Images of animals and birds in Russian and Chinese linguistic cultures

Human life is unthinkable without animals and birds. Each nation builds its relations with representatives of fauna, at the same time endowing their images with a nationally defined connotative content. The article examines the significance of the concepts of living beings from the point of view of linguistic cultural science of two countries – Russia and China. The analysis showed that in Russian and Chinese the cultural connotation of images of animals and birds can both coincide and differ. At the same time, it is realistic to rank images according to the degree of mutual correspondence of their connotative meanings in Russian and Chinese cultures. In particular, swallows and horses in the Russian and Chinese language consciousness have the same cultural connotation; crows, sparrows and snakes are similar, but not completely identical, and quails, hares and cats are characterized by fundamental differences in the cultural connotation of the languages of the two nations. It is summarized that taking into account the connotative meanings of the names of representatives of fauna, characteristic of the Russian and Chinese worldview, will allow taking into account the national and cultural representations of people to build a productive intercultural dialogue and strengthen interethnic ties