Cai Hongyan

The article is devoted to the fragment of a language world image formed by the names of twelve animal symbols of the year (鼠 “rat,” 牛 “bull,” 虎 “tiger,” 兔 “hare,” 龙 “dragon,” 蛇 “snake,” 马 “horse,” 羊 “sheep,” 猴 “monkey,” 鸡 “cock,” 狗 “dog,” 猪 “pig”). The aim of the study is to reveal both similarities and differences of this fragment of the language world image according to the well-known Russian and Chinese explanatory dictionaries published in 2012. Because the place of the words in the dictionary reflects the place of the words in the language system, it can be assumed that these Russian and Chinese nominative units that characterize the fragment of the language world image occupy different positions in the language system, with the Russian nominative units occupying a more peripheral position than the Chinese ones.