A study of metonymy in compliments to the female gender in Russian youth speech (In comparison with Chinese youth speech materials)

This article is devoted to metonymy in the lexical units of compliments to the female gender in youth speech of Russian. Metonymy, as one of the tropes, is an important means of semantic change and replenishing the lexical stock of youth speech. This paper collects complimentary expressions using metonymy in modern Russian youth speech, divided into 6 different lexical-semantic groups through component analysis. The purpose is to analyze the cognitive-semantic features of metonymy in Russian and compare its similarities with Chinese compliments for females in youth speech. As a result of the study, the following is shown: 1) metonymy, as a common means of semantic change, is widely used in youth speech; 2) metonymy of adjectives is more frequently used in compliments for females in youth speech based on the cause-and-result relationship between features of objects; 3) metonymization is closely related to extra-linguistic factors, in which reflected the aesthetic standards of youth for female; 4) the comparison with Chinese materials shows the similar metonymization of youth speech in two languages as well as differences in expressions, which reflects the connection of metonymy with the national, linguistic picture of the world.