Lexicographic description of Russian and English zoonyms

Russian andEnglish zoonyms, studied and compared by the author in the aspect of their motivation, arethe subject of lexicographical description in the developing Motivological-ComparativeDictionary of Russian Language Zoonyms. The concept of this dictionary continues thetradition of the lexicographical aspect of motivology traditional for Tomsk LinguisticSchool and examines the motivation of words, the inner form of the word and thephenomenon of motivation in general lexicological approach.The study of lexicographical description of motivated vocabulary of the Russianlanguage in the comparative aspect started almost two decades ago. Creating motivologicaldictionaries is one of the trends of anthropo-oriented lexicography. Motivologicaldictionaries, along with the associative ones, describe the language as belonging to thehuman mind, modelling the process of active rather than passive knowledge of thelanguage. Association dictionaries help to study of the deep level of linguisticconsciousness related to the field of the unconscious, while motivological ones recordreflexive understanding of the elements and patterns of language that reveal that the surfacelevel of language consciousness - metalinguistic one. At present the concept ofmotivological-comparative dictionary has been tested and refined on the material of thethematic groups of ornithonyms and phytonyms in various Slavic, Turkic, Germaniclanguages in the works of A.D. Zhakupova (Adilova), A.S. Savenko (Filatova). The basisof this type of dictionary is metatext data that capture the realization of motivated lexicalunits by native speakers.The Motivological-Comparative Dictionary of Russian Language Zoonyms will be thefirst to introduce a description of the thematic group of zoonyms into scientific discourse,to present the motivation of these words by modern Russian and English language speakersin its entries. The entries will also contain information about the internal form of the word,its motivators, effects of lexical processes of demotivation and remotivation, etc. The typeof the dictionary, its macro- and microstructures meet the specific purpose of Russianlanguage zoonyms specificity determination in comparison with the equivalent units of theEnglish language.The 180 entries compiled by the time of publication of the article allow drawingconclusions about such features of zoonyms, as their active involvement in the processes ofacquisition and loss of motivation, implementation of effective ways of adaptation offoreign words in the language system, reflection of anthropology-orientedconceptualization of the world by Russian language speakers, the prevailing means ofmotivation of zoonyms, etc.

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