Shattering the idea of word equivalence at the level of lexical units

Let us now discuss such common everyday words like parts of the day which have “equivalents” in every language but we mean to compare English and Russian: утро – morning, день – day, вечер – evening, ночь – night. At the level of concepts the difference is quite striking. The English morning is much longer than the Russian “утро”: it takes 12 hours and lasts from midnight till noon covering the whole of the Russian ночь (from midnight to 4 a.m.), утро (from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m.) and part of the Russian день (from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.).

The difference between the Russian word день and the English day is even more striking. First of all, there are two English words – day and afternoon covering the piece of the Russian mosaic language picture of the world occupied by the word " day". Then, they vary in usage: Good day! – may be used as a dismissing phrase showing displeasure, irritation, etc. Strangely for Russian students of English the translation of a most common Russian greeting Добрый день! is rather good afternoon than good day. The following English contexts with the word " day" have no correspondence with the word день: I'll go there one day – когда-нибудь (sometime), he began his days in a small town – жизнь (life), in my day – время (time), it made my day – осчастливить (to make happy).

Here is a recent example illustrating the importance of sociocultural background knowledge for understanding such word-equivalents in both languages as lawyer. Lawyer is the general word for someone whose business is law. In England and Wales there are two kinds of lawyer who have different training and perform different jobs. A solicitor advises people on legal matters such as contracts, wills, and the buying and selling of property. Solicitors may represent a person in a Magistrate’s Court, but have only be able to do so in a higher court since 1992. A barrister may represent a person in any court, but usually only does so in the higher courts. A person’s solicitor advises the barrister about the facts of the case, but does not tell the barrister what to say. In the US a lawyer may also be called an attorney, and there are no differences between the two. A lawyer who represents someone during a trial is sometimes called a counselor.

Let’s consider some more examples. Labor Day – a US national holiday to honour workers, established in 1894. Labor Day is the first Monday in September and is the last big holiday before the school year begins. There are no demonstrations with flags on this day. There is no ideology. There is no Labor Day in Great Britain, but there is May Day. There are still some local customs and celebrations although these may not be held on May Day itself but on the May Day bank holiday, the first Monday in May. In the US young children often dance around a maypole at school, and often leave small baskets of flowers at a friend’s door to be found on May Day morning. May Queen or young woman who is chosen as part of the May Day celebrations, usually because she is judged to be very attractive. She wears crown of flowers and is also called Queen of the May.

At Christmas, British and American people decorate a mistletoe* or a holly*. Mistletoe is a parasitic plant, species of which are found in Europe, Asia, and North America, having evergreen leaves and bearing white berries and small, yellow flowers. Holly – a small tree with dark green shiny prickly leaves and red berries.