The reflection of linguistic and cultural connotations in English and Russian proverbs about health and healthy lifestyle based on comparative structural and semantic analysis
The article deals with a comparative structural and semantic analysis of the English and Russian proverbs, which express the meanings of “health” and “healthy lifestyle”. The presented analysis made it possible to identify the essential features of national and cultural thinking of the two peoples in the context of the actual problems, which depend on different historical and cultural backgrounds, as well as presumably different circumstances of origin. The relevance of the article consists in both the high importance of the health problem in modern realities, and the comparative approach to the study of the problem on the basis of the proverbs of two languages. The novelty of the study consists in the fact that for the first time Russian and English proverbs about health are analyzed with the use of structural and semantic analysis. As a result of the analysis, the main meanings of proverbs were identified and systematized, which reveal a view on the high value and irreplaceability of health, on the interconnection between health and state of mind, on the importance of keeping proper hours and hygiene, on the importance of keeping moderation in eating, drinking and sleeping. The author also revealed the figurative means and artistic methods inherent in the proverbs of each language. With the similarity of many meanings the proverbs of the English and Russian languages reflect differently the idea of certain aspects of health: the most healthy food, the most beneficial temperature conditions. Also much attention in Russian proverbs about health is paid to the Russian sauna (banya), a phenomenon that is absent in English life. Despite the similarity of many methods of expressiveness such as conformation, alignment, opposition, comparison, the use of metaphors, lexical antonymy, unusual lexical cooccurrence, vernacular, frequent use of incentive sentences to express instructions, there are significant differences that are associated with the greater emotionality of a Russian person, more concrete and specific thinking, closeness to folklore, which is expressed in the use of expressive syntax, ellipsis, colloquial vocabulary, archaisms. The author makes a conclusion about the role of language means and methods of expressiveness in reflecting the specifics of the thinking of both linguistic and cultural ethnic groups.