State Pedagogical P. Semenov-TyanShansky University

(Lipetsk, Russia)

Natalia A. Bogoslovskaya

Student of the Chair of Russian Language and Literature of the Institute of Philology

Lipetsk State Pedagogical P. Semenov-TyanShansky University

(Lipetsk, Russia)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2022-1-97-111

Abstract. This article analyzes the representatives of the concept "China" in the Russian linguistic world picture, which allows us to draw conclusions about the perception of the image of this country by Russian speakers. The article explores the image of China in the works of I. A. Goncharov and A. N. Vertinsky, which are included in the Chinese text of Russian literature. These authors single out such contradictory characteristics of China and Chinese culture as antiquity, mystery, and enigmatic properties, and emphasize such key traits of the Chinese character as diligence, patience, high productivity, etc. At the same time, Russians perceive Chinese civilization as "foreign", incomprehensible, which opposes it to the European civilization. In addition, the article examines the data of various linguistic dictionaries of the Russian language such as explanatory dictionaries, phraseological dictionaries, dictionaries of idioms and set expressions, Russian folk dialects dictionaries, as well the Russian Associative Dictionary. These dictionaries reflect the meaning of phrasemes that are representatives of the concept under consideration: ‘kitayskaya stena’ (meaning an insurmountable barrier), ‘kitayskaya gramota’ (meaning something incomprehensible), ‘kitayskiye tseremonii’ (meaning tiresome and unnecessary conventions), ‘kitayskiy bolvanchik’ (meaning a person who passively agrees with others), etc. The authors of the article analyze the data of their linguistic experiment, which is related to the identification of associations among modern students caused by the stimuli "China", "the Chinese", "Chinese". It allowed the authors to judge the specifics of the perception of these lexemes by the representatives of Russian linguistic culture and recreate a holistic image of China in the minds of Russian language speakers. The thematic groups of associations identified as a result of the experiment reflect the direct objectification of this concept in the minds of modern Russian language speakers. As a result of the experiment, the following features of the perception of this lexeme by representatives of modern Russian students were revealed. In general, the image of China, its culture and population are positively assessed in the minds of the Russian people. China is perceived as a country with an ancient culture and history, with centuries-old traditions and advanced technologies, which has had a huge impact on the world's industry.
Keywords: Russian linguistic word picture, linguistic imagology, Chinese text of Russian literature, concept "China", phrasemes, precedent phenomena, associative experiment.

Full text of the article (PDF)

For citation: : Popova, EA & Bogoslovskaya, NA, 2022, ‘The Image of China in the Perception of Russian Speakers’, Tula Scientific Bulletin. History. Linguistics, issue 1 (9), pp. 97–106, https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2022-1-97-111 (in Russ.)

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