The associative image of the moon in the language mind of russian and chinese youth: general and differential

Associative image is the cognitive entity that cannot be directly observed, of which the analysis is one of the key problems considered by ethnopsycholinguistics. As the central referent for metaphorization, the associative image Moon is actively studied home and abroad. This article is dedicated to the comparative analysis of the associative image Moon in the language mind of Russian and Chinese cultural speakers, from the perspective of lexicographic and associative semantics. The aim of the study is to identify national and cultural specificities of categorizing associative image in the two cultures. The interpretation is based on materials from various etymological and explanatory dictionaries, Russian associative dictionary, as well as the results of a free associative experiment conducted with 550 Chinese students in November 2022. The following methods are used as semantic analysis tools: component analysis, free associative experiment, classification of associative fields and Chi-square test. Statistical analysis is carried out using the SPSS 26.0 and Loglikelihood and Chi-square Calculator 1.0, which together provide a description of the content and structure of the associative fields of the associative image Moon. Based on the results of comparative analysis, conceptual and evaluative characteristics of the image at different linguistic levels are identified, and their commonalities and differences are summarized.

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