The World View at the Reflection of Russian and English Paroemias

Baskakova Anna ORCID: 0000-0003-0141-198X Teacher, Department of Russian Language, The Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation 123001, Russia, Moscow, Bolshaya Sadovaya str., 14 anna-vlz@mail.ru

Learning any language is a process that requires a comprehensive approach in mastering the material. It is connected not only with the analysis of the theoretical language base, including lexical and grammatical components, but also with practical. Thus, a person facing the problem of mastering a certain foreign language must understand not only the principle of its functioning in speech, but also be aware of the peculiarities of its use by a certain ethnic group that has its own historical, geographical and cultural features. Therefore, the analysis of any language material implies considering it in two vectors — linguistic and culturological.The relevance of the topic of the article is due to the fact that the use of Russian proverbs and sayings, in principle, contributes to the improvement of the language among its native speakers: they make it more mobile and lively, and the study of them by foreign students helps to develop, mainly, the communicative function.

In turn, English paroemias, which have a clear semantic and stylistic - functional orientation, differ in the brevity of form and the colorfulness of content, which, on the one hand, complicates their transfer into Russian, but on the other hand, makes the process of comparing these linguistic cultures more interesting.

Having assessed the scale of the research on this topic, it should be noted that such Russian and English scientists working in the field of folklore as V. P. Zhukov, S. G. Berezhan, A.V. Kunin, A. I. Smirnitsky, E. A. Dobryneva, A. D. Reichstein, A. Taylor, O. A. Toymetova, etc. paid attention to the study of paremias.

So, proverbs and sayings, which first appeared in the language in ancient times, are the expression of people's opinions: behind each paremiological unit is the authority of the generations who created them. Characteristic features contributed to the fact that proverbs and sayings became persistent and necessary in everyday life and speech ^{[2, p. 98]}.

Russian Russian proverbs As a researcher in the field of English phraseology, O. A. Toymetova in her scientific work "Ways of translating proverbs and sayings from English into Russian", analyzed the features of the translation of English proverbs into Russian. Russian Russian translation According to her opinion, the tasks of a professional translator engaged in the translation of English and Russian paroemias include not only understanding the meaning of the translated material, but also possessing the phraseological richness of the Russian language ^{[9, p. 31]}.

In the process of studying the paremiological base of any language, a person not only forms his linguistic competence, but also learns about the culture of the people, thereby developing his spiritual component.Russian Russian and English proverbs, for example, by conducting a comparative analysis of the literal translation of Russian and English proverbs, it is possible to find many factors that unite Russian and English mentalities, since the language is a reflection of the lifestyle of a particular national group.

Paroemias should be understood as proverbs, sayings and aphorisms. Linguistic aphorisms dating back to folklore are called proverbs and sayings ^{[5, 11]}. According to E. M. Vereshchagin and V. G. Kostomarov, language aphorisms are called sayings, which are characterized by special brevity and, as a rule, have only a literal plan. Proverbs exist in the form of stable, complete phrases, and sayings allow for variation in their composition and do not always express a complete judgment. Sayings are a bridge, a transition from phraseological units to proverbs ^{[1, p. 163]}.

Paremias, originating from the Greek "proverb", "proverb", "parable", are stable phraseological units, which, in turn, represent an integral sentence of didactic content ^[7].

The paremias reflect the richness of the historical experience of the people, their ideas about work, life, and family, which together constitute a cultural layer in the structural characteristics of a certain ethnic group.

Following from the above, proverbs and sayings, which are an integral part of folklore in Russian and English cultures, serve as a source of information about the life, way of thinking and character of the people who represent them. The uniqueness of the paremias consists in their diversity and being, as it were, outside of time space, having the character of constancy: no matter what time the people lived, proverbs and sayings are always an actual means to describe certain phenomena of existence. It should be noted that proverbs and stable expressions are different linguistic phenomena: using a stable expression, it becomes possible to include it in any sentence or utterance, combine it with neutral vocabulary, but when using proverbs in speech, we are more limited.

Thus, having the character of accuracy and brevity, as well as being used mainly in oral speech, it is considered possible to assert that paremias in each individual language appeared long before the appearance of writing. Being attributes of folk culture, they reflected the life of the people to which they belonged. This genre of oral folk art exists in many languages, and English and Russian are no exception.

Investigating the question of the influence of paroemias on the perception of the world picture, it is advisable to pay attention to the moment associated with the process of translating paroemias from one language to another. Paremiology, being a branch of phraseology, explores the structural and semantic type of these units. Russian Russian proverbs and sayings, passing into the Russian language, were fixed in their original form, or a proverb similar to English in its content appeared in the Russian language. In this regard, quite often there was a problem consisting in the exact translation of paremiological units ^{[3, p. 128]}.

