Krasnyy versus Rosso: Colour Terms Denoting Red in Russian and Italian
Krasnyy versus Rosso: Colour Terms Denoting Red in Russian and Italian

Summary/Abstract: The present article is centred around the comparative analysis of colour terms denoting red in two languages – Italian and Russian. It is widely assumed that the field of colour lexicon is one of the most interesting and fruitful ones,whereas the comparative lexicological analysis can reveal multiple discrepancies conditioned not only by different structures of the languages under analysis, but also by different ways in which their native speakers perceive a colour term. The decisive role in this respect is attributed to the connotations and associations that colour words acquired in course of their functioning in a language. As far as colour terms denoting red are concerned,they describe an important notion in all European cultures – the fact that justifies the choice of this colour field for our study. The analysis presented in this article is a lexicographic one. Our conclusions will be based on six dictionaries: three explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language(“The Dictionary of the Russian Language”) by S.I. Ozhegov,(“Small Dictionary of the Russian Language”)of the USSR Science Academy, the Institute of the Russian Language, and(“The Big Explanatory Dictionary of the Modern Russian Language”) by D.N. as well as three explanatory dictionaries of the Italian language, and namelyVocabolario della Lingua Italiana by Nicola Zingarelli, Il Grande DizionarioGarzanti Della Lingua Italiana and Grande Dizionario Italiano by Gabrielli Aldo.

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