Comparative Analysis of the Russian Adverb чрезвычайно and the Chinese Adverb 非常 in the Meaning of ‘extremely’

Abstract

The research is devoted to an actual topic - a comparative description of adverbs of degree and measure in the Russian and Chinese languages. The object of the comparative analysis of this study is the adverbs of degree and measure of the Russian and Chinese languages чрезвычайно [chrezvychayno] and 非常 [fēicháng] ‘extremely’. The subject of the study is the similarities and differences in the field of pragmatics and semantic compatibility of the adverbs чрезвычайно [chrezvychayno] and 非常 [fēicháng] ‘extremely’. The purpose of this work is to reveal semantic and pragmatic properties of the adverbs чрезвычайно [chrezvychayno] and 非常 [fēicháng] ‘extremely’. The article involves the following methods: descriptive method, observation method, comparative analysis method, example confirmation method. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that in a comparative study of adverbs чрезвычайно [chrezvychayno] and 非常 [fēicháng] in the strong meaning ‘extremely’ in Russian and Chinese has not been previously carried out. Based on the analysis of theoretical provisions and linguistic material derived from the National Corpus of the Russian Language and Chinese fiction, as well as explanatory dictionaries of Russian and Chinese, we can conclude that despite the coincidence of the semantics of the adverbs чрезвычайно [chrezvychayno] and 非常 [fēicháng] ‘extremely’ their usage varies. To avoid mistakes, it is necessary to take into account the similarities and differences in the field of semantic compatibility and pragmatics of these adverbs. The study can be useful in teaching Russian as a foreign language and theory and practice of translation from Chinese into Russian and vice versa.

Keywords

• adverb
• adverbs of degree and measure
• comparative analysis
• semantic compatibility
• pragmatics
• russian language
• chinese language