Proverbs have their own specific tasks: 1) warn: Whenchildrenstandquiet, theyhavedonesomeharm. — If the children are quiet, it means they have done something (my italics are A. B.); 2) summarize the experience of the people: As the old cock crows, so does the young. — The apple doesn't fall far from the apple tree (my italics are A. B.); 3) they ridicule: Toomanycooksspoilthebroth. — Seven nannies have a child without an eye (my italics are A. B.); 4) evaluate the appearance: Agoodwifemakesagoodhusband. — A good wife and a bad husband will do well (my italics are A. B.); 5) they instruct: Don't trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. — Do not wake up famously while it is quiet (my italics are A. B.); 6) they teach wisdom: Who chatters to you, will chatter of you. — Who gossips with you, he will gossip and gossip about you (my italics — A. B.); 7) encourage reasoning: Liars should have good memories. — Liars need a good memory (my italics are A. B.).

  Speaking about the features of translation, it should be noted that a large number of proverbs and sayings are translated into Russian without difficulty: Every family has a skeleton in the cupboard. — Each hut has its own rattles; each family has its own skeleton in the closet. There is no smoke without fire. — There is no smoke without fire. Appetite comes with eating. — Appetite comes during meals (my italics are A. B.). The literal translation coincides with the Russian proverb.

But there is also a group of English proverbs, which, on the contrary, have nothing in common with the Russian versions, although sometimes it is possible to understand the intention of a particular parody.

So, according to the peculiarities of translation, paroemias can be divided into the following categories:

1. paroemias that are completely translated identically from one language to another, that is, the English version of the proverb, in this case, fully corresponds to Russian;

2. paroemias that are partially identically translated into another language, that is, the English version is somewhat different from Russian;

3. paroemias that are completely different in translation from one language to another, that is, in this case, the English version does not correspond to Russian.

As proof of the above theses, it is necessary to consider examples of paremiological units with the meaning of kinship in the Russian and English languages, most often used in the speech of both linguistic cultures.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3Every mother thinks her own gosling a swan.

After examining 30 variants of proverbs on the topic of kinship, the following ratio of English and Russian translation variants was found ^{[4, 6, 8, 10]}:

1. The English version fully corresponds to the Russian — 8 proverbs. See Table 1.

2. The English version is slightly different from the Russian — 12 proverbs. See Table 2.

           3. The English version does not correspond to the Russian — 10 proverbs. See Table 3.

It is important to take into account the fact that in every language there are phrases and expressions that should not be interpreted literally, even if the meaning of each individual lexeme is clear and the grammatical construction is obvious, the meaning of such an expression remains unclear to understand, that is, attempts to translate proverbs and sayings verbatim can lead to unexpected, often meaningless results..

Thanks to the analysis of the above-mentioned paroemias with the meaning of kinship, it was possible to identify some features of their translation in Russian and English. Namely: the most common words were "wife" and "husband" — "wife" and "husband". The word "mother" — "mother" — is not often used in comparison with the word "wife" — "wife". A certain frequency of use of the word "son" — "son" was also traced: Like father, like son; Many a good father has but a bad son (my italics are A. B.). The frequency of use of these lexemes is due to the choice of the subject of paroemias.

In addition, the fact of the presence of a variety of verbs in the composition of the paroemias was discovered. Among the most frequently used are the verb "to be" in English: The wife is the key of the house; Blood is thicker than water; the verb "to have": Who has a fair wife, needs more than two eyes; There's one good wife in the country and every man thinks he has her (my italics are A. B.).

Russian Russian and Russian paroemias The essence of the above is that a comparative analysis of English and Russian paroemias indicates the existing commonality between their meanings, and, accordingly, between the perception by native speakers of Russian and English of the phenomenon of kinship in particular, and the understanding of the way of thinking in general, which, in turn, contributes to a better understanding and rapprochement between representatives of Russian and English English linguocultures. But there are also differences: on the one hand, the paroemias summarize the experience of the people, warn people, give information, but on the other hand, assessing the scale of perception of the world through the analysis of paroemias, it becomes clear that the English nation is more practical compared to the Russian, which, at times complicating the interpretation of proverbs, transforms them into more metaphorical and expressive.

Thus, paremias contribute to understanding the mentality and revealing the cultural aspect of a certain nation through the language of which it is a native speaker.

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