A comparative analysis of insect habitat-related vocabulary in Russian and Chinese: lexical interpretation

The purpose of this article is to conduct a comparative analysis of vocabulary reflecting the characteristics of insect habitation in Russian and Chinese languages. The research is relevant due to the growing interest in comparative studies of languages with different structures and insufficient study of entomological vocabulary in a comparative aspect. The theoretical basis of the research was works in the field of comparative linguistics, lexical semantics, and linguoculturology. Referring to the corpus of entomonyms formed through dictionary selection, the author of the article chooses 26 Russian and 31 Chinese lexical units with the differential seme "insect habitation" as the object of research. The subject of the research is the differential features of the aspects "mode of insect habitation" and "distribution of insect habitation," reflected in Russian and Chinese definitions. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the comprehensive analysis of semantic features of entomological vocabulary in two typologically different languages, which is carried out for the first time on the material of lexemes characterizing insect habitation. The study applies a comprehensive methodology, including both general scientific methods (descriptive method, analysis and synthesis method, classification method, continuous sampling method from the material) and special linguistic methods: semantic, component, and comparative analysis to study lexical sememes and their representations and to identify differences and similarities in the presentation of the studied materials. It is noted that in the Russian language, the definitions of 37.68% of lexemes denoting insects from the formed corpus provide general characteristics of insect habitation, compared to 34.07% in Chinese. It was found that in the Russian language, the emphasis is on social and ecological aspects of insect habitation, while in the Chinese language, the diversity of places and conditions of their habitation is reflected in more detail. In both languages, there is a relationship between groups of differential semes, differential features, lexical constructions, and biological characteristics of insects, which emphasizes the integration of scientific knowledge into the general linguistic picture of the world and the peculiarities of national worldview. The obtained results can find application in lexicographic practice, in teaching Russian and Chinese languages, as well as in further comparative studies.