LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL CONNOTATIONS OF THE LEXEME BIRCH IN RUSSIAN AND THE LEXEME BAMBOO IN CHINESE

The paper studies the historical and cultural associative meanings of the lexeme BIRCH in the Russian culture and the lexeme BAMBOO in Chinese by analyzing the results of the perception process of these objects, their concepts and images by native speakers of the Russian and Chinese languages. The relevance of the research is due to the growing attention of modern linguistics to comparative cultural studies, including the number of comparative works on the Russian and Chinese languages, the importance of describing linguistic and cultural differences for the development of international economic and cultural relations between China and Russia. The research material involves phraseological units, proverbs, myths, poems and literary works, as well as historical materials, customs and traditions of the two nations. This paper uses research methods such as descriptive, contextual, comparative, the method of component analysis and cognitive modeling. As a result, it was determined that birch occupies a significant place in the Russian culture with the meanings of “motherland”, “mother”, “woman”, “bride”, “girl”. Bamboo in Chinese has only positive connotations, including “unshakable quality”, “spiritual purity”, “humble character”, “high aspirations.” It is concluded that birch as a symbol of Russia is a lacunar concept in the Chinese culture, while bamboo as the personification of a “perfect gentleman” in Chinese has no cultural connotation in Russian. Despite mismatched meanings in two languages, birch and bamboo must be recognized as equivalents in terms of cultural significance and the high frequency of symbolic use in poetry and other precedent texts.