Common and specific features of Russian and English figurative zoonyms

Comparison of figurative Russian and English zoonyms is conducted within the complex motivationalresearch of animals denomination in the Russian language. The typological nature of this research assumes finding differential andintegral features of the Russian language in the process of its comparison with the English language. The analysis of figurative denominationof animals is based on Blinova theory of lexical motivation. Figurativeness is regarded as a category of lexicology thathas a specific feature of a language universal (V.G. Gak, O.I. Blinova, E.A. Yurina). Studying figurative vocabulary in the comparativeaspect enables to disclose mechanisms of human thinking and also to describe peculiarities of a certain language, Russian in thiscase. The methods of motivational and comparative vocabulary analysis are supposed to include three points of description andcomparison of figurative units: 1) composition and ratio of figurative units of different structural and semantic classes; 2) representationof different cultural-linguistic category in figurative vocabulary; 3) range of subjects and objects of objective and non-objectiveworld, which native speakers choose for metaphoric expression of an image of this or that nomination. Figurative nominations ofthree structural and semantic classes comprise the examined zoonym theme groups (230 units of Russian and 210 units of English):proper figurative words, language metaphors and figurative two-word nominations, which identifies common features of the comparinglanguages. The peculiarity of zoonym Russian vocabulary comprises the smallest part of two-word nominations and the greaterpart of proper figurative words and language metaphors. The second and third points of figurative vocabulary characteristic enable todisclose universal types of metaphoric transfer and identify for each compared language dominant spheres relating to the associativeplan of a word and word expression. Figurative zoonyms of the Russian and the English languages endow animals with featurespeculiar to an animal (zoomorphisms), a man (personifications), objects and phenomena produced by a man (artefactmorphisms),myths (mythomorphisms) and plants (phytomorphisms). Zoomorphysms form about a half figurative animal names of Russian andEnglish. To endow animals with human features is more typical for zoonyms of the Russian language. There are more artefactomorphysmsand one phytomorphysm in the theme group of the English language. Equivalent zoonym pairs that demonstrate likeness anddistinction of figurative associations of native Russian and English speakers are revealed. The comparative analysis of figurativeunits of genetically unrelated languages shows its common and specific features. And it is also an essential characteristic for motivationaland comparative vocabulary analysis.

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