COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL PAREMIOLOGICAL UNITS OF THE HUMAN INTELLECTUAL WORLD IN CHINESE AND ENGLISH

Zou Aizhu

The article presents a linguistic and cultural analysis of the paroemias representing the concept of mental abilities and the assessment of cognitive behavior in the Chinese and English language traditions, with an emphasis on the semantic differentiation of "wisdom/knowledge/wit" and their correlation with everyday rationality and everyday reasonableness. The material demonstrates that in both languages the intellectual characteristic of a personality is systematically expressed through stable figurative formulas, however, the set of dominant metaphors and evaluative vectors differs: English expressions actively use the oppositions "theory–practice", "silence–depth", "thrift–extravagance", whereas Chinese paroemias rely more heavily on hieroglyphic concepts. (blue) and the "mind/heart" bundle, as well as on the model of socio-normative regulation of behavior. Correspondences and discrepancies in translation and interpretation are considered, including cases of incomplete equivalence, when the pragmatic meaning of the instruction coincides, but the figurative foundations and cultural presuppositions differ. Special attention is paid to the evaluative connotations of "clever/smart" in comparison with "wise", as well as stereotyping attitudes reflected in proverbs about gender and social experience. As a result, the article makes it possible to clarify the mechanisms of conceptualization of intelligence in the paremic foundation and identify typological parameters relevant for intercultural communication and translation practice.

Keywords:paremia, concept of intelligence, Chinese language, English language, intercultural semantics