Cultural connotations of the Russian zoonym "wolf" and its equivalents in the English, Spanish and Chechen languages

The paper analyses the contextual semantics of the Russian zoonym "wolf" and its equivalents in English, Spanish, and Chechen languages and also studies the various set expressions and paremiological phrases with this component. In all languages, zoonyms contain some connotations in their lexical meaning that are the basis for creating a metaphorical nomination and determine a phrase-forming potential for animal nomination. The aim of the study is to reveal the particularities of language representation of the concept "wolf" in four not closely related languages by different connotative parameters by comparatively analysing the functioning of lexical items that verbalize this concept. The authors used the methods of contextual analysis, linguo-culturological interpretation, comparison, and collation. The numerous examples for the study have been taken from belles-lettres, contemporary publicist writing, folk fairytales, and songs as well as proverbs and sayings. The analysis permitted us to indicate nonequivalent and comparable nominations: there are metaphorical meanings with positive and negative connotations. The concept "wolf" evokes folk, historical, cultural, literary and political associations. The comparison and collocation of the zoonym "wolf" in the languages under investigation have given valuable information that allows creating the national and psychological portrait of a linguistic identity.